The crowded pueblo
Atacama Desert, Chile. Northeast of San Pedro de Atacama, at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters, lies the tiny pueblito of Machuca. It has one street and a church. The street ain’t long. The church is ordered and abandoned. Tiny adobe houses align the street. Their method of construction hasn’t changed since anyone can remember.
There are four people living in Machuca. When six gather, they say the pueblo is crowded.
Most of Machuca’s population has migrated to San Pedro and other desert villages. However, with the help of San Pedro’s municipal projects some years ago, indigenous atacameña people started to return, slowly. They revived agricultural activities and shepherding, and now have several hundreds of llamas grazing around.
Machuca’s tiny houses have solar panels installed on their roofs. This means that its people now have electricity 24 hours a day. They can also listen to the radio. Before, a diesel generator produced electricity just for a couple of hours a day.
Machuca and its solar panels
We want it too
At the beginning of this year, a small community called Ayllu de Cúcuter, south of San Pedro, proposed a solar panel project which would finally bring electricity to their homes. Most of the approximately 60 people in Ayllu de Cúcuter are older. The young have left elsewhere for jobs. Those who stayed are busy with agriculture, and they don’t want to go anywhere.
There is no electricity or running water in Ayllu de Cúcuter.
If installed, solar panels would provide this community with the energy needed for lighting, TV and radio. Farewell, dear petrol, goodbye, noisy generator!
Atacama is perfect
Chile, being highly dependent on its energy sources from outside, is interested in renewable energy. Atacama has one of the highest solar radiation in the world. It’s a perfect place for solar power.
Until now, Chile couldn’t really brag about its achievements in renewable energy, despite its huge potential for solar and wind power. But this is due to change. By the end of this year, if all goes well, the first photovoltaic plant in Chile and South America should start operating. The project includes 133,000 solar panels on 65 acres in an area not far from San Pedro. This would be great news for local communities.
But there is a shadow hanging over. California’s example of the green v. green battle over solar plant in Mojave Desert proves nothing is simple. In California, one green side stands for renewable, sustainable energy. The other green side fights for the desert’s ecosystems which could be potentially destroyed by the development of such a project. Who is right, and who is more right than others?
Dark note
Sun is abundant in Atacama, but water is not. Atacama is the driest place on Earth. Scientists say there are places in this desert where it never rained, never. Water is scarce. Posters in shower booths ask tourists to take showers of no longer than 3 minutes. Everywhere you are asked to save water.
And yet, oh almighty malicious ignorance! I was shocked to see that there is not only one, but some, hotels in San Pedro which challenge nature or, rather, laugh at it. They managed to build swimming pools and hydromassage spas.
A swimming pool in a desert where water is so precious?! Dios mio, what is wrong with those people?!
Pictures: me.
WOW! Very interesting to know about Atacama! I loved how you wrote this article Giedre…I could imagine myself in that place
Amazing
Hi Giedre,
The only great thing about developments like this is that green is now fighting green.
Before it was the green movement against the ‘bad guys’(polluters). Now they are facing their own.
It forces everybody to start thinking about priorities. In my opinion sustainable development for people comes first and although deserts can be extremely beautiful, they are not really an asset for humans.
Beautifully written. And photographed
Gorgeous photos. If I had money right now, I’d invest in solar panels and desalination equipment.
Thank you guys!
Atacama is indeed a magic place.
Johan, I agree a discussion between green and green is a positive thing, as it leads to - hopefully - the best solutions. What I’m afraid of, though, is that the general public would just dismiss the whole thing as an internal fight and demand them to just make up their minds. I know many people for whom the ‘green movement’ or ‘saving the world’ is some anomaly at its worst, or at least a bunch of folk who have nothing better to do. They don’t realize it’s our world and our future we’re talking about, they think it’s somewhere far away and anyway doesn’t concern them. Maybe green v. baddies is a concept which is easier to grasp for them.
@Giedre,
I follow your reasoning.
But the fact that green fights green means that more people have been getting involved.
I have to think about what you say: what is better, green against not green, or green against green. Interesting question.
