We spent most of this week traveling through the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The weather was hot in the sun, cold in the shade and we even encountered a hail storm at the Argentinian border. During the day, the temperature can get very hot in the desert, but at night, it quickly drops and can get really cold.
We saw quite a few wild animals on our trip this week. Probably, the most common were llamas and alpacas. You can see them grazing in herds all throughout the desert. Some are owned by farmers, and some are wild. We also saw many vicuñas in the desert. Vicuñas look a lot like llamas but are a bit smaller and have less hair. While we were in the Chilean town of San Pedro de Atacama, we had the opportunity to go to the Atacama Salt Flat, where we saw wild flamingos!
