Puna De Atacama

In September 2024, Nomadic Road's Puna de Atacama expedition took a group of overlanders 2,000 kilometres across one of the highest and most remote deserts on the planet. The Puna de Atacama sits on the border of Argentina and Chile, on a plateau that sits between 3,500 and 5,000 metres above sea level. Ten days of 4x4 driving across this terrain pushes vehicles and people in roughly equal measure. The route mixed long tarmac stretches with extended dirt sections, climbing onto salt flats, threading through volcanic landscapes and dropping into high-altitude lagunas. The Puna is technically a desert, but it is the high-altitude kind: cold at night, fierce sun by day, and air thin enough that walking up a small slope feels like a workout. Vicuñas appear in herds on the open plateau, and flamingos work the lagunas in groups that seem geometrically impossible. September is a transition month in the Puna, with stable weather and big temperature swings. The 2024 group slept at altitude most nights, sometimes above 4,000 metres, which produced the usual mix of headaches, big appetites and shallow sleep. Meals were communal, the convoy moved at the rhythm of the road, and several days closed with sunsets that turned the volcanoes pink and the salt flats briefly gold. The Puna de Atacama is not Nomadic Road's most famous expedition, but it is one of the most singular. The September 2024 edition delivered an under-known corner of South America at full intensity. For Nomadic Road, the September 2024 Puna edition remains one of the most under-publicised but visually rewarding routes in the South American catalogue, and one of the most physically demanding for participants new to high altitude.