The Salt Flats of the Atacama Desert
I write this blog post as I sit in day forty of the COVID-19 quarantine. It’s a lonely, lonely time. Something that’s been a salve to my soul has been reading past blog posts about our travels; watching videos I made of the places we visited; flipping through photos of beautiful places in the world. It’s pretty wild to think that just 3 months ago, Matt and I were traveling through Chile, oblivious to the fact that our lives, and the lives of the rest of the world, would come to a grinding halt in 2020.
There’s opportunities during this time for all of us to slip into pessimism. We’ve all felt the irresistible pull of that line of thinking, that we’re alone in our suffering. The world is experiencing a collective grief as we face a truly historic situation.
I’m in need for a perspective shift. Usually, travel shakes me up enough to force a new mindset every few months. Lately, I’ve been turning to memories for perspective. Chile’s Atacama Desert, an unending landscape of sand, salt, and sky, offers no better place for renewing your perspective.
Salar de Atacama
Just thirty minutes south of the tiny desert town of San Pedro sits the great Salar de Atacama (the Atacama Salt Flats). Take a break from the dusty, bumpy gravel roads that lead into the Salar and stand in the middle of the desert–you’ll feel like you’re the only person in the world.
The vastness of the sky, the clarity of the air and the flat, endless horizon are disorienting. It’s hard to tell which direction you came from or where you’re going. Everywhere you look, the earth is a rough, grainy field of rust-colored salt deposits. The only true landmark is the Licáncabur Volcano, an ever-watchful presence in this otherwise flat land.
Governments have fought wars over Atacama’s salt deposits, which cover 750,000 acres of land. Underneath the layers and layers of built-up salt deposits is a vast salt lake feeding the crust of the earth. This underground lake contains the world’s largest reserve of lithium.
When holes start to form in the salt deposits, salty lagoons pop up from the earth, creating homes for creatures such as flamingoes, seagulls, eagles, foxes, and owls.
From San Pedro, we visited two of the nearest lagoons in the region to see their famous flamingoes–Laguna Chaxa and Laguna Tebenquiche. Both are based in Los Flamencos National Reserve, created in the 1990s to protect the high-Andean biological diversity.
Laguna Chaxa
When I travel, I rely heavily on Lonely Planet guides; this lake in the vast Salar de Atacama is the subject of one of my favorite-ever Lonely Planet descriptions: “like God went crazy with a stippling brush.” And it’s so true.
Salt deposits surrounding the lagoon make the landscape look sharp and jagged. The waters of the lagoon reflect the cloudless sky above, making the sea and sky disappear into each other. Only the ring of active volcanoes in the distance interrupt the horizon line.
From the car park, you will pay a small entrance fee (2500 CLP ~ 4 USD) to the indigenous tribe that maintains the Salar. From there, a short trail leads visitors to the base of the lake.
Fierce straight-line winds blow heavy and pungent salt air into your face, so I’d recommend wearing a bandana across your mouth and nose when you visit. If the wind or sun gets really bad, duck into the visitor center, where there’s information (in Spanish only) about the flora, fauna, geology, and formation of the salt deposits.
Laguna Chaxa is home to two different species of flamingoes: the Andean flamingo and the Chilean flamingo.
As a species, these birds are ancient, some of the oldest on the planet. Here in the high Andes, surrounded by salt, they survive on crustaceans and microalgae found in the salt lagoons. They prefer brine shrimp, which are high in beta carotene and give flamingoes their characteristic pink coloring. While we didn’t spot any shrimp in the lagoons, the visitor center had a tank full of them in one of its exhibits.
Getting There
Laguna Chaxa is located about half an hour south of San Pedro, although it took Matt and I about two hours to properly find it. You can do the drive with 2WD but I recommend 4WD and high clearance on your vehicle.
None of the roads off the main highway (Ruta 23) are paved; many are covered in salt; everything is bumpy and you can’t go much faster than 30mph without risking a flat tire.
You will know you’re close to Laguna Chaxa when you pass a small, clear swimming hole–an actual desert oasis.
Matt and I attempted to visit Laguna Chaxa on the same day that we drove to the alpine lakes of Miscanti and Miñiques, located a few hours from San Pedro. After several hours of driving the unpaved, unkept roads of the Atacama Desert, we realized that the directions we located on Google Maps were absolute garbage. Instead of taking us to the lake, Google Maps had taken us to a chain-link fence and a padlocked gate. When I finally found where we were supposed to be going, we were two hours away from Laguna Chaxa.
We didn’t give up. After visiting the alpine lakes, we tried again, this time using directions we found on Trip Advisor. Just make sure that when you visit, you type in “Laguna Chaxa Parque,” not just “Laguna Chaxa.” For some reason, Google Maps will take you to the middle of nowhere with the latter.
Laguna Tebenquiche
Laguna Tebenquiche was actually the first lake that we visited in the Atacama Desert, and something that we added to our itinerary last-minute because of an unforeseen problem with visiting Valle de la Luna.
Visiting the lake costs 2,000 CLP (~3 USD). This was the first time we really experienced the vastness of the Salar. From the lakeshore, it’s difficult to distinguish land from water. The salt deposits are craggy and rough; every now and then a flamingo would emerge from the water and fly across the lake.
Flamingo in flight
The flamingoes here were not pink but brown; at first, we thought they were muddy. Soon, however, we realized that these flamingoes don’t feast on brine shrimp, and so they don’t develop the same pink coloring as the flamingoes of Laguna Chaxa.
Because Laguna Tebenquiche is home to sensitive microorganisms, visitors are not allowed to get in the water and must stay on the designated pathway. Matt and I spent a little over an hour walking around, but the blasting wind, dry and thick with salt, became too much for us to bear. So we made our way back to San Pedro for dinner and a hundred glasses of water. We also spent the evening celebrating Matt’s 28th birthday!
