Endless hues of beige and pink surround the quiet highway that crosses the Atacama, a thin 1,600km strip of desert in the northern half of Chile, located between the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Andes mountain range bordering Bolivia and Argentina to the east.
From a distance, tips of snow covering the mountains emerge as a surreal landscape, a striking contrast to the arid heat of the desert. A few llamas grazing on dry shrubs and bushes seem to be the sole sign of life in these harsh surroundings. Known as the driest non-polar