Atamaca Desert, Chile

Another wonderful official came a couple of days ago, this time all the way from Chile. This is only my second official postcrossing card from Chile. It does look like a very beautiful country, I wouldn't mind receiving more cards from there!


CL-3426

Here you can see some pictures from Atacama Desert and Andean plateau lagoons. The sender, Monica, tells me that flamingoes (phoenicopterus chilensis; what a cool name! :D) love to live in Andean plateau lagoons.

The Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless plateau in South America, covering a 1,000 km strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world, due to the rain shadow on the leeward side of the Chilean Coast Range, as well as a coastal inversion layer created by the cold offshore Humboldt Current. The Atacama occupies 105,000 km2 in northern Chile, composed mostly of salt basins (salares), sand, and felsic lava flows towards the Andes.



The stamps are very nice, too. The smaller ones are from a set of 10 stamps issued in 2008, depicting Typical Chilean Characters. These one here are Peanut Vendor ('Manicero' - why does this guy look more like a sailor to me?!?) on the left and Photographer ('Fotógrafo) on the right. The bigger stamp was issued earlier this year and commemorates the 105 years of 'Torre Bauer' or the Bauer Tower, a symbol of Vicuña.