Bird and wildlife in the Atacama Desert, early April 2018

One of the surprising things about the Atacama desert was the amount of water, wildlife and bird life there was.  The rivers are very small with low flow but wherever there was water there was life...common in all environments, particularly in desert environments but because parts of the Atacama receive virtually no precipitation, or only a small amount every year or so, it seemed even more surprising.  We ended up seeing a number of bird species, llamas, pequenos (found at the highest elevations), and viscacha (a very interesting looking mammal with a long tail and rabbit like ears and in one picture looks like a miniature kangaroo, that is in the chinchilla family).  Anyway, here some photos of the Atacama critters.