You're not exactly standing on high-end lakefront property. The scruffy, scraggly shore beneath your feet seems to be located in a proverbial no-man's-land. Looks are deceiving, however. The entire Atacama Desert[seventy-thousand-square-mile region] you are visiting is extremely rich in minerals. Considering that a large chunk of this Chile[country's] revenue is extracted from the ground, you might want to stake a claim in the coppery hills surrounding you.

Two years ago, a style director traveled seven hundred miles from the Santiago[capital] to conduct a fashion spread in terrain much like this. His work appeared in a renowned Condı Nast Traveler May 2006;
style director Mark Connolly[travel-magazine] (okay, the one in your hands). "It was the hardest shoot I've ever been on, but it was worth it," he says. "I was surprised by the natural beauty and by how incredibly diverse the landscape is." It's so varied that you'll wonder at times if you're touring one of the lowest points on earth or a windswept plateau (looks can be deceiving, as we said).

The Laguna Tuyaito [brackish lagoon] before you is hardly the only body of water you'll see on your trip. A famous
Salar de Atacama[alkali flat] spreads over a thousand square miles, amplifying the sense of emptiness. Are you thinking of a desolate land of yaks and yurts? Again, things may not be as they seem. In fact, this region is crawling with people. San Pedro de Atacama[One town] in an oasis north of the lagoon is packed with visitors as well as expats. You may want to join them for a popular Tour Operators on Concierge.com[two-week bike trip] in which you'll pedal as many as fifty miles a day past volcanoes and a El Tatio[geyser] and spot gregarious rosy
Flamingos[creatures] strutting around the waters, combing the mud for dinner.

The terrain you are exploring is situated more or less on the knob of a walking stick-shaped country, in an area called the Grand North, or, officially, the Antofagasta[Second Region]. To this day, a War of the Pacific, 1879-1883 [nineteenth-century war] that lasted four years defines this nation's relationship with a Bolivia[neighbor] (you go annex someone's coastal access and see if he likes it).

The lagoon is often described as emerald greenıalthough it's anything but in this light. More proof that things are not what they seemı