Steve in Public : Days 26-32: The Driest Desert in the World

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.

The desert here was carved by the wind each night, characterizing the sand patterns.

The wind helps craft the red clay and salt into obscure formations.

From the ridge line, I had a 360 degree panorama of what looked like the moon.

In the foreground, a sea of salt covers the ground.
In the background, the plateau was bent by seismic activity.

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.

The geysers are most active in the early morning hours. With no wind, the steam
drifts upwards, creating a dramatic scene.

The boiling water causes chemical reactions in the surface rocks, creating unique
shapes and colors.

Geysers here are constantly bubbling, and can spew boiling water a meter or two.

Obligatory self portrait with fascinating nature in the background.

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.

Entering the Devil's throat, the canyon walls towered over me.

Ages ago, the water here carved the canyon into twists and turns perfect for biking.

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.

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.