Trip of the week: off-roading from the Atacama to the Andes

It’s now possible to traverse two of the harshest and most spectacular regions on Earth

The Laguna Colorada lake in Bolivia
Laguna Colorada: looks like ‘melted ice cream’
(Image credit: Getty images)

Side by side where Chile and Bolivia meet lie two of the harshest and most spectacular regions on Earth. The Atacama is the driest of the world’s non-polar deserts, a barrier between the Pacific and the Andes “far worse than the most turbulent ocean”, in Charles Darwin’s words. The Andean Altiplano – the largest high plateau outside Tibet – is scarcely more hospitable.

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