Laguna de Chaxa National Reserve for flamingos
Laguna de Chaxa (Chaxa Lake) lies in the Salar de Atacama, about 70 km from San Pedro de Atacama (or about 30 km from Toconao). When you make your way from San Pedro, South to Salar de Atacama, the scenery is really captivating, mountains in the back, a long road ahead of you with nothing to disturb the eye and all these salt crusts on the ground. When you start walking from the car park towards the lagoon it is already a bizarre sight to see a lake (even if it is a tiny one) in the middle of the desert. As soon as you get closer it is even more puzzling to find flamingos spread out all over the lagoon! What a contrast to the white salt and the blue lake to have these pinkish birds here! In the waters of this lake these funnily moving, and at the same time, pretty birds are finding obviously good conditions to live in.
According to the information brochure picked up from Toconao, there are three kinds of flamingos living in this area, the Andean Flamingo, the Chilean Flamingo and the James Flamingo. There are between 1,000 and 1,800 of each species in the Atacama Salt Lake. With a little luck you be able to see them flying over the lagoon!
Have you been here? How was it?
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Atacama is definitely worth a visit. I did not know about the three different types of flamingos but good to know. I took a lot of pictures of the wild life when I was there in 2008 and wrote a little post: http://andreinchile.com/2009/02/25/animals-in-the-atacama-desert/