Safari in Atacama

an easy place to visit, with high quality lodges

The Atacama Desert (Desierto de Atacama) is an arid plateau that lies between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, largely in northern Chile, but spilling over into neighbouring Bolivia and Peru.

The Atacama occupies an area of around 105,000 sq km (41,000 sq mi), which is about half the size of the UK or the same size as the state of Virginia.

The desert is one of the driest in the world, with an average rainfall of around 15 mm per year. Some weather stations in the area have never received any rain.

Home areas are so dry that even NASA couldn’t find any sign of life. In 2003 the team responsible for the Voyager missions reproduced the tests for life that they used on the red planet in an area south of Yungay. They drew a complete blank. It’s thought that this might be the only place on Earth to demonstrate a complete absence of all forms of life.

However, in a few special places animals are large as guanacos and flamingos are able to survive and prosper.

Atacama is also one of the oldest deserts in the world, with the arid conditions thought to have endured for 2-3 million years.

The landscapes here are famously dramatic, with vast canyons, broad open plains, geyser fields and multi-coloured soda lakes, encircled by towering snow-capped volcanoes.

The scenic but largely barren landscapes are comprised of of stony terrain, salt lakes (salares), sand dunes and exposed lava flows, set against a backdrop of snow-capped volcanoes and searing blue skies.

The landscapes of the Atacama are commonly compared to the surface of Mars and several prominent movies have been filmed here.
Some more coastal parts of the Atacama receive a marine fog known locally as the camanchaca, which provides sufficient moisture for various algae, lichens and even some cactus species to survive. These hilly lomas are ‘fog oases’ and are home to a slightly wider range of plants and animals, many of which are specially adapted.

The adobe town of San Pedro de Atacama is set alongside an historic oasis, a settlement whose history can be traced back over 10,000 years.

In recent years San Pedro has become the main port of entry for the Atacama, with travellers typically flying up from Santiago, staying 3-5 nights at one of the many lodges that have sprung up in and around the town, before returning back the same way.

This type of trip is definitely sufficent to provide you with a really good impression of the place and a reasonably wide range of experiences.

However, if you do have more time, then it really is great to undertake a more comprehensive exploration of the Atacama. So you can treat these nights in San Pedro as your acclimatisation period, before heading up to the serious altitudes of Bolivia to see the epic salt flats at Uyuni, before passing back into Chile for the fabulous and genuinely little-visited Lauca and Vicunas national parks, usually ending at La Paz, from where it’s also possible to connect on to Peru or head home.

The Atacama area can most definitely be visited year round, although Dec-Feb can get busy around San Pedro and May-Sep can get very cold at night.

The best time to visit Atacama is generally considered to be during the Oct-Apr warm dry summer season.
Atacama has a cold desert climate, with two clearly defined seasons.

During the Oct-Apr summer conditions are usually warm and very dry, with lots of sunshine. Average daytime temperatures usually reach around 27C/81F, with nighttime lows holding up around 8C/46F. Average sunshine is up around 9 hours per day, peaking in Nov-Dec.

During the May-Sep winter the weather is usually cool and very dry. Average daytime temperatures usually manage to reach around 19C/66F, with nighttime lows dropping to around 0C/32F, with regular frosts and snow cover at higher altitudes. Average sunshine remains high at around 8 hours per day.

Visitor traffic can be a real issue in San Pedro de Atacama, with the peak season running from mid-December through to around the end of February. That makes the Oct-Nov and Mar-Apr shoulder seasons appear all the more attractive.

On the 2nd of February each year the Festival de la Candelaria takes place in San Pedro, which features a large parade, with music and dancing. Obviously the town becomes very busy around this time.

Getting there

The San Pedro area is typically accessed by air from Santiago into the San Pedro de Atacama Airport, which is actually in the town of Calama about 60 km to the northwest.

Although most people depart back the same way to Santiago, it is possible to head north across the border into Bolivia to visit the famous salt flats of Uyuni and continue north by road to La Paz, from where it is possible to connect on into the Lake Titicaca and Cuzco areas of Peru or to head for home.

Where to stay

For somewhere so small and remote, San Pedro de Atacama now has an extraordinary range of places to stay.

For us the key deciding factor is how elegantly a lodge arranges the various activities. There is no doubt that Awasi Atacama is the best, since it provides private guides and vehicles for every group of guests. After that it gets more complicated …

usually accessed by air from Santiago