The Atacama Desert
In Northern Chile there is the Atacama Desert, one of the longest deserts in the world. It is relatively cool at about 65 degrees fahrenheit and the desert spans almost 700 miles from north to south. Chile gained the land in a war against Peru and Bolivia in 1883. The desert is cool and foggy yet in some places it has never rained. This is because there is a rain shadow from the low coastal mountains in the west and the Andes mountains in the east. These mountains have allowed for very little communication to the outside. There is some farming in the oases and the Lao River, but very little. Prior to World War One 3,000,000 tons of nitrate were extracted and the taxes from that equated to half of the government’s revenue.