Pica, an oasis named "the flower of the sand"

We recently took a 3000 km road trip from La Serena to Iquique for work. The Atacama Desert is an incredible landscape and it is also very diverse. At this year we have had some rain in the desert, it is likely that we will have blooms again in September. In fact, some areas, were already starting to be covered in green patches with plants.

By the time we had finished the road trip, near Iquique, we were looking forward to staying in one place, so we headed to Pica which is a small village in the Tamarugal province, in the Tarapaca region. Pica is a small oasis located in the old "Camino del Inca" (a network of paths connecting different settlements in Inca times, the most famous section of this network connects Cusco with Machupichu).

Pica is quite a quirky village. It has colonial houses mixed with new builds, there are orange, lemon, grapefruit, guava (or guayaba) and mango trees planted everywhere.

Pica is famous for its fruit

It is a town where "real chileans" live (as opposed to, for example, San Pedro which is more of a tourist town) and the dwellers take good care of their gardens which are planted all year round with beautiful flowers, cacti and ornamental trees. It is also clear that the population is ethnically less European than in other areas. The activities available to do also seem to be geared to the locals as opposed to just the tourists (for example, most places closed after 5pm).

They also have some nice hotsprings: La Cocha (which is a Spanish word of Quechua origin which means water reservoir or puddle, "estanque" "charco"). We had a really nice bath first thing in the morning and enjoyed exploring the little caves available at the side of the pool (they are quite deep so it is a bit scary to walk in but as the hotter water is at the end of the cave, there is a good incentive to get inside :))

The hot spring

We also did a small dessert trek which followed a nearby dry riverbed. We enjoyed seeing the tranquil dunes against the blue sky and even had some trees for shade near the riverbed.

Christian climbing a dune

Last recommendation... make sure you eat/drink plenty of the available Mango and Guava, either as fruit or as juice... they are incredible :)

Breakfast of Chilean-grown mango (only grows here and in a handful of other desert oasis across the North)

Slideshow of the weekend in Pica below or in this link here.