{"id":266,"date":"2026-10-17T14:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T14:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.heyandes.cl\/toconar\/?page_id=266"},"modified":"2026-10-17T14:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T14:32:20","slug":"high-plateau-wildlife","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/test.heyandes.cl\/toconar\/en\/high-plateau-wildlife\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildlife on the high plateau: who really lives out there"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people arrive in Atacama expecting an empty desert. That’s what the landscape suggests from the road: stone, salt and nothing else.<\/p>\n

Then you climb onto the high plateau and find it’s full of animals. The trick is knowing when to look.<\/p>\n

The vicu\u00f1a, which doesn’t run<\/h2>\n

This is the animal that surprises most. The vicu\u00f1a is the smallest wild camelid in South America, and it lives above 3,500 meters, so you’ll spot it on the road to the high Andean lagoons, not near the village.<\/p>\n

What nobody expects is that they don’t flee. They lift their heads, watch the truck go by and go right back to grazing. They were once on the brink of extinction because of their wool, one of the finest fibers in the world, and today they’re protected. That calm gaze is the result of decades without being hunted.<\/p>\n

Where:<\/strong> on the way to Tuyajto<\/span>, Miscanti<\/span> and Mi\u00f1iques<\/span>.
\nWhen:<\/strong> all day, but more active early in the morning.<\/p>\n

The flamingos of Chaxa<\/h2>\n

Three flamingo species share the Salar de Atacama, and Chile is one of the few places in the world where you can see all three together: the Andean, the Chilean and the James’s flamingo.<\/p>\n

You can tell them apart by their legs. The Chilean has gray legs with red joints; the Andean has yellow ones; the James’s is the smallest and the hardest to spot.<\/p>\n

They feed by filtering the brackish water of the lagoon, and that filtered food is what gives them their color: they hatch gray and turn pink from what they eat.<\/p>\n

Where:<\/strong> Laguna Chaxa, in the Los Flamencos National Reserve.
\nWhen:<\/strong> at sunset. The low light backlights them, and that’s when they’re most active.<\/p>\n

The culpeo fox, at dawn<\/h2>\n

It’s the second-largest canid in South America, after the maned wolf. Here you’ll see it along the edges of the salt flat and sometimes near buildings, at dawn or just before dark.<\/p>\n

Never feed them.<\/strong> A fox that learns humans are a food source stops hunting, approaches the roads and ends up hit by a car. It’s the fastest way to harm the very animal you came to see.<\/p>\n

Viscachas, which look like rabbits but aren’t<\/h2>\n

Among the rocks of the high plateau live rodents with long tails and round ears that look like a cross between a rabbit and a squirrel. They’re relatives of the chinchilla, live in colonies among the stones and sunbathe in the mornings.<\/p>\n

If you stay still for ten minutes near a rocky outcrop, they start to come out.<\/p>\n

And the llamas, which are another story<\/h2>\n

You’ll see llamas right here, at the vineyard. They aren’t wild: they’re domesticated, and the ayllus of this area have been raising them for centuries. On the Llama Trek you walk with them through Toconao<\/span>.<\/p>\n

They’re curious and calm, and the reputation for spitting is overblown. They spit at each other to settle pecking order. At people, hardly ever.<\/p>\n

How to watch without disturbing them<\/h2>\n