Tierra Atacama, Chile
Tierra Atacama offers the kind of travel that is holistic wellness - not just the relaxation or physical reboot kind, but the kind of transcendent engagement with the natural world that regenerates our sense of wonder and zest for life.
An ‘adventure and spa’ hotel in Chile’s otherworldly Atacama desert, Tierra sits on six acres of lush gardens fragrant with rosemary and lavender. Intended to showcase the stunning surrounding landscape, the hotel’s minimalist, airy design immerses you in the desert’s beauty from the moment you wake up, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Licambur volcano in every room and firepits positioned to create dream-like frames of the Andean terrain.
On arrival Tierra’s expert guides will walk you through a portfolio of available excursions, including spectacular hiking tours, desert bike rides, horseback adventures, stargazing experiences and visits to the region’s one-of-a-kind natural attractions. The driest non-polar spot on the globe, Atacama hosts a diversity of breathtaking ecosystems, from the surreal Moon Valley to the cactus-spiked cliffs of Guatin to high altitude geysers, hot springs and lagoons. Tierra’s excursion to the Chaxa salt flats, where we watched a full moon rise over the altiplano while flamingos flocked around us, was a favorite. If you can’t time your trip around the full moon (the full moon night hike through Death Valley was another highlight), never fear – Atacama is one of the best spots in the world to take in the stars due to the absence of light pollution, and the starscape is clearest when the outsized full moon doesn’t light up the sky.
Tierra Atacama offers more than one-in-a-lifetime outdoor adventures – once you’ve earned your downtime, indulge in facials, massages, body wraps, scrubs and alternative therapies at Tierra’s Uma Spa, featuring local ingredients such as volcanic mud, lithium-rich salt and desert herbs. Uma’s ‘luxe baths’ in an open-air hot tub are a decadent standout (the nourishing goat’s milk bath with rose and mint will leave your skin beyond smooth), but the reiki with crystal therapy and reflexology treatments are also world-class. It’s easy to spend several full days just taking advantage of the indoor-outdoor hydrotherapy circuit and free yoga classes, drifting between the steam room, the indoor pool with its water jets and bubble beds, and the al fresco pools with their matchless views of the Licambur volcano.
A stay at Tierra Atacama will leave you alive to sensation and refreshed with that deep vitality that only places with natural presence can provide. At Antara we’re obsessed with helping our brains and thus our consciousness flourish - it’s worth remembering that neurons are wired to respond to novel events, and as long as we keep cultivating them in our lives, we keep stimulating the growth of new brain tissue. Fascination during new and unique life experiences like those available at Tierra plays a fundamental role in focusing our awareness and switching on the genes that stimulate the formation of new neurons (neurogenesis) and new connections within the brain (neuroplasticity). And of course, these numinous experiences do more than change the structure of our brains for the better – they strengthen the foundation of our mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
