Today I am going to take you on a trip to an unusual place. Behind the mountains, beyond the forests, in distant South America is a long and narrow country wedged between the Pacific and the Andes. It is Chile - a country with a rich tradition, intermingled cultures of the Mapuche, Quechua peoples, and colonizers, mainly Germans and Spaniards. A country that delights with its wealth, landscapes, and untouched nature. A country where the earth shakes every week. Where the enormity of active volcanoes and the threat of Tsunami remind us of how fragile human life is. In this wonderful country, in the very north, is the Atacama Desert - the driest part of our planet.

It would seem that the Atacama will bore the traveler with its monotony after just a few days. Nothing more wrong! I spent 10 days there, intensively visiting the most interesting parts of the region from dawn to dusk (and often even at night), and I still couldn't see everything.

_{Photo by @papi.mati}

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But let's start from the beginning: it's best to start exploring the desert by arriving in the small town of San Pedro de Atacama. The town does not have much to offer travelers looking for authenticity. Apart from the old church, everything you find is artificial - hotels, hostels, travel agencies offering tours, car rental, and restaurants. A bit like Disneyland was created to draw as much money as possible from a tourist. So why is it worth staying there?

Well, if we don't have our car and tent, this will be the most convenient option to stay in. The distances between interesting places in the desert are huge, poorly marked, and there are very few towns in this area. In San Pedro de Atacama, we have the opportunity to find a place to stay (and at night the temperatures drop below zero, so having the roof over the head is quite important), stock up on water and food, rent a car, or take advantage of an organized guided tour.

_{San Pedro de Atacama - photo by @papi.mati}

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I was on a trip three years ago and to be honest, having little time and wanting to see everything, I overdid the number of places visited. Moving from dawn to dusk, I lost more than if I had visited half of these places in peace. I don't remember much information about specific destinations. Luckily, photos can help with reviving memories.

The most important attraction in the region is the Valle de la Luna, or moon valley. It owes its name to cosmic landscapes. You will find no life there, not even the smallest vegetation, only rocks, and sand. Such conditions meant that it was decided to test the first Mars rovers here - the terrain is most similar to that of the red planet. In some spots, there was no rain for at least 300 years!

_{Photos by @papi.mati}

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However, not all parts of the desert are equally dry. There are also lakes in the Atacama - the ones in the middle of nowhere are ponds with underground water - sometimes sweet, sometimes as salty as in the Dead Sea. Of course, all water reservoirs attract tourists who like to bathe in them.

The lakes located higher in the Andes are already part of nature reserves and instead of bathing people, you will sooner encounter flamingos or llamas here, attracted by the possibility of quenching thirst. Here is a curiosity: llamas are the South American cousins ​​of camels. They are divided into three species of animals: llamas and alpacas, which were domesticated for wool (you can drink their milk too, but they produce very little of that), and vicuñas, their wild cousins ​​who cannot be domesticated. Vicunas are under strict protection, there are very few of them left. This is because their wool cannot practically be harvested without killing the animal. Okay, the indigenous peoples, Quechua and Aymara, came up with a method that has been used for hundreds of years, but it is not suitable for obtaining large amounts of wool: animals were scared and chased towards cacti. When the vicuñas rubbed against the spines of the plants, they left their wool on them, injuring themselves but not dying. Clever, right?

_{Photos by @papi.mati}

Now that we've mentioned the indigenous peoples, it's worth mentioning that the Atacama was located on the Inca Trail. The Incas created an empire that, immediately before the arrival of Europeans, reached even south to the current Santiago de Chile. The desert was traversed along special trails marked with several stones placed on top of each other.

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Okay, but back to the description of the desert itself: we mentioned the lunar valley and similar canyons, we mentioned national parks, lakes located in them and freshwater tanks in the middle of the desert, flamingos, llamas, and indigenous peoples. In order not to prolong my post too much, let me suggest only two more attractions worthy of your time:

The first is observing the sky at night with a guide-astronomer. In the middle of the desert, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest towns, the starry sky reveals all its beauty to us. Nowhere else in the world have I seen so many stars in such a delightful view! With a telescope and an astronomer who tells you what to do, you can spend the whole night in a very interesting way. I wish my camera had been able to capture the beauty of this experience. There will be no photos from the event, but trust me - you will not forget the Atacama night for the rest of your life.

The second attraction worthy of your time is the del Tatio geysers. The geysers are quite far from the town, so usually, tours leave as early as 3 am. A light breakfast is served there (light, because you will be at an altitude of more than 2,500 m above the sea), then you can use the hot springs, and finally, you visit the geysers themselves, which are most active at sunrise.

Hot springs in a place where you do not want to take off your down jacket are delightful until you need to get out of the water. Then it's not so nice anymore;)

Geysers are impressive. The whole landscape resembles Mordor. Places with gurgling water are properly unprotected, lightly marked with stones laid on the floor. The guide, who asked for caution, did not add a sense of security. She mentioned that last season a tourist tripped himself while taking a selfie and lost his life due to hot water (initially we thought it was a fairy tale for tourists, but we googled it and it happened). The whole area is very different from everything else we saw on the Atacama and that's why it's worth visiting.

Of course, San Pedro de Atacama also set off trips to Bolivia, including Salar de Uyuni, but we did not use them at that time, because my passport expired. We got to Bolivia a year later, but that's a completely different story.