The Driest Desert in the World
Days 26 – 32
January 23 – 29
San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
I fell asleep in a beach town and woke up 11 hours later in
the driest desert in the world, the Atacama Desert. Most of the bus passengers disembarked at
Calama, the nearest real city to San Pedro de Atacama, the latter being the
gateway to the Atacama Desert. We
stepped outside the miniscule bus station to a quiet and empty desert at
sunrise. Even in the summer, this
environment holds no heat at night, and we all dug into our packs for our
warming layers. The crunching rocks
beneath my feet were the only sounds as I set out to find a hostel to call
home.
As I departed the bus station, the sun started to rise over
mountains to the east, revealing the desert landscape. The smell of burning trash filled the air, a
smell paired with a visual that reminded me of Iraq. Even at 8:30 AM, the town was starting to
wake up. One shopkeeper was sweeping the
dusty sidewalk into the dusty street. A
pack of stray dogs marched down the narrow street, looking for the first scrap
of the day. After twenty minutes, I
found a descent hostel for a descent price, stored the gear I didn’t need, and
set out on my first of many adventures in the surrounding desert. I stayed local on my first day, and ventured
further with each subsequent morning.
Although many people take a guided tour to Valle de la Luna
(Moon Valley), I opted to ride a mountain bike for 80 minutes to reach the
entrance to the valley just as the sun was rising. The paved road gave way to dirt roads, some
of which were covered by a thick sheet of finely powdered sand. As the only person in the park (it didn’t
open for another 2.5 hours), it felt like I was in another world. Carved by water eons ago and wind daily, the
terrain has taken on unique features that make it look like the surface of the
moon. The massive salt deposits in the area
helped paint this picture by covering areas completely in white. At Duna Mayor, I parked my bike and followed
a trail onto a narrow ridgeline. The
trail reached a dead end at a lookout point with a 360 degree panoramic view of
the landscape. The winds were calm here,
and not a single sound could be heard except for the occasional tumbling of a
small rock down one of the slopes in the distance. With the dry air and clear skies, I could see
to the horizon, spotting the blue outlines of mountains that were dozens of
miles away. There was not a sound or a
sight of another lifeform; it truly felt like I was on the surface of the
moon.
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| The desert here was carved by the wind each night, characterizing the sand patterns. |
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| The wind helps craft the red clay and salt into obscure formations. |
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| From the ridge line, I had a 360 degree panorama of what looked like the moon. |
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In the foreground, a sea of salt covers the ground.
In the background, the plateau was bent by seismic activity. |
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Spires like this were formed by seismic activity. When the Nazca Plate shifted
much of the land downward, some parts remained in place, shooting from the
ground. This spike is made completely of red clay and crystallized salt. |
The next day was another early wake up; I wanted to arrive
at El Tatio Geyser Field before the sun rose, when the geysers were most
active. At 4,320 meters (14,200 feet) in
the Northern Chilean Andes, the morning air was below freezing, a contrast to
the geothermal activity just a few meters in front of me. Bearing the title of the third largest geyser
field in the world covering an area of 30 square kilometers (11.6 square miles),
I was not disappointed with the sheer number of holes in the ground spouting
steam and boiling hot water. Bordered by
stratovolcanoes to the east, the field is fueled by the interaction of moving
of lava below the crust and water entering the ground as precipitation to the
east of El Tatio. Sitting on the edge of
the Nazca Plate subduction zone, the field’s activity is constantly changing
with the transforming subterranean environment, prompting caution around the
openings as the surrounding ground could be thin enough to fall through. As the sun rose over the Andes to the east,
it pierced the clouds and cast a dramatic lighting on the natural spectacle
happening in every direction from where I stood.
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The geysers are most active in the early morning hours. With no wind, the steam
drifts upwards, creating a dramatic scene. |
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The boiling water causes chemical reactions in the surface rocks, creating unique
shapes and colors. |
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| Geysers here are constantly bubbling, and can spew boiling water a meter or two. |
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| Obligatory self portrait with fascinating nature in the background. |
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After the geysers, I was lucky to spot this mother/baby pair of Vicuna wandering
the landscape. |
I rose for another early morning to stargaze north of the
city, watch the sunrise over the hills, and mountain bike through the Garganta
del Diablo (Devil’s Throat). I was
riding in the dark, my headlamp mounted to the top of my helmet. It was a rough ride. Poor road quality was exasperated by poor
visibility, but I managed to traverse the eight kilometers to the opening of
the Devil’s Throat, where I set up my camera to do some astrophotography. The clouds from the night before were
cleared, giving me an impeccable view of the night sky. With low humidity, little electricity, and
nearly nonexistent rainfall, the Atacama Desert is one of the most ideal places
in the world to stargaze. I admired the
southern hemisphere’s constellations until the rising sun drowned the sky. With enough light refracting through the air,
I entered the Devil’s Throat, becoming flanked on both sides by tall vertical
walls carved eons ago by a large river that sliced through the red clay. The air temperature inside was much warmer
than the open air just before the entrance, giving more credibility to the
canyon’s name. The canyon was relatively
wide and flat with enough hills to make it fun for biking. I watched the red clay sidereal fly by as I
weaved through on my bike. Two hours
felt like moments, and I rode back to San Pedro just as the sun was rising high
enough to start heating the environment to a discomfort.
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| Entering the Devil's throat, the canyon walls towered over me. |
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| Ages ago, the water here carved the canyon into twists and turns perfect for biking. |
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Taking a stop from the biking, I climbed to the top of the canyon to admire the
expansive landscape. Like Moon Valley, it was dead silent up here. |
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| A worthwhile detour to a nearby tunnel was as creepy as it was interesting. |
One of my last stops in the Atacama Desert was Valle del
Arcoiris (Rainbow Valley), aptly named after the various colors of the
mountains with similar mineralogy to Rainbow Mountain in Peru. Shades of red, orange, green, white, brown,
and grey populate the hillsides in this narrow strip of land carved by glacial
and flood erosion in the Rio Grande Basin before the Atacama became a high
desert. Now 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above
sea level and flanked by the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coast Range to
the west, the land surrounding this region is high enough to prevent moisture
advection from either the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, creating a two-sided rain
shadow that now leaves this area without a drop of rainfall, earning the title of the Driest Desert in the World. While San Pedro is a gateway to the Atacama
Desert, Valle del Arcoiris marks one of the southernmost regions of the Atacama
Desert proper. It was fortunate on my part
that the land eroded these colors into existence millions of years ago; erosion
is likely not to happen again for millions of years more.
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| While not banded, the various mineral deposits here creates a colorful landscape. |
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| A headstand. Why? Why not? |
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| Getting closer to some of the mountains started to reveal more of their colors. |
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| And the valley ends, heeding way to the rest of the monocolor desert. |
