High & Dry

Question: What desert has sections that haven’t seen rain in 400 years, a valley used by NASA for its resemblance to Mars, and areas that attract tropical flamingos?

Answer: Atacama Desert, Chile

The Atacama Desert is an arid swath of land in northern Chile roughly 600 miles long, flanked by the towering Andes Mountains to the east and the Chilean Pacific Ocean coastal range in the west. With an average annual rainfall of about a millimeter, it is the driest nonpolar desert on earth.

The qualifier is necessary since parts of Antarctica have never recorded any precipitation, but those rainfall statistics are still quite impressive. When you consider that Death Valley is the driest area in North America—the Atacama Desert is fifty times drier than that. Until the early 1970s, sections of the Atacama hadn’t received a drop of rain in about 400 years; and there are other areas where no rainfall has been recorded—ever. So yeah, there isn’t much call for umbrellas in the Atacama Desert.

But if that would lead you to believe the Atacama Desert is nothing but an arid, windswept wasteland, nothing could be further from the truth.

Somebody needs an altitude adjustment

The Atacama Desert isn’t just the driest, it’s also the highest desert in the world—and that makes all the difference. Instead of a fiery furnace you would encounter in deserts like the Sahara, where the mercury can soar above 130 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures in the Atacama Desert average around 63 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year.

For many, the gateway to desert discoveries is the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, which sits at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet above sea level. Other attractions in the desert reach altitudes of 17,600 feet–which is comparable to being at Everest base camp. So, if you find yourself giddy with excitement in the Atacama Desert—it could also be altitude sickness.

This geological wonderland is home to red rock canyons, gurgling geysers, turquoise lakes, flamingo-filled lagoons, snow-capped volcanoes, and everything in between. To describe some of the landscapes as otherworldly is not hyperbole, either. Just ask NASA …

A stunt double for Mars

When the first photos released by NASA from the Mars rover Perseverance depicted a desiccated landscape of reddish soil with rugged, rocky hills stretching to the horizon, they looked eerily familiar. That’s because for close to three decades, NASA has viewed the Atacama as the perfect stand-in for the Red Planet, using it for everything from practicing with Mars rover vehicles to testing prototype instruments to try to detect Martian life.

What makes the Atacama so ideal for looking microbial life forms isn’t just its superficial resemblance to the Martian surface, either. Unlike other deserts, hyper-arid sections of the Atacama are so dead and lifeless, if you accidentally cut yourself, you wouldn’t have to worry about an infection since there are no pathogens.

The parallels to Mars don’t end there. The tallest volcano in our solar system, Olympus Mons, is located on Mars. The tallest active volcano on earth, Ojos del Salado, is located in the Atacama. At 22,615 feet above sea level, the volcano’s permanent crater lake is also believed to be the highest body of water anywhere in the world. Often compared to the Tibetan Plateau, the Atacama Altiplano is home to some 17 other volcanoes above 19,000 feet.

A smoking section and a salty surprise

Another geothermal wonder of the Atacama is called El Tatio, the largest geyser field in the Southern Hemisphere. At an altitude of 14,000 feet above sea level, it’s also the highest geyser field in the world. Like a South American Yellowstone, El Tatio is home to some 80 gurgling geysers, hot springs, and smoking fumaroles. It’s worth visiting El Tatio at dawn, when the air is cold enough watch the geysers erupting and forming giant plumes of steam.

In stark contrast to the drab rocky areas of the Atacama, the desert bursts into color at Salar de Atacama—one of the largest salt flats in the world. Surreal and beautiful, the flats feature multi-colored, mirror-like pools of briny water that support a wide array of wildlife, including three species of flamingoes—the very pink Chilean flamingo, the slightly smaller James’s flamingo with its bright yellow beak, and the rare Andean flamingo, which has yellow legs and black-tipped wings. Uniquely adapted to flourish in this harsh environment, these resilient creatures have special glands behind their eyes that let them drink and process salt water—to say nothing of their ability to wade in spring water that is approaching boiling point.

But flamingoes aren’t the only ones who have found a way to survive in such an inhospitable environment. Other desert dwellers include Andean foxes, and a type of chinchilla called a viscacha. Herders also bring flocks of llamas to the mountain lakes to graze, along with llama’s wilder cousins, vicunas and guanacos. In the Atacama’s coastal areas, Humboldt penguins are often found nesting in the cliffs above the ocean.

All in all, the Atacama may be dry, but it’s anything but dull.

A Few More Fascinating Facts About the Atacama Desert

• Purple Rain, Purple Rain—Every couple of years, the tiniest bit rainfall transforms sections of the Atacama’s rust-colored landscapes into a sea of vibrant purple hues. Flowering plant life in other areas carpets the hills in yellows, whites, and blues.


• She doesn’t look a day over 9,000—If you think the oldest mummies are from Egypt, guess again. Several thousand years before the first Egyptian mummies, the Chinchorro people were using sophisticated mummification techniques on people. The oldest Chinchorro mummy found so far dates back to about 5,000 BC. Archaeologists have recovered close to 300 more since the first discovery was made about a century ago.


• Now where did I put that snow-shovel?—In 2011, thanks to a rare cold front from Antarctica, the driest place on earth received almost 32 inches of snow. Go figure …


• Talk to the hand—A Chilean sculptor installed a giant hand reaching to the heavens in the desolate stretch of the Atacama Desert. With sand and low hills for miles in every direction, the 36-foot-high work consisting of four outstretched fingers and a thumb looks more like a relic from a lost civilization.


• Penny for your thoughts—The Atacama Desert supplies one-third of the world’s copper. A myriad of other metal and non-metal resources are mined here as well, including iron, silver, gold, boron, and lithium. A boom in sodium nitrate mining (used in fertilizer and explosives) in the 1940s went bust, however, leading to abandoned mining towns dotting areas of the desert.


• To the victor go the spoils—The mineral riches of the Atacama Desert eventually led to a conflict involving Chile, Peru, and Bolivia at the end of the 19th century. Called the War of the Pacific, Chile emerged victorious in 1883, and the minerals would represent one of the country’s main sources of wealth.

Explore the Atacama during O.A.T.’s New! Argentina & Chile’s Rugged North: From the Andes to the Atacama Desert adventure.