ATACAMA DESERT

My family and I have been traveling through the Atacama desert this past week. We've been taking long bus rides through the desert, and I mean really long bus rides, like last time it took thirteen hours. On that thirteen hour bus ride we had to stop because there was a traffic control but it was on strike, so that made the bus ride even longer( the picture is where the strike was). 

When we are going through the desert the only thing I see are big brown mountains and a couple of little towns here and there. It is also really dry, I haven't seen any plants or trees just rocks and dirt, it's the driest place in the world. In the town we're in right now, Iquique, it gets 0.039 inches of rain a year, in Point Arena where we live we get 30 inches of rain a year. In 2009 1/100th of a inch of rain fell in Iquique and caused an emergency. The rain knocked out the power of several neighborhoods and wrecked the roofs of 4,000 houses. The Governor had to cancel school to fix the damaged roofs.



the view from my bedroom window in Iquique

There are only a few animals, reptiles, and amphibian species that live in the Atacama desert. Guanacos and vicunas are related to the llama. We think we saw a skeleton of either a guanaco or a vicuna lying next to a human skeleton in a tomb in the archaeological museum in La Serena.

One really big thing that happens in the desert today is mining. We passed through a couple of mining towns, such as Copiapo and Antofagasta. The biggest copper mining in the world is happening in the Atacama desert. I read an article that said that the mining industry is trying to buy water from farmers.

I can see why they film mars movies here. It's pretty darn brown and dry and what I think mars would look like. Tomorow we'll be leaving the desert and heading to Peru.