We made our way back to Calama where the airport is located.
We stopped at Parque para la Preservacion de la Memoria Historica - the memorial to the people who were murdered and buried in mass graves during the Pinochet regime. The father of our bus driver was one of those whose body has never been found after he was taken and tortured.
It's in the middle of a huge wind farm which stretches for kilometers along the desert.
The Jerez Canyon is the location of the longest river in Chile. Dotted along it are a series of communities, which have been there for a very long time.
Firstly we visited Chiu Chiu - this is the town square.
Chiu Chiu is home of the oldest church in Chile. The conquistadors came through here on their way to Santiago.
The ceiling and gates are made from cactus wood, as have been a number of other places I’ve seen in the desert.
The same farming techniques are used here as elsewhere in the desert.
Then we visited Pukara de Lasana, a fortified village built at least 800 years ago, consisting of over 150 buildings.
We could see the same fields and water channels preserved here that were in the other Atacama villages.
When we took off, I took photos of Calama.
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