Salar de Atacama – Atacama, Chile. By John G.
Camera: Samsung Galaxy S7
Welcome to the Atacama Desert in Chile. You can leave your raincoat at home because the Atacama Desert is the world’s driest place. Some part of the desert receive no measurable rain ever. Let me repeat that – Ever. That being said, the Atacama Desert is a big place and spans over 40,000 square miles (about the size of Kentucky) with some parts of the desert receiving meaningful amounts of rain.
In the northern part of Chile, most tourist use the town of San Pedro de Atacama as a home base for tours around the desert. San Pedro actually gets almost an inch of rain in the month of January. This might not sound like a lot, but it can cause flooding near the San Pedro River. In June, July, and August the San Pedro will get no rain. I visited San Pedro in February and found that the Valley of the Moon was closed the entire week because of recent flooding in January. Yet, it never rained while I was in the Atacama Desert.
This photo is of the Salar de Atacama or Salt Flat. While the Salar de Atacama is 1200 square miles, it is hard to believe that this only puts the Salar de Atacama at number three on the list of top 10 salt flats in the world. The Salar de Atacama is not even the largest salt flat in South America as nearby Bolivia and Argentina have larger salt flats.
It looks as if an ocean had dried up long ago and exposed a vast tangled coral reef to the sun. What looks like coral is really jagged dried knee-high salt. Those mountains in the background are responsible for creating this bizarre landscape. You can see that snow collects on the mountains. This snow melts and collects in the salt flat forming a lake whose salt content rivals the dead sea and is home to flocks of flamingos. This water evaporates leaving behind a jagged curst of salt for as far as the eye can see.
Today, the park has carved nice flat walking trails through the rough landscape and along the edge of the lake where the flamingos hangout. But I tried to imagine explores or the Incas trying to walk barefoot through endless salt field to get to the lake to hunt the birds. This would not be a walk you would take on lightly or is walking lightly exactly what you would have to do.
Fun Fact: For anyone that is viewing this article on laptop or phone with a lithium battery, you can thank the Salar de Atacama which supply 30% of the worlds lithium. Chile is the world’s largest producer of lithium in the world.
Fun Fact: The Atacama Desert is home to the world’s largest copper mine.
Fun Fact: The Atacama Desert might seem vaguely familiar to many of you. In 2010 in the San Jose-Copper Mine there was a mine collapse that trapped 33 men 2,300 feet underground and three miles from the mines entrance for 69 days. The incredible rescue effort that save all 33 men cost $60 million US dollars. The events of the rescue were dramatized in the 2015 movie “The 33.”