I think that green v. bad helps to make the green case stronger. One can then ask, am I the good one or the bad one? and hopefully not choose to be the evil. This California issue is undoubtedly complex, and in the future we will have more of this kind of decisions. But until it is clear for everyone what is at stake in the overall view, I think it’s safer to avoid this. And please share your thoughts when you come up to some solution!
Perfect written-story. I like it very much.
I just curious how about training the local people… I know the cases in Africa (Zambia), that the solar panels were installed and then after one year something was wrong so people (somehow trained) start to repair them, but without success and then the solar panels lost the guarantee… and people now live without electricity again.
Thank you Iwona, and thanks for sharing your story. In the Zambian case, wouldn’t whoever who installed the solar panels bear some responsibility to repair them? And it’s also weird that the guarantee is so short for such a thing. I think my phone has a longer one..
What I like about Atacama (primarily itself, of course!
), is how the municipality of San Pedro is taking care of its indigenous people. The Ayllu de Cúcuter community, the one which “wants it too”, asked for help cause they admitted they had no idea how it works. They just want electricity, and have seen other communities participating in these projects successfully. Because it’s not the first solar panel in the area, local people already have the experience and I suppose they would share it with others.
Chile is according to UNDP more developed than Poland so I think it should be OK. And it’s great that you noticed a care for indigenous people, as it’s their land.
In Zambia, the problem with guarantee was that local people started to fix it with their own hand… if something happen to your mobile, you are not allowed to touch it as well…
I heard the voices that Atacama is quite crowded by tourists, how did you manage to reach Machuca? I would love to go there.
Atacama is indeed very crowded by tourists, myself included… Obviously it wasn’t always like this. San Pedro has become almost solely a tourist town, with hotels, hostels, places to eat, and tourist operators on every corner. But you can still feel its magic, starry starry sky, mud houses, mud streets, super hot during the day and freezing at night, and people telling all sorts of stories. Oh gosh I’m feeling nostalgic.
Machuca is a town that had to pay the price, I guess. It’s included in the trip on the way back to San Pedro from El Tatio geysers. When tourists come, the four or six of its inhabitants, depending on how crowded it is that day, gather in the backyard of one of them. The rest of the time they are minding their own business.
I wish you all the good luck to get to Atacama!
It’s an amazing place.
For those interested in the Chilean water policy and more driest places on earth in Chile, i recommend this article:
“Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/world/americas/15chile.html?_r=1
Great piece of writing
This project is really interesting… I would like to try living there myself.
Thank you Giedre - I spent a lot of time in Northern Chile over the past years, so this brings lovely memories to mind.
I went to Machuca (like everybody else) on the way back from the Tatio Geysers. I remember tourist vans flooding the village all at once, and gringos lining up to buy lama meat and giant sopaipillas.
Chile has indeed been investing in renewable energies, but as far as I know this remains marginal, and the country is mostly opting for coal and hydroelectric power plants to decrease its dependence on fossil fuels. http://www.iea.org/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=292
@Hieke, thanks for the link! Very interesting article indeed. Private ownership… Somehow we always come to the same root cause and conclusion: it’s all about the money.
@Daniel, thank you. I’ll repeat myself again: Atacama is indeed a magic place.
@Tania, lovely memories.. By the way, what have you been doing in Northern Chile?
I think projects like these are the beginning, as Chile realises little by little that it cannot depend on outside sources for its energy forever (or local dirty sources). We’ll see by the end of this year if these plans become reality or not.
Solar panels in Machuca really surprised me, although they shouldn’t have, because it all makes perfect sense. Hotels with light blue water pools in the desert surprised me too, but in a completely different way. I guess you cannot have the good only, there’s always the evil part too.
@Giedre: I worked for the European Southern Observatory (http://www.eso.org/public/), which builds and operates top-notch telescopes in the Atacama desert. Near San Pedro, ESO is part of the 5,000-metre high ALMA project: http://www.almaobservatory.org/
I suppose the villagers in Machuca were able to invest in solar panels because they benefit from a steady influx of rich tourists who buy their products.
On a wider level, I’m glad to see Chile putting serious thought (and money?) into renewable energy sources; we’ll have to see how this project and the next ones fare under the new administration