Travel: Take a trip back to the beginning of time in Chile

A blinding-white plateau marbled with rust-red rivers and fringed by volcanoes, Laguna Tebinquiche looks like a scene from The Land That Time Forgot, and in reality it is not far off.

In 2019, this section of the world’s third largest salt flat was placed under protection due to its “extremophiles” – the hardy micro-organisms which introduced oxygen into our planet 3,800 million years ago.

Crunching through crystalline pathways where these “living rocks” still thrive, I struggle to grasp that length of time.

Yet, it’s all plausible in this other-worldly place of extra-terrestrial landscapes and night skies so clear, telescopes can reveal stars that lived and died long before humans took their first breaths.

In recent decades, the Atacama Desert has become one of Chile’s premier tourist attractions. But popularity has brought with it an alien invasion of a different sort.

Pre-pandemic, bucket-list big-hitters such as the steaming Tatio geysers and fantastical Moon Valley were besieged by up to 1,000 tourists per day, forcing indigenous communities to shut down sites on their ancestral lands.

© Press Association Images

South of Tebinquiche, the Chaxa lagoon, an important breeding ground for flamingos, has been off limits for three years, and there are no signs of it reopening.

On the plus side, the operators and hoteliers who cluster around manmade tourist town San Pedro have been busy scouting new sites and finding alternative ways to visit old favourites. In many ways, Covid could have provided the catalyst to save this place.

A 990-mile strip of land in northern Chile, sandwiched between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, Atacama is the driest non-polar desert in the world, encompassing three mountain ranges and formed more than 150 million years ago. Stretching along borders with Bolivia and Argentina, snow-capped volcanoes soar like rocket noses into the sky.

One of the most iconic, Licancabur, can be viewed in full glory from the restaurant decking of Tierra Atacama Lodge & Spa, on the dusty outskirts of San Pedro.

Built around a historic livestock corral, rooms constructed from adobe mud bricks are tucked behind sunflower-yellow gates, bushes heavy with overripe pomegranates, bursting open to reveal their ruby jewels.

The property’s spa, featuring both indoor and outdoor pools, is a highlight – but it’s the menu of activities led by skilled guides that’s brought me here.

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One is an adventurous hike through Rio Salado in the Salt Mountain range. We wade knee-deep into an icy river so salty it leaves my legs glistening with crystals. I stop to nibble the briny leaves of cachiyuyo plants (sprinkled as a condiment on salads), run my hands over fronds of pampas grass as fluffy as fox tails, and admire a flock of mountain parakeets fluttering above me like pieces of emerald confetti.

The greatest beauty of all? We’re alone. Aside from the hoof marks of wild donkeys, ours are the only footprints.

Although regularly climbed by guests, teetering 5,604 metres above sea level, extinct volcano Cerro Toco isn’t for everyone. Higher than Mont Blanc it can (theoretically) be scaled in less than an hour.

Plodding slowly skyward, my words start to slur as the air thins. By the time I reach the summit, with 360-degree views of spearmint lagoons, volcanic cones and horizons that peak and trough like a tormented ocean, I’m no longer sure whether it’s the views or a lack of oxygen that’s making me giddy.

In the distance, I can see the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, one of the highest permanent devices of its kind, and the remains of a disbanded sulphur mine – both reminders tourism isn’t the only economic interest in Atacama.

If numbers can be carefully managed and the land treated respectfully, it’s hoped the Atacama Desert will provide a unique window into our ancient past for many more generations to come.

P.S.

Chile is the world’s largest producer of lithium, a chemical element used in rechargeable batteries and increasingly in demand as the world shifts from fossil fuels to renewable energy. One of the greatest reserves lies below Atacama’s salt flats.

Factfile

Abercrombie & Kent (abercrombiekent.co.uk; 03301 734 712) offers a seven-night trip to Chile including five nights B&B at Tierra Atacama from £3,150pp (two sharing).