Lagunas Altiplanicas

Written by Will on January 7, 2010. Posted in Budget Travel, Global Travel, Living in South America, Nomadic Lifestyle, Travel, Travel in South America

On my second day in San Pedro de Atacama and following my Valle de la Luna tour I took a full day trip to the nearby Lagunas Altiplanicas or high plains lakes. For me, the main attraction wasn’t the high plains lakes at all, but rather the Salar de Atacama as an alternative to visiting the Salar de Uyuni (you may recall from my last post that I didn’t have time to visit Uyuni)

The early flamingo gets the….shrimp?

The tour departed at 6 A.M. in order to get to the Salar de Atacama (Atacama salt flat in English) early enough to view the flamingos in the salt lakes.

The Salar is a very interesting landscape. The high mineral concentration is caused by a lack of drainage and over the years minerals (amongst them vast amounts of salt and lithium) have been deposited in the basin by glaciation and runoff. This area is an extremely inhospitable environment, yet certain species have adapted to live here. Quite remarkable!

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Tags: Atacama, chile, south america

Will

Will Brubaker has been roaming the world for over 20 years. He has been to all seven continents, has successfully landed lucrative contract jobs in international locations, spent two winters in Antarctica, recently lived in Taiwan and is currently enjoying sunsets with his wife from his ocean-view balcony in Huanchaco, Peru.