Tucked away in the ancient Domeyko Mountains, about 90 kilometres from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, Rainbow Valley (Valle del Arcoíris) is one of the most underrated and visually striking landscapes in the Atacama Desert. Its name is no exaggeration – the hills and cliffs are streaked with vivid reds, greens, yellows, whites, and purples, a natural artist’s palette created over millions of years by complex geological processes.
The colours come from a mix of volcanic rock, sedimentary layers, and mineral deposits: iron oxides paint the hills red and orange, copper minerals lend greens and blues, and gypsum and clay add pale whites and yellows. Over time, tectonic uplift, volcanic eruptions, and relentless desert erosion sculpted this kaleidoscopic terrain, exposing a raw, layered history of the Earth’s crust.
Rainbow Valley and the nearby petroglyph sites are often overshadowed by their more famous sites like the spectacular altiplano lagoons, steam-shrouded Taitio geyser field, and the surrealistic Valley of the Moon. Yet I preferred the landscape of Rainbow Valley to the Valley of the Moon, and the experience of visiting Rainbow Valley is a tranquil adventure compared to the Valley of the Moon’s crowded, chaotic, and very short visit. You can find more details about this in my guide to the best things to do in the Atacama Desert.
So if you are looking for a peaceful yet spectacular experience in the Atacama Desert, Rainbow Valley is the perfect option. If you visit early in the morning, you might just have the valley to yourself, as we did.
In this guide, I’ll describe what to expect from the visit to the valley and to the nearby Yerbas Buenas petroglyphs site. Plus, I’ll tell you about a hidden gem – the Shaman’s petroglyphs site.
Rainbow Valley Tours
There aren’t as many tours for Rainbow Valley as there are for other destinations from San Pedro de Atacama, but that’s the beauty of it. This morning tour of Rainbow Valley and Yerbas Buenas petroglyphs is fantastic. To visit the Shaman’s petroglyphs, however, you’ll need your own car.
Exploring the Rainbow Valley (Valle del Arcoíris)
Whether you visit independently or on an organised tour, to explore Rainbow Valley, you’ll follow the designated walking trail – roughly 1.5 kilometres round trip. The trail loops through the most colourful section of the valley, offering easy access to its geological wonders.
The journey into the valley begins with a stroll through a very atmospheric narrow canyon. This deep, vertical-walled passage is carved into the iron-rich volcanic rock, creating a tall corridor of intensely red and pink stone that glows under the morning or late-afternoon light.
Geologically, the rock here is likely volcanic tuff – a soft, porous rock formed from compressed volcanic ash – which is especially vulnerable to erosion. Over time, rare but powerful desert rains rushed through existing fractures, gradually widening the gaps into slot canyon-like formations. The colouration, as with much of Rainbow Valley, is due to heavy concentrations of iron oxide, which gives the walls their rust-red hue.
As you exit the canyon, you’ll walk past a striking badlands formation – a deeply eroded, steep-sloped landscape carved into iron-rich volcanic tuff. The intense red and rose hues you see in the image above are from the high concentration of oxidised iron minerals in the rock, especially hematite, which gives the formations their rich, warm tones.
What makes this spot so visually striking is the sharp, conical ridges and deep vertical gullies that fan out from the cliff base like the folds of a massive geological curtain. These formations are created through differential erosion – where softer layers of volcanic ash erode faster than denser rock, creating narrow ravines, sharp ridges, and fluted spires.
Once you reach the valley floor, your eyes will be drawn to a striking multicoloured formation —one of the most iconic and visually rich scenes in Rainbow Valley – that captures the essence of the valley’s geological diversity in a single frame. The multi-colored slope is a natural cross-section of tilted volcanic and sedimentary layers, each band telling a story of ancient eruptions, mineral transformations, and tectonic upheaval.
The deep red and maroon tones that dominate the foreground and right side of the slope come from iron-rich volcanic rocks, where minerals like hematite and goethite have oxidised over time in the arid desert air. Cutting through these reds are broad greenish slopes, their colour created by copper-bearing minerals such as malachite or chlorite—evidence of hydrothermal processes, when hot, mineral-laden fluids once moved through the rock, altering its chemical makeup.
