Parque Nacional Llanos de Challe

On our last day around La Serena, we went to see Llanos de Challe National Park, in the southern area of the Atacama desert.
The drive along the coast to the park was very enjoyable, we had the roaring ocean by our side for the whole way, and even passed some ghost towns.
The park was, well, deserted! We were the only people there, even the rangers' office was closed.
The landscape is extremely arid. Even the cacti and shrubs look shrivelled up, with only the odd green tip or flower poking out, reminding us that there is, in fact, life in the desert. But, much to our surprise, we didn't just see life in the odd shrub, we actually saw animals!
First, as we rounded a corner, we started hearing a very odd sounding alarm call. We initially thought we must have disturbed some birds, but then Nick spotted two guanacos, almost perfectly camouflaged in the vegetation. We'd seen guanacos in Patagonia, but didn't realise they were also all the way up in Atacama desert! They kept on calling to each other until we were safely out of sight.
However, our second animal encounter was one of best we've ever had. As we were about to finish the trail, Nick turned around and gasped, grabbing my arm. I turned around to see what had startled him - a little fox who was chasing us!
She seemed very interested in us and, although she demanded a minumum distance of a couple meters, she kept following us very closely for almost half an hour. She would run after us, cross the path in front of us, sniff and dig the sand, being very active and playful. I think she was probably just curious to know how we'd ended up in the desert.
Once we had finished the hike we wandered down to the sandy beach, with rocky little islands just of the coast. There was a beautiful camping area, with platforms for tents, parasols and everything set up for what looked like an amazing camping spot! It was all empty, as it's not in high season, but we could easily imagine spending a few days of bliss there.
After the park, we drove along the sunny coast back to La Serena. We dropped of the car and caught a 14 hour night bus to Calama, a dusty mining town, but a necessary evil as it's the gateway to the northern Atacama desert, our next stop.Read more