World Tourism / The Cleanest Places in the World / The Atacama Desert

Located in northern Chile, the Atacama desert is the most arid desert in the world. Rainfalls are almost completely absent in this place, but nevertheless it is considered one of the cleanest places in the world. The desert covers an area of 103,600 square km and the soil is lifeless. The researchers at NASA took advantage of it but just to test items designed to be sent to Mars. Here the clouds are almost nonexistent, the air is dry and they lack any form of pollution which gives a special charm of this wonder of nature.

The Atacama desert is one of the best places in the world for astronomical observatories. The Atacama Desert is one of the cleanest and driest places on the Earth. There are areas where the rain never came. There is nothing alive: not a blade of grass or bush, some rocks, small salt lakes and quietness, which is peculiar only to the deserts. These areas are similar to the moon. The Valley of the Moon, Valle de la Luna is located in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and it is considered one of the driest places in the world. There are interesting views in the valley, similar to the surface of the moon. The formation of rocks and the sand dunes have formed as a result of the prolonged exposure to flooding and wind. This place is as popular in Chile, as the Sahara Desert in Africa.

Atacama is located in northern Chile between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. The southern extremity of the desert is about 800 km north of Santiago. This is one of the driest deserts and barrens in the world. Only 0.1 mm of rain per year usually falls here. The moist air from the Amazon Basin on the east side of the Andes mountains block, and rains do not reach to the Atacama. All the moisture, which the local inhabitants can calculate here, comes in the form of fog or the smallest water suspension. Despite the unfavorable conditions for the existence of the living organisms, there are more than 160 species of cacti (90 of them endemic) and the place is home to around 200 species of animals, mostly unknown reptiles. Salt flats are typical to the desert. The river descending from the Andes to the eastern edge of the desert wash away the salt marshes. The accumulated water forms a salt lake. The surface of the lake is dry under the scorching rays of the sun, forming a thick salt sheet. And that from a distance looks like a lake, close to a shiny smooth surface of salt. In some places, this cover is broken up, forming a lagoon, a favorite habitat for flamingos and coots. The eastern part of the Atacama Desert is slowly rising and goes in one of the most beautiful regions of Chile – the Highlands Antiplano with an average altitude of 4000 m. While in the desert there is no precipitation and humidity level is zero, the plateau are occasional tropical rains in January and February . The flora and the fauna of the highland is very rich and interesting. Here you can meet animals like vicuna (a type of llama), viskacha (shaded with a long tail), about 120 species. The flora includes such plants as lyareta (rare umbrella) and Keno., a type of tree. Low over the horizon, the sun casts long clear shadows , cutting the lunar landscape of the desert. It's the Valley of the Moon in northern Chile, in the heart of the Atacama Desert, considered the most savage place in the world.

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Maps of The Atacama Desert