Peruvian Coastal Deserts - The Sechura and the Atacama
Peru is a country of extremes, extremes in culture, language, history, architecture, flora, fauna and most noticeably, landscapes. Over half the country is Amazon Jungle, you have the spine of the mighty Andes mountains and finally the thin coastal strip of desert running the whole length of the country. Starting at the northern border in the Piura region the desert spreads out from the coast between 20 to 100 kilometers to the Andes mountains. This northern part is known as the Sechura Desert and runs just from the city of Piura to the Tumbes - Piura equatorial dry forests. The desert covers a total area of 188,735 square kilometers.
The Peruvians call only this northwestern portion of the coast the Sechura Desert while other sources, such as the World Wildlife Fund, consider the Sechura Desert to be the entire land mass of coastal desert from the most northwestern part of Peru connecting to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The coastal area of southern Peru below Nazca is considered to be part of the Atacama Desert by the National Geographic Society, so definitions vary, but the sand doesn't!
The Sechura Desert in the North is relatively wet and vegetated compared to the Atacama which is reputed (by NASA) to be the driest place on the planet. In 1998 the climatic phenomenon known as El Nino, which originate along this coast and affects weather patterns around the world periodically, cause unusually heavy rains making rivers bordering the desert to burst their banks and empty into the Sechura desert, forming the second largest body of water in Peru after Lake Titicaca. This freshwater lake was 90 miles long, 20 miles wide and 10 feet deep, with occasional domes of sand and clay appearing above the surface. Shrubs and scrub still continue to cover large portions of the desert as a result.
Due to the environmental effects of the nearby Pacific Ocean, the Sechura Desert has a very low temperature range. However, it is one of the most arid on the Earth because of cold coastal waters and subtropical atmospheric subsidence. During the summer months of December through March, the temperature ranges from 25