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Lady in the Atacama Desert
I love the desert. There’s something awe-inspiring about an environment so harsh that only the most impossibly adaptable species of flora and fauna can survive. There’s something beautiful about dry, hot landscapes, cracked earth, and mountainous sand dunes. And there’s something powerful in a night sky so full of stars that it makes you remember your insignificance in the universe.
I saw these things as a child in the deserts of Arizona when my family went to visit my grandparents. I saw them again in Namibia two years ago when I climbed over brilliant red-orange sand dunes in the first light of morning and slept under a sky that could barely contain all of its stars. This week I saw them a third time in Chile when I hiked, rode horse back, and drove through the variegated geography of Chile’s Atacama Desert.
(Exerpt from A Lady in London)
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These are the trucks made for Atacama Expedition. They are full 4x4 and capable of taking a lot. This video shows one of them going down a sand dune entrance to the Bilagallos beach. Only 4x4 cars can even get close to this beach, and the way down is treacherous for those unfamiliar with driving on sand.
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Have you ever eaten a sea urchin? Well, can’t get any fresher than this way, I assure you.
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Chile desert's super-dry history
BBC News article on the driest desert in the world.
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Anonymous asked: What makes this the driest desert in the world?
The primary cause is a global climatic phenomenon that creates deserts at this latitude on the western coasts of all continents in the Southern Hemisphere. Large, stable high-pressure systems - the one here known as the Pacific Anticyclone — hover just off the coast, creating easterly trade winds and pushing storm systems away. Meanwhile, the Humboldt Current carries cold water from Antarctica north along the Chilean coast, cooling the westerly sea breezes, reducing evaporation, and creating a temperature inversion (cold air immobilized below a ceiling of warm air), which prevents the formation of high rain-bearing clouds. What little moisture is borne onward by these ocean breezes condenses along the steep Pacific slopes of the Coast Range, creating highly endemic coastal ecosystems composed of cacti, succulents, and other xerophytic flora. The final factor contributing to the formation of the desert is the Andean cordillera, which in the north forms a broad, high-altitude volcanic plateau known as the Altiplano. But whereas in the south, the Andes serve to capture moisture blowing in off the Pacific, in the north the Altiplano seals Chile off from storms laden with moisture from the Amazon Basin, just to the northeast.
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It’s always a good idea to watch your step close to rocky areas, as sea urchins are common along the Chilean coast. Their tough spines can be dangerous to unshod feet! In this video you can see two kinds. The black ones have longer spines and have no edible parts. The red ones however, can be eaten. Their gonads are a delicacy, and fresh from the sea are sweet, not salty, and can be eaten straight from the urchin’s body. Once you crack the sea urchin open, just look for the five long ‘tongues’ of fiery orange. They are also good prepared with lemon, diced onions, olive oil and salt, or even fried with eggs into an omelet! Careful though, they are very high in cholesterol.
Travel across the Atacama Desert, learn about the beauties the driest desert on earth hides, and join us on many a traveling experience.
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