While the Caledonian Star continues up the coast of Chile, a small group of us (fourteen adventurers) has traveled inland to the heart of the Atacama Desert. For the most part it is dry here. It is said that there are weather stations in the Atacama that have never received precipitation. We are based in the high desert, at the city of Calama, at over 8,000 feet above sea level. Here the days are warm and nights are surprisingly cool, under a clear, dry sky of bright stars that seem close enough to touch. Yet, while there may be little or no rain, there is water, underground water from the snowpacks of the vast, looming Andes that sometimes pushes through to the surface. The Salar de Atacama is a badland of rugged blocks of salt and clay, a paste squirted up from below, broken, bright, and sparkling in the desert sun, in the thin air. In places there is open water, salty, but alive. Brineshimp thrive here, in their thousands, in their millions. Their eggs can survive for years in the dry clay until the rise of ground water gives them new life and they in turn give life to others, such as this flamingo.
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