White and pale yellow layers are typically composed of gypsum, clay, or volcanic ash, deposited during quieter periods between eruptions or during sedimentation in ancient lakebeds. Purples and greys, which streak some of the upper layers, are often the result of manganese oxide or other trace minerals interacting with weathering processes. Together, these layers reveal a complex history of volcanic eruptions, mineral flows, tectonic uplift, and erosion—creating not only a beautiful landscape but a natural archive of the Earth’s geological past.
Sparse desert vegetation, scattered across the slopes, adds contrast and scale to the towering walls of colour. This natural amphitheatre is often considered the quintessential view of Rainbow Valley, like an open-air geology book.
Everywhere you look, the formations are coloured in multiple hues of red, green, purple, and white. It’s like walking inside a crazy artist’s dream.
If you look closely, you’ll see salt deposits clinging to the rocks here and there. This happens because the terrain here is composed of volcanic sediment, which contains water-soluble minerals. So when this area receives a bit of snow in winter, as it melts, the water will infiltrate the porous volcanic sediment and travel to the bottom of the valley, dragging along all the salt and minerals. As the weather warms up, the water evaporates and the salt crystallises.
The most popular spot in Rainbow Valley, however, is the viewpoint along the trail, where you see a massive red sandstone turret to your left, a mountain with multicoloured mineral layers ahead, and rugged spires shaped by erosion to the right.
This particular viewpoint is one of the most photographed spots in the valley because it captures the contrast between the red rock tower and the multicoloured mountain layers behind it, all under the high desert sun. It beautifully illustrates the valley’s volcanic origins, mineral diversity, and tectonic history in a single frame.
Dry River Bed
At the base of Rainbow Valley lies a wide, pale, winding channel that looks utterly dry under the desert sun. This is a seasonal riverbed, carved over thousands of years by rare but powerful flash floods.
Although the Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth, rainfall does occasionally occur at high elevations in the Andes. When it does, the water rushes down through narrow canyons with tremendous force, carrying sand, silt, pebbles, and even boulders. Over time, these flood pulses cut deep into the soft sandstone and clay, leaving behind the flat, cracked riverbed you walk on today.
In the dry season, which is most of the year, this riverbed becomes a natural pathway into the valley. The scattered rocks, driftwood-like sticks, and debris you see on the ground are remnants of past floods, traces of the force that shaped this desert canyon.
What makes the riverbed especially interesting is the contrast: a lifeless-looking corridor of dust and stones running through one of the most colourful geological zones in the Atacama. It’s a reminder that even in this super-arid environment, water, when it comes, still has the power to completely transform the landscape.
Life in the Desert
Despite the stark, mineral landscape of Rainbow Valley, life does gain a foothold along the dry riverbed, where moisture occasionally lingers after rare rains. The most visible plants belong to four hardy groups uniquely adapted to the Atacama’s extreme conditions.
Succulents store precious water in their fleshy leaves, allowing them to survive long droughts and expand quickly after even brief moisture.
Cacti, including small columnar and globular species, anchor themselves in the sandy soils and use spines to reduce water loss while collecting condensation from cool night air.
You’ll also see clusters of Rica-Rica shrubs, part of the high-altitude tolares vegetation; their silvery, aromatic leaves help them cope with intense sunlight and freezing nighttime temperatures.
Finally, the pajonales – tussocks of wiry desert grasses – grow wherever groundwater lies just beneath the surface, their deep roots stabilising the soil along ravines and old flood channels. Together, these four plant communities reveal how even the driest desert on Earth supports a surprising web of life, clinging to the margins of water in a landscape shaped by drought.
Yerbas Buenas Petroglyphs
Another place that often flies under the tourist radar, overshadowed by the Atacama’s dramatic lagoons, geysers, and volcanoes, is the Yerbas Buenas petroglyphs. Just a 15-minute drive from Rainbow Valley, this remarkable site is tucked into the remnants of a dry canyon, where ancient volcanic rocks are etched with hundreds of carvings left by the region’s early inhabitants.
