Atacama desert, Chile

About a week ago, we stayed in the Atacama desert of Northern Chile. This desert is a 1,000 mile long high altitude plateau and is recognized as the driest non-polar desert on earth. The Atacama desert is between the Andes mountains and extends to Peru, Chile, and Argentina. A fun and cool fact about this desert is that NASA uses it for testing rover-like instruments because of its Mars-like arid landscape. 

After the Atacama Desert, we drove to Pan de Azucar national park in Chile. It is by the ocean but also desert-like with massive mountains. There are very few land animals here but my dad actually saw a mouse. He learned later that its name is ‘Darwin’s leaf eared Mouse’. They are called this because they were first discovered by Charles Darwin in his village on the HMS Beagle. Darwins Mouse can survive in extremely dry conditions with very little water; they get their water from their diet of plants, seeds and insects. Anyways that is all for now!