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
Patagonian Desert as sheep and goats. Resource mining, especially of oil, gas, and coal in parts of the region, is another way humans interact with and influence the desert environment. Patagonian Desert The Patagonian Desert, also known as the Patagonia Desert, Patagonian Steppe, or Magellanic Steppe, is the largest desert in Argentina and is the 8th largest desert in the world by area, occupying 673,000 square kilometers (260,000 mi). It is located primarily in Argentina with small parts in Chile and is bounded by the Andes, to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, in the region of Patagonia, southern