Visitors are perplexed by the beautiful site of the Pan de Azucar National Park.

Considered the door to the north of Chile, the Atacama Region includes the provinces of Huasco, Copiapo and Chañaral. The capital city is Copiapo. The valley of the Copiapo River is an oasis within the desert geography of this region.

Copiapo is characterized by very old mining traditions, which are on display in a Mining museum. The first railroad of Chile was established in Copiapo, and the original Norris Brother locomotive is on exhibit in the gardens of the University of Atacama. The University is the alma mater of the leading figures in Chilean mining.

Next to Copiapo’s valley, there is an area containing significant mining explorations, known as Tierra Amarilla.

Copiapo, like most capitals, is where the majority of provincial business services and activities take place. It is an important pole for agriculture, from where the first Chilean table grapes were exported.

With very strong religious traditions, Copiapo honors the Candelaria and Del Carmen Virgins with feasts every year.

The port city of Caldera is the center of the tourism activity of the Atacama Region, particularly to its south, where the pristine beaches of Las Piscinas and Bahia Inglesa are located. This area’s clean shores and beaches make it the perfect place to eat live mussels with lemon and drinking Pisco, a typical Chilean liquor made from grapes.

Overlooking the pond-like beach of Bahia Inglesa is Hotel Rocas de Bahia, whose white and Mediterranean style structure gracefully stands out as it is harmoniously integrated to the rocks where it rests. Currently this is the most up-scale hotel in the region with modern facilities and fine dining.

Nevertheless, the Atacama Region will be the host of a new tourism project called Bahia Cisne that will feature the first Thalasso-therapy center in Chile surrounded by a village of hotels, apartments and many other amenities. This French and U.S. investment is estimated at $2 billion and will boost this region’s tourism sector, that unfortunately, up until now, has been kept a secret.

The other major investments in this region are the construction of a new international airport and the San Francisco road connecting the region to Argentina, through the Andean Mountains.

To visit this region and not to travel to the coastal desert of Vallenar or to the Pan de Azucar National Park would be a tragedy. The Vallenar desert, also known as the flowering desert, becomes a landscape of beautiful flowers between September and October, when major rainfall occurs in previous months.

As for the Pan de Azucar National Park, its 140 species of endemic cacti are an interesting site, but the panoramic views from its cliffs provide a sensation of being in the clouds.

Other must-see attractions from the Atacama Region include jeep tours and sand-boarding through the desert dunes in addition to trekking circuits to some of the highest mountains of the Andes, like the Volcano Ojos del Salado, El muerto, Nevado Tres Cruces and San Francisco. For specialized tours with a good mix of history, culture, gastronomy and sites, contact Claudio Loader at the regional tourism bureau (SERNATUR) or Hernan Cood from Expediciones Captain Francisco de Aguirre.