Because travel is better with two - By writer/editor/photographer Melanie Wynne
In Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of my favorite activities was a guided hike through, up and over Los Cardones Ravine, at the junction of two minor rivers.
It’s funny: If you ask me to stroll along a river wash and look at some cacti and rocks, I might shrug my shoulders and see what’s on Netflix. But spin it into “a riverside trek through a cactus forest,” and bam — sold.
One afternoon back in 1985, I was holed up in my high school library, hiding from the strains of adolescent society, when I stumbled across a book about the world’s most extreme destinations. One in particular captured my fancy: Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth.
A 41,000 square-mile expanse of desert that gets four inches of rain every thousand years seemed at once more exotic and less overwhelming than being 14 years old. I devoured tales of active volcanoes, hills of salt, miles of marshland, carpets of wildflowers, and strange animals I could scarcely imagine. I vowed to go see it for myself someday.
A few weeks ago, exactly 28 years after I first learned it existed, I did see the Atacama Desert for myself. And you know what? It was simply amazing.
Way better than high school.
I started the year with only one firm travel goal:
Visiting South America for the first time.
Tomorrow, I’m off to meet that goal in the long, skinny country of Chile!
Here are some resources to help you plan your own “travels with two” to Chile.
