Atacama: A desert one could drown in

SAN PEDRO DE ATACAMA, Chile — A solitary grave sits near the top of the 10,000-foot pass, a simple monument with a yawning view of the bleached and scarred valley so loved by British geologist Sydney Hollingworth that he asked to buried here. It's easy to believe that this tawny bowl belongs to the driest desert on Earth.

But as you drive farther along the tarmac ribbon, deeper into folds and flats and beneath the haze from a smoking volcano, you find ... water.

Meandering streams lined with leafy trees have spawned villages and tourist hotels. Flamingos waddle on spindly legs in a wide, flat lake. Steam gushes from vents on a headache-high plateau, then bubble into a pool big enough for a swim, edged by Andean foothills crusted with snow.

Even the canyons and peaks of the Atacama's lunar-like floor were sculpted by water, the legacy of an ancient shallow sea and the flash floods that sometimes roar through the desert in the "rainy" months of January and February. Sun, wind and less than an inch of water per year can have a dramatic effect on such dusty earth.

Fertile lagoons surrounded by barren land. Rain-forest birds nesting within feet of cactus. Opposites. Extremes.

Atacama Desert, Chile

Statistics

Location: Northern Chile

Created by: Atacama Desert lies between the Andes, which trap moisture to the east, and Pacific coastal ranges on the west.

Size: About 932 miles long, 62 miles wide

Rainfall: Near San Pedro, average rainfall is about ¾ inch, mostly in January and February. Some areas of the Atacama see rain only once in 14-20 years.

Wildlife: Guanachos below 13,000 feet, vicuñas at higher altitudes; lizards; birds; bats

Farming: Corn production; farming of sheep, goats, cattle and llamas

Flora: Tumbleweed and cushion cactus

Getting there

The airport at Calama is a 90-minute flight from Santiago. The drive to San Pedro de Atacama takes about 45 minutes. You can rent a car at the airport or arrange a shuttle to San Pedro for about $14 each way through agencies such as Desert Adventure, www.desertadventure.cl, 011-56-55-851-067. Many hotels offer transfers.

Excursions

Upscale hotels offer private excursions, sometimes included in hotel pricing. Tour companies line San Pedro's streets, and you can easily walk in and arrange the most popular excursions with little advance notice. Top choices are the El Tatio geysers, Los Flamencos preserve at the Salar de Atacama, sunset at the Valley of the Moon and sandboarding in the Mars Valley, also called Death Valley.

Information

www.visit-chile.org or 866-YES-CHILE.

This high northern desert stretching from mountains to coast is the nexis of some of the planet's most vehement extremes. And that's why adventurers, backpackers and even upscale travelers come here.

From trade to tourists

"The idea of drowning in the desert appeals to my sense of irony," says Tim Cahill, one of America's best-known adventure writers. Cahill drove through the region in 1987, on a nonstop race along the Pan American Highway, and planned to come back. But he didn't return until this fall with a dozen fellow travelers on a three-day visit of Atacama highlights.

Our group lands in Calama, a pop-up-book of a town skirting one of the world's largest copper pits — the source of much of Chile's wealth. Calama is a utilitarian outpost, and tourists quickly move on to the oasis of San Pedro de Atacama, a wind of dusty streets surrounding a 17th-century central plaza with a neat garden and whitewashed stucco church. At 8,000 feet in altitude, Atacama is also comfortably low.

This region has long been a trade route: for native peoples, Spanish explorers hauling silver down from Bolivia's Potosi mines, Argentine cattlemen bringing livestock to feed on nitrate-rich lands. Today, San Pedro's biggest trade is in visitors like us, and most of the town's 5,000 residents make their living in the souvenir shops, Internet cafes, pasta houses, hotels, adventure tour offices and breezy bars.

It's the kind of laid-back town where you could hang a while, hoisting pisco sours and picking up alpaca sweaters at a relative bargain. But the main draw is the harsh landscape beyond.

Travelers with time and tough knees head to the surrounding peaks to hike and climb, or out to the rolling dunes for sandboarding. Ours will be a softer adventure of hourlong hikes and sunset cocktails in the care of veteran guide Nelson Hill.

Foxes and flamingos

Still, the elements can be formidable. In the bowl, midday temperatures rise into the 90s. Wind and dryness team as dual thieves; one steals your hat while the other whips the moistness right off your tongue. Dust coats eyes, mouth, nose, skin, glasses and clothes — even undergarments.

In the higher reaches of the Andean foothills, the 13,000-foot altitude can be a demon, slicing breath by half and tempting equilibrium.

It's worth it. We crunch on crusty ground with salt so thick it looks like snow, marveling at Daliesque shapes of salt-mine cement carved by flash floods. The climb up a 1,000-foot dune yields a spectacular sunset of red-washed mountains.

One searing morning we visit the Salar de Atacama, at 1,100 square miles the world's third-largest salt flat and the Earth's largest source of lithium. It's an eerie place, a natural monument of reflecting pools mirroring snow-capped volcanoes set in a Zen-like plain of white scrabble. Stranger yet, it is dotted with flamingos.

Three types of flamingos live here, we learn, along with a few migratory sandpipers, a lizard, a mouse and fox.

These are the hardy species, the cunning, the flexible. Adapt or die is the merciless law here, and it is both awe-inspiring and daunting to see how species — and yes, men, who have lived in the Atacama for at least 13,000 years — cling, survive, even thrive in such harsh surrounds.

A field of geysers

By now, we've acclimated to the altitude, and we're ready for our final ascent — to the thermal fields at El Tatio.

We rise before dawn, mummied in scarves and thermal underwear and woolly gloves bought at the corner shop for $5 a pair. The bus ride to the cold reaches of 13,000-plus feet takes two hours. The stellar sky is untainted by urban light.

By the time we reach El Tatio, the sky lightens. The geyser field is crowding with tourists. There are no guardrails, no defined paths; Nelson cautions to stay out of the spray.

The sun pops above the looming peaks. Steam spews from the earth like a kettle on the boil, and we become all people of a mystical mist.

For a brief moment, we dance in a fairy land. Then, like Brigadoon, it disappears. It's the slap of extremes — boiling thermals hitting cold morning air — that creates the mist. As the air warms, the mist dissipates, and we are left with muddy streams, snow-dusted mountains and a swimming hole. A vicuña grazes nearby, watchful that we don't come too close.

We plunge into the steaming pool and languish in the unfathomable idea of bathing — if not drowning — in the desert. Then it's time to towel off, and head for the nearest pisco sour.