Desert & Altiplano
Inspired by its distinctive care and understanding of South America’s remote regions, explora reinforces its commitment to our natural and human heritage through its Conservation Reserves initiative. The reserves aim to impact 1 million hectares in the next ten years by bringing people together to explore and conserve the world’s unique landscapes, cultures and ecosystems.
The region is also home to ancestral Quechua and Aymara cultures, who keep their centuries-old way of life, based on Llama and Vicuña herding. They still worship ice-capped mountains and volcanoes, a living remnant of their pre-Christian past as descendants of the Tiwanaku and the Incas.
The Altiplano is the most extensive high plateau on Earth after Tibet. It has been nurturing flora, wildlife and people who adapted through millennia to live in the thin air, over 15.000 feet high. Red lagoons, yellow slopes and plants such as Llareta, a fluorescent green bubble-looked plant that can live up to three thousand years, are some of the endemic species of this unique environment.
On its south-west limit, the Altiplano slides to the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. Mainly rock and petrous salt of different shapes and colors, Atacama is a place engraved by geological time, full of solitude and silence. It has the clearest skies of earth, offering a full display of the Southern celestial vault by night, while by day colossal volcanos guard never-ending horizons.
Over the last decades, our engagement with Altiplano and Atacama reinforced our care for their territories and the people who belong and visit them. Their unique landscapes, exceptional ecosystems and living ancestral cultures are a world’s heritage that only sustainable conservation will preserve for present and future generations.
Through our Conservation Reserve we aim to expand and accelerate conservation in the region and project it in perpetuity, bringing people together and making exploration possible to future generations.
Inspired by its distinctive care and understanding of South America’s remote regions, explora reinforces its commitment to our natural and human heritage through its Conservation Reserves initiative.
Twenty-five years ago, we arrived in Atacama to keep developing our history of deep exploration. Today we are recognized as the World Leading Expedition Company 2019, after being South America’s first for almost a decade. Through our conservation reserves, we push forward our drive for opening new routes, as we believe that only sustainable conservation will make exploration possible for future generations Inspired by the same impulse that discovered the remote places of South America, we bring together entrepreneurial inventive with non-profit commitment into a business model that enables to conserve into perpetuity.
The urgent need for sustainability encouraged us to deepen our commitment to the territory and the people who belong and visit it. Our Conservation Reserves contribute to preserving these environments and their species, such as the endangered Andean Cat and the Queuñas, the ancestral trees of the Andean heights. Our School of Guides provides comprehensive and constant training to help others to explore, know, engage with and care about this regions.
Located amid the world’s driest desert and the most extensive high plateau on Earth after Tibet, our Altiplano Conservation Reserves allowed us to immerse into environments whose flora, wildlife, and people adapted through millennia to live in the thin air and extreme aridity. In those regions, travelers can meet Quechua, Aymara, and Likanantay communities practicing their centuries-old ancestral traditions in their everyday lives.
The unique landscapes, endemic biodiversity and ancestral cultures of the Altiplano and Atacama Region are a heritage for today and tomorrow’s generations. Our Conservation Reserves are conceived to bring people together to support and participate in a wide range of conservation projects to explore and preserve the world unique.
-
Twenty-five years ago, we arrived in Atacama to keep developing our history of deep exploration. Today we are recognized as the World Leading Expedition Company 2019, after being South America’s first for almost a decade. Through our conservation reserves, we push forward our drive for opening new routes, as we believe that only sustainable conservation will make exploration possible for future generations Inspired by the same impulse that discovered the remote places of South America, we bring together entrepreneurial inventive with non-profit commitment into a business model that enables to conserve into perpetuity.
-
The urgent need for sustainability encouraged us to deepen our commitment to the territory and the people who belong and visit it. Our Conservation Reserves contribute to preserving these environments and their species, such as the endangered Andean Cat and the Queuñas, the ancestral trees of the Andean heights. Our School of Guides provides comprehensive and constant training to help others to explore, know, engage with and care about this regions.
-
Located amid the world’s driest desert and the most extensive high plateau on Earth after Tibet, our Altiplano Conservation Reserves allowed us to immerse into environments whose flora, wildlife, and people adapted through millennia to live in the thin air and extreme aridity. In those regions, travelers can meet Quechua, Aymara, and Likanantay communities practicing their centuries-old ancestral traditions in their everyday lives.
-
The unique landscapes, endemic biodiversity and ancestral cultures of the Altiplano and Atacama Region are a heritage for today and tomorrow’s generations. Our Conservation Reserves are conceived to bring people together to support and participate in a wide range of conservation projects to explore and preserve the world unique.
Our Conservation Reserves
Inspired by its distinctive care and understanding of South America's remote regions, explora reinforces its commitment to our natural and human heritage through its Conservation Reserves initiative.
Puritama Conservation Reserve
Running through the Puritama River Valley in a deep canyon of the Atacama desert, this Explora Conservation Reserve offers an oasis of abundant native flora and fauna, crystalline water, and gentile hot-springs. The reserve helps to sustain life across two broad ecoregions, where the Altiplano (Andean High Plateau) converges with the Atacama, the driest desert of the world.
Explore Puritama Conservation Reserve >Learn more
We aspire for each traveler more than just getting to know deeply the lands they visit, but to fall in love with them and to go back with a personal commitment to preserve what they could know and comprehend for future generations.
ABOUT US
Our journey has always had a purpose: building awareness of the fragility of these territories, and therefore of the urgency behind their protection.
Read more >OUR COMMITMENT
We aspire for each traveler go back with a personal commitment to conserve what they could know and comprehend for future generations.
Read more >
Discover Our Destinations
Endless revelations and possibilities await.
