Come and join us on this great way to meet the desert around Iquique!
IQUIQUE - HUMBERSTONE - PAMPA DEL TAMARUGAL - PINTADOS GEOGLYPHS - SALAR GRANDE - SEA LIONS COLONY - IQUIQUE
From your lodging at Iquique, we'll drive for about 45min to Humberstone UNESCO World heritage site, now a ghost town, it used to be the most developed town during the nitrate extraction boom of Chile. A very interesting place to understand and learn about the history of Chile and the life of our grandfathers in the desert. Aproximated visiting time: 1 hour 20min.
From here we'll take the famous Panamerican road heading south down to Pampa del Tamarugal National Reserve; this is the place where we get in contact with the few flora and fauna you'll find on this dry desert. Taking advantage of the nice and fresh place, we'll have a nice picnic lunch on site under the shade of Tamarugo trees (endemic tree).
Our journey continues as we drive to visit the interesting Cerro Pintados Geoglyphs; more than 400 images drawn on the slopes just in front of you, telling the ancient history of convoys of trading people and llamas traveling from the Andes to the coast. Don't miss this place! you need extraordinary dry conditions to have geoglyphs and this is the best place to see them in Southamerica!. Aproximated visiting time: 1 hour.
We'll drive across the desert down to Salar Grande; the source of most of the table salt in Chile! this huge curly salt flat (or salt pan) is an unsual but interesting place to visit and as we go down to the coast you'll see many trucks transporting salt to the port of Patillos, completely dedicated to shipping salt to the rest of Chile and Northamerica. Aproximated visiting time: 40min.
Our last stop is to visit the Sea lions colony of Punta Patache, to hear, smell and see this typical marine mammal on its natural habitat. From here we start our driving back to the city of Iquique. Aproximated visiting time: 40 min.
We've seen and learn about; Mining history of Chile in a desert ghost town, a National reserve and its endemic flora, the largest group of geoglyphs in Southamerica, the largest salt flat on production in the country and a sea lions colony in the cold waters of the Pacific... pretty good, ah?
Approximated return time to Iquique: 20:30hrs.
