Atacama Desert, Chile

Three months ago if you had asked me to name the driest place on Earth I would have said (guessed!) the Sahara, the Gobi or perhaps even Antarctica… and there is no doubt that it would have taken many guesses for me to even start listing places in South America.

But alas, when I stepped off the ship this morning in Arica, Chile I was stepping onto part of the Atacama Desert… some sections of which have not received a single drop of rain in over one hundred years! In fact some weather stations in the Atacama have never received any rain at all!

I should probably fill in a few pieces of my journey. After leaving my amazing hosts in Pucallpa, Peru I flew back to the coast (to Lima) where I met up with a friend and boarded a ship heading down the coast of Chile. I was invited to be a lecturer on a ship (the Holland America, Prinsendam) which is in the process of doing a circumnavigation of South America (along with visits to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands). The lectures I am delivering have a natural history focus (birds, marine mammals, etc) as well as an overview of my Catt-Trax journeys (both my African trip from 5 years ago as well as the present one). Holland America has been very supportive of the Catt-Trax 2 journey and I have to thank both David and Holly in Seattle, as well as Peter on the Prinsendam. Muchas gracias! I know the ship (the Prinsendam) fairly well as I have lectured on similar natural history topics on her on other journeys on the Pacific & Arctic Oceans and the Caribbean Sea (I am a believer in the old adage, the best way to learn something is to have to teach it … and lecturing in different regions of the world has broadened my ecological knowledge and natural history background immensely).

Arica, Chile was the first port of call on the sector from Lima to Punta Arenas. Last fall a team of BCIT FWR students gave a seminar on Chile and how British Columbia compares in terms of natural history, wildlife, fish, and park values as well as conservation issues. There research is now on this website and you can read more about Chile by checking out: http://blogs.bcit.ca/catttrax2/south_america/chile

My goal for the day was to visit Lauca National Park high on a plateau near the border with Bolivia. Lauca National Park is a Biosphere Reserve and an amazing region of Chile. Within the park boundaries is Lake Chungara, which at over 4500 metres (14,900 feet) is one of the highest lakes in the world.

Lake Chungara in Lauca National Park, Chile

The long journey to the park gave me an opportunity to take in the amazing landscape. The Payachatas Volcanoes are the backdrop to Chungara Lake and along the lakes’ shores we saw vicunas and guanacos (both are wild relatives of the llama and the alpaca that I saw a lot of in Peru).

Vicunas in Lauca National Park, Chile

We climbed from sea level to almost 15,000 feet in just a few short hours. My body felt the change and I began to feel weak, I had no appetite and in fact began to feel nauseous – all signs of altitude sickness. Thankfully we were not at high altitude for too long and once we began to weave our way down in elevation I started feeling better right away. By the time we got back to sea level all was well.

Photographing at Lake Chungara, Chile (photo: Steve Green)