The Routa 5, Chile The Routa 5 (The Pan-American Highway) from Atacama Desert to Santiago has so man

The Routa 5, Chile

The Routa 5 (The Pan-American Highway) from Atacama Desert to Santiago has so many great stops along the way. Atacama Desert has the world’s oldest mummies, the oldest mummy recovered in Atacama Desert is dated 7020 BC, which is 2,000 years BEFORE the first Egyptian mummy.  

Atacama Desert is 105,000kms2, so we drove through it for a long time! It is the driest non-polar desert on Earth and so to be honest there sometimes isn’t much to see except dry open plains as far as the eye can see, so when we saw the “La Mano del Desierto” (The Hand of the Desert) poking out of the sand just a few hundred metres from the highway it was a big surprise!

We also found some geoglyphs - which are images drawn into the landscape, some on a grand scale! The age of the images range from 600 - 1500AD. San Pedro de Atacama is also a great place to visit, it is a hot spot for hippies and tourists looking for adventure. We saw some great views and a salt lake, unfortunately the geysers and hot springs which are famous in the area were closed due to the recent heavy snow.