The Atacama Desert is the most arid inhabited desert on Earth, 105,000 km2, stretching in northern Chile spanning 14 degrees latitude with a maximum width of 180 km between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Part of it is the Puna de Atacama or Altiplano at 3500 meters above sea level. Bolivia and Argentina. This vast territory was inhabited 11,000 years ago by stone-carving hunters who gave rise to the brilliant Atacamean or Likanantay culture that spoke in kunza and is in force to this day.
This desert is recognized as the best place in the world for astronomical observation thanks to its height, low cloudiness, dry air and no light pollution. For these qualities it currently concentrates 40% of the world’s observation. Atacama is also a geological history of millions of years unfolded before the curious visitor who in its lagoons, salt flats and mountains you can see the successive formation of its mountain ranges, where beautiful volcanoes, such as the Lincancabur, were and are still active ceremonial centers on whose peaks the sacred apus of Atacameños dwell.