Atacama Desert

Austere, beautiful, inhospitable and vast, El Norte Grande, the far north of Chile, covers a quarter of the country's landmass but is home to only 5 percent of the population. Its main feature is the Atacama Desert, which stretches 1,000 kms from the border with Peru. The world's driest desert, where some areas never receive any rainfall. The highlight of the desert is the altiplano, a high windswept plateau next to the Andes, containing lakes, salt flats and volcanoes.

Map of Northern Chile
Courtesy of the Rough Guide to Chile

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Pukará de Quitor
On a hill 3km outside San Pedro de Atacama is the ruins of a pre-Columbian fort (Pukará), where the local Indians tried in vain to defend themselves against attack from the Spanish conquistadores in the sixteenth century.

The ruins of the adobe brick pre-Columbian fort and the path to the top of the adjoining hill

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Salar de Atacama
The giant underground salt lake covers about 3,000 sq kms and lies at an altitude of 2,300 metres. It is fed underground by the Río San Pedro and other tributaries and is rich in minerals. In addition to deposits of potassium and borax, the area contains 40% of the world's reserves of lithium.

Part of the Atacama salt flat

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Valle de la Luna
The bizarre landscape in the middle of the desert near to San Pedro is made up of thousands of jagged rocks, pillars and indentations.

A couple look out on the Valle de la Luna at sunset.

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Valle de San Pedro
Closer to Bolivia, of which it was once a part, and Argentina than the Pacific Ocean lies the town of San Pedro de Atacama. It sits in a valley at 2,400 metres above sea level surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, some of which rise up to 6,000 metres.



Catcus is one of several plants that flourish in the valley irrigated by
snow melt from the nearby mountains

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