Jere Valley

This valley was born from the union of small streams in the highlands that were born in the Andes Mountains and feed water to the Salar de Atacama, providing fresh water to Toconao which allows the cultivation of a variety of plant species, of these the most produced are apricots, peaches, quinces, plums, pomegranates, water pears, grapes, figs, oranges, among others. It also has native species such as molle bell pepper, carob and chañar, as well as species that have been introduced for a long time, such as eucalyptus and poplar, widely used in construction.

The valley is cultivated by a large number of orchards belonging to the families of the first stumps, who spent long hours working the land and irrigating their properties with flood systems, by channeling water. But in the year 2012 a large alluvial flood descended through the ravine destroying a large part of the valley and modifying the course of the river, however the resilience of the stumps is enormous and today they rise thanks to their organization to continue producing in this fertile valley.

Part of the Andean cosmovision and its ancestral history is related to pictography, petroglyphs and geoglyphs used by the ancestors as instruments of demarcation and expression, intimately related to their way of life. This is how we can find engravings on stones, shelters or utilitarian sites linked to the manufacture of hunting tools, smelting materials, associated with rituals such as rogations, invitations and payments to mother earth, practiced to this day.

The trojas de Jere are known to have been used by the ancient inhabitants to store and protect their food from inclement weather, being used as a form of handmade refrigeration of the products obtained in the ravine, which includes a process of burying the food with fine, clean sand, lasting up to 6 months in storage.

This great green lung in the middle of the Atacama Desert, allows a beneficial microclimate to the area, besides giving its visitors its great extension and beauty to walk around it all day long.