Every other ten years something magical happens: the Atacama desert blossoms for the winter season (around this time). Of course science can explain this: abundant rains in the previous months – which are an uncommon occurrence in the desert, sometimes provoked by the phenomenon of El Niño or ENSO Southern Oscillation, when the temperature of the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than its usual average – water seeds enough to turn into flowers.
If there was ever a time we needed to be reminded that flowers do bloom in the desert, this is probably it.
The most common variety are the pink/purple pictured (‘patas de guanaco’) but there are many other varieties, as well as cactuses.
These photos were taken in August of 2017, which some elder locals described as the biggest bloom they had ever seen. I happened to be around at the time 😉
