Atacama Desert in the top three tourist locations in Chile. The specially commissioned ESO hotel is reserved for astronomers. About 80 geysers occur in a valley about 80 km from the town of San Pedro de Atacama. They are closer to the town of Chiu Chiu. The Baños de Puritama are rock pools which are 37 miles from the geysers. Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is one of the driest places in the world (the
History of the Jews in Chile History of the Jews in Chile Jewish presence in Chile is as old as the history of that country. Over time, Chile has received several contingents of Jewish immigrants. Currently, the Jewish community in Chile comes mainly from the migrations occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, mostly of Ashkenazi background. Chile is home to the third-largest Jewish community in South America. Chileans today have a positive view of the country's estimated 32,000 Jews or less than 1% of the population. The first Jews arrived in Chile with the Spanish "conquistadors". These were Jewish converts to Catholicism because, at the