Chile / North

Desert & Altiplano

8 days / 7 nights
All year round.

Day 1 Arica
(18 – 60 Km / 12 – 38 Miles)
We recommend you to use the afternoon to visit the Valle de Azapa (Azapa Valley) with its interesting archaeological museum.

Day 2 Arica – Putre
(140 Km / 87 Miles)
Head for the Pacific coast towards the village of Putre, located on the Andean altiplano. Bear in mind that you will drive up to an altitude of 3.500m.

Day 3 Putre – Parque Nacional Lauca (Lauca National Park) – Arica
(220 Km / 138 Miles)
We recommend you to use the morning to discover the beautiful Lago Chungará (Chungara Lake), at over 4,000m high, the center of a UNESCO Biospehre Reserve. In the late afternoon it is time to drive back from the Andes to the Pacific coast.

Day 4 Arica – Iquique
(316 Km / 196 Miles)
Drive through the desert marked with green canyons coming down from the Andes towards the coast.

Day 5 Iquique– San Pedro De Atacama
(510 Km / 316 Miles)
Drive along the coast to Tocopilla and from there through the desert to San Pedro de Atacama passing by Calama.

Day 6 & Day 7 San Pedro De Atacama
It is good idea to use two days to discover the magnificent surroundings. If you would like to go to the El Tatio Geysers we recommend you a guided excursion as the route is difficult to find. All the other attractions can be easily reached on your own.

Day 8 San Pedro De Atacama – Calama
(100 Km / 62 Miles)

End of tour

Northern Chile Routes

Desert & Altiplano

Northern Chile Attractions

Putre & Lauca national park

Putre means “murmur of the water” due to its abundance of water.

It is a small village of the Aymará (an indigenous which apparently still lives untouched by urban influence and still practices its ancient rituals and maintains its traditional architecture.

Between the mountains and the high plateau, Putre is situated at an altitude of 3.500 m and is the vantage point for excursion into the national park Lauca and the national reserve Vicuña, where you will find 80% of the Chilean fauna in an astonishing natural surrounding. The national park Lauca is a biosphere reserve of the UNESCO with more than 130 different species such as Vicuñas, Vizachas und Condors.

Socaire is located about 90 km from San Pedro de Atacama. With is Spanish background is it much more than just a village, it is a sequence of terraced cultivated areas on a broad slope, which use the inclination of this area. Here you will find beautiful houses made of stone and in the rear part of the village a small church watches over the place, and sports a stone tower with is sung to every year on August 24 (Fiesta San Bartolomé).

Salar de Atacama

A plateau made up of smaller salt lakes whose waters vary from blues, turquoises, pinks and greys, and surrounded by

streams that rise up from the ground between the Andean, Domeyco, and Salt mountain ranges.
The Chaxa Lake is where flamingoes eat the food that gives them their distinctive pink color.

Valle de la Luna

This valley, so-called because of its resemblance to a lunar valley, is located along the Salt Mountain

range and bordered by the Atacama Salt Flat.

Northern Chile Routes: Desierto y Altiplano