In this travel guide, we will share our day exploring Valle de la Luna on a bike. It turned out to be quite the painful day, but biking around the Atacama desert is still one of our fondest travel memories from Chile.
So because of the love we have for this desert, we’ve decided to make this blog post rather long for two reasons:
1) We want to show you how you can easily visit Valle de la Luna on a bike, 2) We also want to share our story (of the rather painful ride), which includes all the great things you can see in this incredible desert!
The Atacama Desert is such a wonderful place on earth that has so much to offer such as geysers, llamas and a lovely town called San Pedro.
Together with our day sandboarding in the Atacama desert, this bike trip to Valle de la Luna is definitely one of our best memories from Chile. Both of these days were pretty painful on the body, but(t) more about that later. Now let’s get started!
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About Valle de la Luna in Chile
In Valle de la Luna you’ll find massive sand dunes, salt flats, and rock formations.
It’s such a unique and beautiful place on earth, and the landscape actually looks like something from another planet. Wherever you look, you see shades of purple, pink, orange, and gold.
The valley belongs to the Flamencos National Reserve and is located in the Atacama Desert, which is the driest place on earth. Crazy, right? I still get so amazed when I think about the fact that I’ve been biking around the driest place on earth!
Valle de la Luna has an altitude of about 2500 meters above sea level, which means that the days are blazing hot from the sun, but the nights can get pretty cold. So make sure to wear layers if you visit very early in the morning when it’s still cold.
Valle de la Luna is Spanish for “Moon Valley”. It got the name because the desert has similarity to the lunar soil.
Apparently NASA also ran tests in Valle de la Luna because the valley’s environment is similar to Mars. The rover (this machine-driven-instrument-thing that looks like a robot) is doing its test runs here to see if it can drive, drill and detect life. Pretty cool!
Valle de la Luna opening hours & entrance fee 2024
Valle de la Luna’s information center is located only 5,5 kilometers from San Pedro de Atacama by bike. So it’s easy to get there by yourself. From the information centre there are only a few more kilometers to the beginning of the valley.
The information centre is where you buy your tickets to “the moon”.
You can also use the toilets and fill up on some drinks and snacks. Although, we don’t know when their little shop/café is open. So make sure to bring a lot of water and your own lunch if you visit early in the morning.
If you’re not sure about biking through the driest place on earth, then you can also easily join a tour to Valle de la Luna.
Where to rent a bike in San Pedro de Atacama
There are several places to rent a bike in San Pedro de Atacama. Just walk down the streets and you’ll notice that practically all the shops are willing to rent you a bike.
Take my advice, pay some extra money and get a good mountain bike. Once you get into the desert, you are literally biking on dusty, sandy, gravel roads.
We rented bikes from our hostel for 5000 CLP a piece for a whole day. The prices for bike rental in San Pedro should be around that price or maybe a bit more for a good bike.
Other ways to see Valle de la Luna
Let’s be honest. Not everyone is into spending a full day sweating on a bike.
So, if you’re still considering whether you should go to Valle de la Luna on bike or not – just know that there are other ways to visit the park. You can also rent your own car and drive around the valley, or you can join one of the many tours to Valle de La Luna.
Since we visited on bikes, we never got to do any tours. However, if I was to go again, I would join this Valle de La Luna afternoon tour where a local guide takes you around the valley before you go somewhere magnificent to watch the sunset.
Our bike story / Things to see in Valle de la Luna
Now the fun begins! I’m going to share mine and Glenn’s story biking through Valle de la Luna.
It’s a tale full of sand dunes, desert dogs, and blistering bums. Now let’s get started!
1. Getting ready for the adventure
It was 7 AM when our alarms went off. I jumped in the shower half groggy and half excited. Time to wake up! What better way than with a cold shower in the desert?
Then it was time to wake up Glenn. He got in late last night, so I knew he’d been up late-night-drinking with some hostel buddies. But today was the day that we would finally go into the desert and explore! So not even small hangovers could ruin the mood.
We had our breakfast, rented 2 bikes from our hostel and started biking around San Pedro de Atacama in search for lunch. We stopped at a little café and got some empanadas for the trip. There is nothing better than eating empanadas while you’re in Chile. They’re so good!
Anyways, we were finally ready to venture into the desert. So we got onto our bikes and starting riding towards Valle de la Luna.
2. Meet the desert Dogs
While we were biking through the empty desert landscapes, two stray dogs all of a sudden came out of nowhere.
Oh no, they were chasing us on our bikes!
First I got a bit startled, but then I realized that they were just playing with us. So we decided to bring them along as our companions for the day. I’m a big dog lover, so adding a few happy dogs to our day in the desert, could only make the trip better.
3. Valle de la Luna Information Center
The bike trip from San Pedro to Valle de la Luna’s information center only took us about half an hour.
We parked our bikes and told our two new companions to wait outside while we got the tickets.
The staff in the visitor center were really nice to us. We bought our tickets for 2500 CLP each and checked in by writing our names into their visitor book.
The dogs were still trying to catch their breath outside after running next to our bikes, so I decided to give them some of my water… Okay they almost got the whole bottle. I didn’t really think about the fact that I might need it for later since I’m only going to bike around the driest place on earth… No biggie, who needs water for that?
We jumped back on our bikes and continued the journey into Valle de la Luna.
4. Biking through Valle de la Luna
I don’t think I’ll ever will bike through a place this extraordinary again. It was just amazing.
The landscape kept on changing, we really felt like we were on another planet. Watching the pictures, I still cannot believe that a place on earth looks like this!
The dogs were still following us as we entered the Moon Valley (that funnily enough looks exactly how I imagine the moon) with our bikes. This is when the bike trip started to get tricky.
