See the World's Driest Desert Covered in Wildflowers See the World's Driest Desert Covered in Wildflowers

Wildflowers See the World's Driest Desert Covered in Wildflowers
The desert holds millions of dormant seeds in its soils. When rain waters these seeds, they can open and take root, eventually growing into flowers that are red, orange, yellow, purple and white.

The last super bloom happened in 2015, and the next one wasn't expected for several more years. But the unexpected rains delivered a rare treat: fragrant flowers ahead of schedule.

The Atacama Desert sits on a 600-mile-long (1,000 kilometers) plateau in northern Chile that borders Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. The harsh, arid land is sparsely populated, but thousands of tourists flock there during super blooms to see the more than 200 floral and wildlife species