The driest and highest desert in the world, rolling sand dunes, steaming geysers, gurgling volcanoes, flamingo-dotted salt flats, snow-capped peaks and crystal blue lagoons, Chile’s Atacama Desert is a photographer’s dream. Somehow though, more pervasive then the visual feast, is an undefinable otherworldliness that you simply can’t shake.

Set in the red dusty Chilean border of Paraguay and Bolivia, the main town centre, San Pedro de Atacama, is a dramatic adobe-brick village. Small, rustic and photogenic, this town could very easily have come straight off a movie set.

I’d heard others speak about a lingering spirituality felt in Atacama, and I was a curious to find out whether this was just overly enthusiastic tourist tales. But never have I felt the vast majesty of Mother Nature to the extent that I experienced while at Piedras Rojas. Walking the scaly red rocks and staring out to the ice blue altiplano lagoons surrounded by the snowy Andes Mountain, was a humbling sight.

Between the vibrant colours of the landscape, the starry desert sky at night, and the Chilean comfort food, there is an unforgettable raw and earthy energy to this breathtaking corner of the earth location.