5 Best Sights in El Norte Grande, Chile

The amazing Cerros Pintados, the largest group of geoglyphs in the world, within the Reserva Nacional Pampa del Tamarugal are well worth a detour. These figures, which scientists believe helped ancient peoples navigate the desert, date from AD 500 to 1400. They are also quite enormous—some of the figures are decipherable only from the air. Drawings of men wearing ponchos were probably intended to point out the route to the coast to the llama caravans coming from the Andes. More than 400 figures of birds, animals, and geometric patterns adorn this 4-km (3-mile) stretch of desert.

The world's largest anthropomorphic geoglyph, the Gigante de Atacama, measures an incredible 86 meters (282 feet). The Giant of the Atacama is a depiction of a giant man, perhaps an Incan chief or shaman, that with his square head looks a bit like a video game space alien. It is adorned with a walking staff, a cat mask, and a feathered headdress that resembles rays of light bursting from his head. The exact age of the figure is unknown, but it certainly hails from before the arrival of the Spanish, perhaps around AD 900. The geoglyph, which is on a hill, is best viewed just before dusk, when the long shadows make the outline clearer.

Just 3 km (2 miles) north of San Pedro lies this ancient fortress at the entrance to the Valle de Catarpe, which was built in the 12th century to protect the Atacameños from invading Incas. It wasn't the Incas but the Spanish who were the real threat, however. Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia took the fortress by force in 1540. The crumbling buildings were carefully reconstructed in 1981 and declared a national monument in 1982.

A two-hour hike from Mamiña will bring you here, a great place to watch the sunset. You'll find interesting petroglyphs left by the Incas and an excellent view of the valley. To find it, head west on the trail a block west of the bottler.

This archaeological site, 9 km (6 miles) southwest of San Pedro, marks the remains of the oldest known civilization in the region. Built around 800 BC, the village of Tulor was home to the Linka Arti people, who lived in small mud huts resembling igloos. The site was uncovered only in the middle of the 20th century, when Jesuit missionary Gustavo Le Paige excavated it from a sand dune. Archaeologists hypothesize that the inhabitants left because of climatic changes and a possible sandstorm. Little more about the village's history is known, and only one of the huts has been completely excavated. As one of the well-informed guides will tell you, even this hut is sinking back into the obscurity of the Atacama sand.