For thousands of years, Yerbas Buenas has been a resting place for herders, traders, and travellers, drawn here by the rare combination of shade, shelter, and water of the Salado River. Over time, they left behind thousands of petroglyphs of llamas or guanacos, foxes, flamingos, and a few mysterious human shapes. Whether these carvings were a kind of accounting system, spiritual messages, or simply something to pass the time is still up for debate.
There’s a marked path that loops through the site, taking you past clusters of petroglyph-covered boulders and into a shallow shelter cave. There is some signage (not much) to help you make sense of what you are looking at. As you walk along exploring the petroglyphs, you might spot some of the Atacama Desert’s wild animals. Keep an eye out for the brightly coloured Pate’s lizards sunning on the rocks or running across the trail, and black Chilean beetles scampering among the vegetation.
Some of the most charming carvings at Yerbas Buenas are the llamas and guanacos. They appear in different poses—standing, walking, sometimes tucked beside a human figure—and you really get a sense of how closely the ancient herders observed the animals they depended on. The lines are simple but expressive, and once your eyes adjust to the style, you start seeing camelids everywhere on the rocks.
The foxes are even more intriguing. One panel shows two foxes, surrounded by long-eared viscachas. Look closely and you’ll notice something delightful: a tiny fox carved inside the larger one, almost like a hidden signature or a story within a story. No one knows exactly what it meant—was it symbolic? Playful? A teaching tool?—but it’s the kind of detail that makes this place feel alive and personal, even after a thousand years.
And then there’s the figure many interpret as Viracocha, the great Andean creator god. He’s instantly recognisable: a tall human form with outstretched arms and a radiating, crown-like head. Standing there with Viracocha carved into the stone, you think you’ve seen everything Yerbas Buenas has to offer—until you realise there’s a whole other site hidden just beyond the main trail.
Shaman’s Petroglyphs – a True Hidden Gem
Less than 1km north of the main site, there is another concealed site known as Shaman’s petroglyphs (22°40’15.7″S 68°14’03.2″W). There are no signs or formal trails, just a faint path leading across the open ground to the base of a rocky hillside. This is where you’ll find a cluster of carvings tucked a little higher up the slope.
Among the llamas, you’ll find human figures believed to represent ancient shamans. And to my absolute delight, I also found what looks unmistakably like an Andean cat carved into the stone – one of the rarest and most elusive wild cats in the world.
Head a little deeper into the mountains from here, and you’ll come across the “Puma” site. Tough, personally, I think the animals look more like foxes. Beyond this, you’ll find even more llama carvings, a few flamingos, and a fun, narrow stretch of ochre-colored canyon that eventually pops out onto the B-207 road. You’ll need to retrace your steps to get back to the car park, but the sense of discovery makes it feel like you’ve wandered into a forgotten corner of Atacama history.
Final Thoughts
Rainbow Valley ended up being one of my favourite places in the Atacama Desert. It may not have the hype of the big Atacama highlights, but maybe that’s why it feels so special. The colours, the silence, the odd little plants clinging to the riverbed, the petroglyphs that suddenly appear on a rock face—it all adds up to this slow, absorbing experience that’s hard to rush.
Even the drive out there feels like part of the adventure. If you’re the kind of traveller who likes wandering, noticing small details, and having a place mostly to yourself, Rainbow Valley is the kind of spot that sneaks up on you in the best possible way. It’s one of those corners of the desert that quietly gets under your skin.
More on Exploring Chile
- Where to See Atacama Desert Wildlife around San Pedro de Atacama
- Guide to Planning Your Patagonia Puma Quest in Torres Del Paine National Park
- Laguna Chaxa for Wildlife Lovers: Flamingos, Salt Flats, and Andean Wildlife
- Rainbow Valley Atacama Desert: The Most Underrated Landscape in Northern Chile
- Complete Guide to Exploring the Atacama Desert Around San Pedro de Atacama
- Walking Through Chilote Mythology: A Self-Guided Tour of Castro, Chiloe
- Discovering the Wild Side of Chiloe Island in Tepuhueico Park
- Discovering Chilean Patagonia in Winter: Torres del Paine in May
- Llama vs Alpaca vs Vicuña vs Guanaco: How to Tell Them Apart
