The lunar landscapes of Chile’s Atacama Desert

Photographer Simon Buxton captures the unearthly scenery on the outskirts of San Pedro de Atacama

The Atacama is wedged into a 1,000 km strip in the extreme north of Chile, pushing firmly against the borders of Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Its driest areas receive an average of less than one millimetre of rainfall each year, conditions that the region has experienced for the past 150 million years. Rain is blocked to the east by the Andes Mountains, and is prevented in the west by the upwelling of cold water from deep in the Pacific Ocean.

At the heart of the desert is the small town of San Pedro de Atacama, which attracts hordes of travellers eager to explore the surrounding lunar-like landscapes. There is wildlife in the interior, too, although the lack of rainfall and high mineral content of the soil prevents the growth of vegetation, and the majority of the animals in the region cling to the shoreline and coastal river valleys. Amongst them is the vicuña, pictured above, found only on the grassy plains and slopes of the Altiplano - a high-elevation ecoregion of the Andes. Southeast of San Pedro de Atacama are the famous salt flats of the Los Flamencos National Reserve, home to all three known species of flamingoes in South America: the James’s flamingo, Chilean flamingo and the distinctive yellow-legged Andean flamingo.

In addition to its unusual wildlife and otherwordly landscapes, the Atacama is known as one of the globe’s stargazing hotspots. All the elements that make the region so inhospitable - the lung-tugging altitude, lack of cloud cover and moisture - combine with very low levels of air and light pollution to produce exceptionally clear night skies. So perfect are conditions that the European Southern Observatory operates two bases here, La Silla Observatory and Paranal Observatory. Astro-tourism has boomed in recent years, with an increasing number of night-time tour operators basing their operations in San Pedro. Astronomy buffs can also visit the revolutionary Alma Observatory - the world’s largest astronomical project. Using antennae that make up the equivalent of a 10-mile-long telescope, Alma captures star and planet formations billions of lightyears away.

Straddling Chile’s border with Bolivia, and an ever-present feature of San Pedro’s horizon, is the satisfyingly symmetrical Licancábur Volcano. In the extinct local Kunza language of the Atacameños, Licancábur means ‘mountain of the people’. This distinctive stratovolcano is well-known in the region for its conical shape, but also because its 400 m wide summit crater contains one of the world’s highest lakes, at 5,913 m. In the early 2000s, the lake drew the attention of a team of scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center, who considered the terrain to be the best Earth-based analog for conditions on Mars 3.5 billion years ago - a time when it is thought possible that the surface of Mars harboured icy lakes and rivers. For weeks the scientists explored Licancábur to examine the existence of life in such an extreme environment.

Few of the Atacama’s landscapes are as unearthly as the Valle de la Luna, or ‘Valley of the Moon’. The valley’s salt-caked craggy rock formations typify the uniquely spectacular scenery of this remote and arid corner of Chile.