On the road to San Pedro de Atacama

Driving across the immensity of the desert is a common experience in the north of Chile. Here is the road to San Pedro de Atacama, an emblematic village on the side of the Andes of the II Region of Chile. In the background, on the right side of the centre of the picture and barely distinguishable because of the haze, is the conical shape of the snowy 5920 m high Licancabur volcano. The Chajnantor plateau, about 50 km away from San Pedro de Atacama, is one of the best sites in the world for millimetre and submillimetre astronomy. It is the home of ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, as well as the APEX telescope.