Friday Photo - Cycling Through the World's Driest Desert

Cycling through the Atacama Desert in Chile

This week's photo comes from the Wandering Nomads. Among their many travels was a trip through the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world. The average annual rainfall for the desert is 0.6 inches, but there are regions where it has never rained in recorded history. Guidebooks describing the area say "Nada, nada, nada" (nada is Spanish for nothing). As you can see in the photo, virtually nothing grows in the driest regions. It brings to mind Buzz Aldrin's description of the surface of the moon: "Magnificent desolation."