Pan de Azucar National Park

A Coastal National Park Where The Atacama Desert Meets The Pacific, With Humboldt Penguins On An Offshore Island, Fog Fed Cactus And White Beaches · Chanaral, Atacama

Pan de Azucar National Park protects a stretch of the Atacama coast north of Chanaral where the driest desert on earth runs straight into the Pacific. White beaches and turquoise coves lie beneath bare brown hills, and just offshore rises Isla Pan de Azucar, a rocky island home to a colony of Humboldt penguins, reached by small fishing boats from the cove of Caleta Pan de Azucar, along with sea lions, cormorants and pelicans. Inland, the morning sea fog, the camanchaca, rolls in and sustains a surprising garden of endemic cactus and plants that live on nothing but mist; the Las Lomitas viewpoint high above the coast shows the fog nets and the vast view. Guanacos and foxes roam the hills. In rare rainy years the surrounding desert bursts into the famous flowering desert, the desierto florido. The park is remote and simple, with campsites by the beach, a small fishing community and few services, and Chanaral, the nearest town, is about half an hour away. It is a quiet, starkly beautiful place, far from the tour circuits of the north.

Caleta Pan de Azucar, Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar, Chanaral, Atacama, Chanaral, Atacama, Chile

The park is open all year; ranger posts keep daytime hours. Boat trips to see penguins at Isla Pan de Azucar leave from the fishing cove when the sea allows. Campsites operate mostly in summer. Morning coastal fog, the camanchaca, is common.

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