Atacama

The Atacama Desert is an adventure playground of geysers, moon valleys and salt lakes where at night the clear skies are littered with thousands of stars.  Stretching 600 miles from Peru's southern border into northern Chile, the Atacama Desert rises from a thin coastal shelf to the pampas - virtually lifeless plains that dip down to river gorges layered with mineral sediments from the Andes. The pampas bevel up to the altiplano, the foothills of the Andes, where you will find Aymara and Atacama Indians herding their llamas and alpacas and growing crops with water from snowmelt streams. 

At its centre, a place climatologists call absolute desert, the Atacama is known as the driest place on Earth. There are sterile, intimidating stretches where rain has never been recorded, at least as long as humans have measured it. Extraordinarily, more than a million people live in the Atacama today. They crowd into coastal cities, mining compounds, fishing villages, and oasis towns. International teams of astronomers-perched in observatories on the Atacama's coastal range-probe the cosmos through perfectly clear skies. Determined farmers in the far north grow olives, tomatoes, and cucumbers with drip-irrigation systems, culling scarce water from aquifers. In the altiplano, the descendants of the region's pre-Columbian natives (mostly Aymara and Atacama Indians) herd llamas and alpacas and grow crops with water from snowmelt streams.

The Atacama Desert makes the perfect contrast to the cooler climes, glaciers and glistening lakes of the south. It is a place in which you can indulge in spa treatments, hike, bike or horse-ride through the dramatic red landscapes, all from the comfort of a beautiful oasis hotel in the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama. It makes the perfect place to unwind after crossing from the high plains of Bolivia through the Uyuni Salt Flats. It is also a gateway into the pretty colonial towns and dramatic rock formations of Argentina's rugged North-West region via one of the most stunningly scenic drives across the Andes.