A country of supreme beauty and ecological diversity, Chile is home to tundra, tropical rainforests, beaches, the mighty Andes Mountains; and the Atacama Desert – a virtually rainless plateau made of salt basins and lava flows.
It’s amazing to note that although certain portions of the Atacama Desert have not seen a single drop of rain ever since record keeping began, more than a million people reside in this 600 miles (1000 km) parched stretch of land. The desert rises upwards into a plateau from Chile’s thin coastal shelf and its center lies, what scientists call absolute desert, Earth’s driest place. Nothing lives there, nothing rots, and everything is preserved by the extreme lack of moisture.
The Atacama has become home to resilient farmers employing drip-irrigation systems, growing olives, cucumbers and tomatoes. Coastal fishers, llama and alpaca herders and a wide range of scientists and astronomers who relish the clear skies of Chile, have also made this desert their home.
The vast, barren expanse of the desert is strewn with empty river beds, most of which scientists believe have been dry for more than 100,000 years. The mountains, rising to 30.000 feet in elevation sometimes, are completely glacier free. The Andes are a young range compared to others in the world, and much of their height is attributed to a lack of erosion.
Some areas of the Atacama are home to what the locals call Camanchaca, a marine frog responsible for sufficiently hydrating hypolithic algae, lichens and even cacti. 
Owing to the surreal appearance of the expansive desert, it scenery has been used in films to portray Mars – most notable in the television series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets) and scientists from NASA have even began to use Atacama Desert’s unique terrain for testing equipment which may be used in future Mars missions.
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I like it… hope that I can go there… so nice pics…