The world's driest non-polar desert (and its oldest of any kind) is the closest you can get to walking on the moon without leaving Earth. The lunar-like landscapes of the Atacama Desert, which spans around 600 miles (1,000km) of western Chile between the Pacific coast and the Andes Mountains, were even used by NASA to test equipment for outer space.

Far from being a lifeless abyss, it is marked by lakes, salt flats, volcanoes, geysers and dancing dark skies.

Now check out the best travel experiences you can have in South America

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