The weather at high altitudes never ceases to amaze me. Don't get me wrong, weather anywhere can be unpredictable, unforgiving and stop you in your tracks. But once you get up to 7,000-16,000+ feet it seems to change instantly, be way more dramatic and it can even be snowing, raining and sunny all from one vantage point.
This was the case on my last trip to one of the most remote places I've ever been. Where the Atacama desert in Chile meets Bolivia, Argentina and Peru. The Andes reach up to 20,000+ feet which can create rapid shifts in the weather. Here, there are no radio stations, minimal electricity and only one gas station for hundreds of miles.
The Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth where certain areas have a history of 0 inches of rainfall. As in none, at all. It is so dry that the soil in certain areas that have no sign of life have been compared to that of Mars. NASA even does instrument testing for future Mars missions here. The town of San Pedro de Atacama and the surrounding area is certainly not one of those areas though. January and February are the rainiest seasons in Peru and Bolivia and some of the storms make their way down into the Atacama and deposit large amounts of precipitation in (usually) a small amount of time. Being a town that only receives rain several times a year they are never prepared and even the smallest amount can shut most things down.
Camila and I arrived on February 9th with intentions to stay for a month to work on a project documenting the hotels and restaurants in the area. The rain started around 6pm on the first day and didn't end until around midnight (which is very rare for this area). The rain was very heavy, especially for the driest desert in the world. It was heavy enough to shut down roads to all popular sites, all international border crossings, take out the power in the town, knock down some walls and flood at least half of the restaurants, stores and local homes. And this was just the first day. The rain would arrive in the early evening and do even more damage each day for the next 5 days. At night the rain would take over the town and then by the following afternoon the sun was so strong and the air so dry that a good part of the water would evaporate. We left after the third day due to the fact that most things I wanted to photograph were closed or damaged. The town is also very expensive and being the high season we had limited options for long-term stays (and even more limited now that half of the places were damaged).
Even though I didn't get to work on the project I had originally planned, it was wild (and sad) to see what nature could do so quickly to an area that isn't built to withstand what it throws at it.
Sun-baked footprints made the following night in the rain softened dirt
Storm clouds over the road to Laguna Miscanti
Small town farm
Llamas
Washed away road
Protecting the front door from rain
Dirt from the roof running down the walls
San Pedro de Atacama
Flooded street
Last year this was a road...
Ponds formed on the side of the roads
