Atacama Oasis

Taken on the Laguna Colorada in the Atacama Desert this picture shows one of the oases in the highest desert in the world. Much of the pink in the distance that you can see in the photo is actually an enormous flock of flamingos that come to spend the summer in Bolivia before leaving to spend the winter in Florida.
The Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless plateau in South America and has been inexistance for C. 20 million years. It covers a 600 mile strip of land on the Pacific coast of South America, west of the Andes mountains. According to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, this is the driest desert in the world.
The rain shadow on the leeward side of the Chilean Coast Range and the Andes, as well as a coastal inversion layer created by the cold offshore Humboldt Current keeps the desert 50 times drier than California's Death Valley.