Atacama Desert, Chile Postcard

The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a 1000-km strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world. Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chile. It is located 55 km (34 mi) south of San Pedro de Atacama, is surrounded by mountains, and has no drainage outlets. In the east it is enclosed by the main chain of the Andes, while to the west lies a secondary mountain range of the Andes called Cordillera de Domeyko. Large volcanoes dominate the landscape, including the Licancabur, Acamarachi, Aguas Calientes and the Láscar. The last is one of the most active volcanoes in Chile. All of them are located along the eastern side of the Salar de Atacama, forming a generally north-south trending line of volcanoes that separate it from smaller endorheic basins.