The road is basically sand, dirt, dust and gravel, and it’s pretty bumpy. This is when I realized that I had a horrible bike. Auch! This was going to be a long day for my bum.
5. Duna Mayor
We made it to the big and impressive sand dune: Duna Mayor. We parked our bikes next to a few other bikes in the parking lot and started walking only to realize that the dogs had stopped following us.
Apparently they were resting in the shadows by the toilets in the parking lot. I can’t blame them. They’ve been running around and playing in the hot Atacama desert.
So we left them behind and started hiking up a sand dune from where we would be able to see the massive Duna Mayor.
Oh my, it’s so hard to walk in sand! My feet just kept on sinking in, so every step I took up the hill felt like a victory. I never realized how big a workout this day trip would actually be, but I knew it would be worth it.
When we got to the top, Glenn needed a break. He finally admitted he was a bit hungover from yesterday. Honestly, I was just happy not to be the only one in misery…
So we were both feeling a little bit down, him with his drinking yesterday and me with my sore bum. On top of that, it really started to get HOT in the desert.
But let’s look at the positives, I’ve had worst places to take a break! It was my first time on top of a sand dune and the views were just breathtaking! So many desert landscapes in beautiful shades of pink, purple, orange and gold.
It was time for pictures and empanadas.
6. The salt flats
We returned from the massive sand dune and got on our bikes again. Next stop was the salt flats.
We kept on biking through the ever-changing landscapes in Valle de la Luna. Nothing looked the same! Except for all the sand everywhere…
Apparently there is a lot to see on the way, but since we were on a DIY trip, we didn’t really know when we reached the popular things. At the information center they have a big map over the valley, where you can see the names of all the rock formations.
Anyways, we finally made it to the salt flats. The salt flats in Valle de la Luna is nothing compared to the salt flats in Bolivia, but it was still nice to see yet another different landscape.
7. A painful bike ride home
After spending some time at Chile’s salt flats, we got back on our bikes. But this time I just couldn’t do it anymore. I was in so much pain. And I was also super thirsty since I had given most of my water to the desert dogs… oops.
I’m usually tougher than this, but at this point I was just miserable. My whole “downtown” area was just in pain from the hard saddle and the bumpy road. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Knowing that we’d been driving 10+ kilometers already and still had the same amount left on our return ride made me cry inside (I couldn’t waste any water going out of my body, had to stay hydrated). So I had to come up with a solution. I put a scarf in my pants like a build-in cushion and I took Glenn’s shirt and wrapped it around my seat.
Aaaah so much better, yet still painful from being so sore.
I think my BEST tip for anyone who wants to go to Valle de la Luna by bike is to get a proper mountain bike! It’s really sad to be in such a wonderful place and not enjoy it as much as you should because you’re in pain.
8. Buying all the drinks at the visitor center
We started our return ride from Valle de la Luna to the visitor, and it probably took us double the time it normally would have. I was constantly battling whether to bike so I could get faster back to the visitor center and get a cold drink, or whether to walk and not feel any pain. I constantly jumped on and off the bike… As you can hear, Glenn is a very patient man.
Either way, we eventually made it back to the visitor center again.
Both of us were so thirsty from bicycling around the Atacama desert. So we bought all their drinks. Literally. We bought water, gatorade, fanta, cola… Just because we were so thirsty and wanted it all. Normally I only drink water, but today I just wanted the sugar. I went for the good stuff!
We were both so happy to make it this far. Being hydrated again really brightened the mood, so even though we still had to bike 5,5 kilometers back to San Pedro, our spirits were much higher!
9. “Wait, is that a tornado?”
On the way back to San Pedro, we could see the weather was acting up. It was going to be rainy and stormy.
While riding our bikes, we all of a sudden noticed something that looked like a big dusty cloud far away. I didn’t realize it then, but that was actually a mini tornado. How cool is that?
Keep your eyes open while biking in Atacama, you never know what you might see in the desert!
Luckily, we got back to San Pedro before the bad weather rolled in. Apart from my sore bum, we had a pretty successful day in the desert, so we celebrated with an ice cold beer!
Final comments on biking Valle de la Luna
I know I’ve been complaining a lot in this blog post… But biking around the driest place on earth is just one of those memories that will last for a long time. So I 100% recommend you to do it.
So please consider jumping on a bike when visiting Valle de la Luna, it’s such a great way to explore, plus it’s good for your health!
All in all, it was super easy to rent a bike and find our way to Valle de la Luna, and on top of that, we mostly had the place to ourselves.
The only thing we missed on this trip was watching the beautiful sunset in the valley, but you need to join a tour for that. So that’s luckily something we can look forward to for our next visit to this amazing place in Chile.
We hope you enjoyed my post about exploring Valle de la Luna by bike. If you have any questions, then please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. We’d also love to know: What’s the craziest place you’ve been biking in the world? Thanks for reading and happy travels!
Read our other adventures in Chile:
Omg this looks incredible. It’s my dream to explore this area of Chile. Thanks for sharing.
Great post! Chile has been on my list for awhile. Would love to go biking around there. Looks like so much fun. Pinning so I have this guide when I make it there.
This looks like such a incredible place to cycle – but you poor thing for being in such pain! I know the feeling. It always takes me a few weeks to get used to my bike saddle in the spring, even though I wear padded shorts. A new bike seat for a long day in the saddle must have been tough.
The scenery in the valle de la Luna (and meeting those dogs) makes it sound like a day to remember!
Oh my, what an adventure! I’ve also been cycling in the heat before and it’s rough! Those views seem worth the pain though!