Lasana is a place where the desert makes a promise and keeps it. A few kilometres north of the oasis village of Chiu-Chiu, in northern Chile, the Loa river, the only river that crosses the Atacama, cuts a green gorge through the dry hills, with fields of alfalfa, willows and bright reeds, and on a rocky hill above the water stand the ruins of a pukará, a pre-Hispanic fortress of stone walls and terraces. The people who lived here, the Atacameño, lived in the oasis for centuries, farming maize, quinoa and potatoes, and later the Inca arrived and built roads, storehouses and administrative posts. This section of the Qhapaq Ñan, part of the six-nation UNESCO listing of 2014, passes through the area.
The nearby church at Chiu-Chiu, one of the oldest in the region, is made of adobe with a roof of cactus wood, and dates from the seventeenth century. It stands in a plain white square with a small cemetery, as quiet as the desert itself.
Calama, a city of about a hundred and forty thousand, is the working base for the great copper mines of the region, and it has every kind of service, including fuel, workshops, restaurants and hotels. Fill up there before leaving, as the distances are long. The road to San Pedro de Atacama, a hundred kilometres to the south-east, is paved and straight, with big skies and views of volcanoes, and trucks to the mines use the main roads, so give them room. The side road to Lasana is quieter, with some gravel.
The desert is dry and cold at night, hot in the day and bright at all hours, so bring sunglasses, sunscreen and a good jacket. The altitude here is about two thousand five hundred metres, enough to feel it on a hard walk. Autumn and spring are comfortable, and summer afternoons can bring a dusting of rain and wind. The silence in the gorge is the real souvenir.