Description: I’ve seen a lot of deserts in my life. My country features several types of them: rocky and sandy, flat and undulated and even a powdery one. I’ve seen frozen deserts covered with snow in China and even a surprising mini-desert in the tropics caused by deforestation in northern Cambodia. I crossed the South American Chaco, the high altitude deserts of New Mexico and its low altitude neighbors in Arizona and California; yet, none of them was even close to the complete desolation I have seen at the Atacama Desert.

Invariably, the first sight of a desert is shocking, at least to lovers of greenery: emptiness and desolation, faded earthly colors, and a worryingly void of greens and vibrant flowers. Human activities are scarce and definitely foreign to the surroundings; all of them bear clear signs of being strenuous and temporary operations. A second sight often reveals shy signs of life; shrubs and lizards, oversized succulents, lichen and tiny flowers. That is true until you reach the Atacama Desert. No matter how much do you search for life, it isn’t there. Tests similar to those performed in Mars, failed to detect any signs of life; the place is sterile. Even Antarctica and the Everest show life. What has created this truly unearthly landscape? At the desert’s eastern side, the Andes Mountains block moisture of arriving; several parallel layers of high mountains make it impenetrable no matter how much moisture the air from the South American tropics brought. Moreover, it specific location next to the cold Humboldt Current and the Pacific’s Anticyclone keeps the adjacent ocean’s water colder than it should be at this latitude. The combination creates an almost waterless enclosure of land. Yet, this desert is so large (over 100 thousand square kilometers) that exceptions are to be expected. "Camanchaca" is the local name of a marine fog that reaches some of the desert coastal zones; it provides enough humidity to sustain lichens, some algae, and small succulents. However, above the level reached by this fog, the dryness is absolute. The yearly rain average in some parts of the desert is 0; near Antofagasta things get wet with an astounding 1 mm (roughly 1/25 of an inch) of rain per year. Studies show that vast areas of this desert have not seen rain for longer time than the entire registered human history. That leads to another characteristic of the area: it is void of clouds: clear skies are the rule during the whole year.

One of the joys of trekking in the Himalayas is seeing the gradual changes in nature. As you climb, trees are replaced by shrubs and later those disappear in favor of low grasses. Later on, everything except lichen is gone. Cows are replaced by hybrid cow-yaks and after that, only yaks are left. Yet, always – except for the highest peaks – you can see some type of life, regardless how strange it may look. In Atacama, there is nothing, absolute emptiness. It is as close as we can get to the moon without leaving our planet. Even the terrain is almost void of variance, showing salt flats, sand and timeless lava flows. After a short time there, they all look alike melting into an awkward ochre color.

This reflects also on the human settlements in the area. Most of them are along the coast and were created only due to the exceptional natural resources of the area: saltpeter, guano and silver from nearby Potosi. An exception is San Pedro de Atacama, a village place on an oasis next to the Chilean-Bolivian border; if traveling in the Potosi area, it is possible to cross the border there. This is the only area of the desert inhabited since before the Inca Empire; old forts called "pucaras" can still be seen. Small scale copper mining still is practiced in different parts of the dessert; nitrate mining was abandoned altogether during the 20th century, leading to the creation of several mining ghost towns. After they lost their past importance, the towns survive nowadays only due to international trade and tourism. Guano is out, Chinese memory cards are in.

Close