Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North

"All of us, living in ghost towns though we do not know it.
With the illusion that what we leave behind will not be swept away by the wind, that something will remain against the corrosion of time.
Hand by hand, hand in hand
Gloriously making believe we will outlast the desert"

Ariel Dorfman, Chilean novelist, playwright, poet and human rights activist writes about his journey through northern Chile through San Pedro de Atacama, along the Panamerican highway and the nitrate corridor, and up to Arica. Along the way he stops in Pisagua to remember his close friend Freddy Taberna who was executed there by firing squad after the 1973 military coup. He provides a fascinating picture of this unique landscape, drawing on astronomy, anthropology, geology, politics, and Chilean industrial history, along with his own personal narrative. To know the desert, he explains, you must cross through it. "You can immerse yourself in the sea or be welcomed by a forest, but the desert is incessantly reminding you of distances--between yourself and the rocks, between yourself and the next faraway community, between yourself and your own endurance. The desert does not offer the illusion that you will ever be anything other than an intruder."

Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North on Amazon.com

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Gasoline

To truly immerse yourself in the landscape of northern Chile, it is essential to have your own vehicle, ideally one with high clearance and four-wheel drive. Driving in Chile does have its challenges--the distances are vast and the roads are often in poor condition. But then the only way to really comprehend the vast emptiness of the northern desert is to spend several hours driving through it, uninterrupted by signs of civilization. I picked up a Suzuki Gran Vitara at the Calama airport and returned it at the end of my trip in Arica, a few kilometers from the Pervuian border.

The first challenge is to ensure you don't run out of gas, as service stations are few and far between. After leaving Iquique, I fillled up the tank at the entrance to the Panamericana, as I would not pass near another for over 300 kilometers at Arica. San Pedro has only one gas station. Surely they do a brisk business from all the tour groups, I thought, but each morning, when I stopped in to fill up the tank before heading out for the day, the station was closed. On the first day there was a line of cars waiting, and everyone else seemed just as perplexed as I was. Finally, one driver stepped out of his van while the family in the back looked on and demanded to speak to the manager. A few of us followed him in and the manager relented and agreed to sell us gasoline. The whole charade would be repeated each morning over the next few days. I never did figure out why the station was so reluctant to do business; they could name their price and we would have paid it.

In Putre there was no gas station per se, but I'd heard it was possible to buy gas at the corner grocery. I asked for five liters and the shopkeeper retreated to the back room. He returned after what seemed like thirty minutes with a plastic jug and a piece of rubber tubing, which he proceeded to siphon into the gas tank, sucking on the mouth of the jug to get it started. The rental company had insisted the vehicle needed gasoline of grade "95" or higher, but I didn't bother to ask.  

Miscanti and Miniques

The trip to the alpine lakes Miscanti and Miniques was 154 miles round trip at an average speed of 18 miles per hour, as much of the route is on a dirt road climbing from 7,800 feet to 13,800 feet.

 

Miscanti and Miniques | GPS Map | My GPS Route Data from San Pedro

View from Toconao Bridge

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The Moon from the Southern Hemisphere

San Pedro is bustling with tour agencies hawking their services, offering guided trips to salt flats, geysers, flamingo reserves and mountain peaks. One of the more unique offerings is a night time tour of the skies, led by french astronomer Alain Maury and his wife Alejandra. Their home and laboratory in the desert is surrounded by telescopes through which visitors can take a close up look at the moon, planets, and instellar phenomena. Northern Chile is the site of numerous observatories, including the world's largest, because of the clear sky, minimal interference and high altitude.

I took this photo through one of Alain's telescopes, which has been fitted with a camera mount. Note that the orientation of the half moon is horizontal rather than vertical. Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, Alain explained in a thick french accent, are all walking sidways.

SPACE : San Pedro de Atacama Celestial Explorations 

Valle de la Muerte

A few kilometers from the Valle de la Luna is the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death). A trail winds its way between steep cliffs and strange rock formations. Halfway through the trail opens to an enormous sand dune, which attracts a handful of sandboarders. Otherwise the trail is usually empty and eerily silent, particularly in the late afternoon when the rocks turn colors and odd shadows appear and then fade away. A good pair of sunglasses is a necessity in this environment, even in winter, due to the clear skies and the sun's intensity at higher altitudes.

Valle de la Muerte | GPS Map

 

Atacama Desert

The Atacama desert is the driest place on the planet. Hemmed in by the Andes to the east and coastal mountains to the west, some parts of the region have never recorded a single drop of rain. Spanish explorers referred to it as the "despoblado de Atacama," suggesting it was uninhabitable. Charles Darwin described it simply as "a complete and utter desert" in the Voyage of the Beagle. Traversing the landscape, he reported, "I saw only one other vegetable production, and that was a most minute yellow lichen, growing on the bones of the dead mules. This was the first true desert which I had seen."

Valle de la Luna | GPS Map

Every evening shortly before sunset, a caravan of tour vans arrives at the foot of an enormous sand dune in the Valle de la Luna. A column of tourists trudge up the path to the top to take pictures as, for a brief time, the surrounding pale rocks glow a deep red. I returned at sunrise the following morning (and the morning after that) and had the entire park to myself.

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