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The Salar de Atacama Natural Monument is located in Region II, within the Los Flamencos National Reserve, it is a fantastic landscape characterized by its extensive saline coastline, saline mud and mud. The Salar de Atacama is the largest in Chile, with an area that exceeds 3,000 km2. The air here is extremely dry, which gives it perfect transparency, so much so that with the naked eye it is easy to see the other end of the salt flat, about 70 kilometers away. Under the salt flat there is a lake, hidden by a thick and rough crust of salt, which contains the largest reserves of lithium in the world, a mineral used in some high-tech industries and that is exploited in the southern sector of the salt.



The surroundings of the salar also offer a large number of attractions:

On the north and west side is the Cordillera de la Sal, a chain of hills in the shape of tortured dinosaurs through which the route from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama runs, the entry point to the salt flat. Formerly, this was the bottom of a lake. The horizontal layers of sediment and rock, dating from about 23 million years ago, were pushed and folded by the same movements of the earth's crust that raised the Andes Mountains, leaving some layers in a vertical position. The wind and rain did the rest of the modeling work. The name of Cordillera de la Sal derives from the fact that its rocks have a large amount of calcium sulfate, which gives them the appearance of being sprinkled with salt.







Antofagasta Region, 316 km. northeast of Antofagasta. San Pedro de Atacama approximately 55 km north



Santiago-Antofagasta: air, public and private land transport. Antofagasta-Calama: public and private land route through Route 5 North, then take Route 25, at the height of Carmen Alto, until you reach Calama. From Calama continue southeast through Route 23, until you reach San Pedro de Atacama. Leave San Pedro on the road to Toconao and at kilometer 33 you will find the Administration of the Area.



Flora and fauna, picturesque and archaeological route, lakes and lagoons.

Surroundings

San Pedro de Atacama, Tatio Geysers

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