LLANOS DE CHALLE NATIONAL PARK, Chile: A rare bloom in Chile’s Atacama Desert has briefly transformed one of the world’s driest places into a dazzling carpet of fuchsia-colored wildflowers.
The arid region — considered the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, averaging around 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) of rainfall a year — was a riot of color this week after unusual downpours throughout the Southern Hemisphere’s winter months soaked the desert foothills and highlands.
Experts describe 2025 as among the Atacama’s wettest in recent years, with some high-elevation borderlands receiving up to 60 millimeters of rain (2.3 inches) in July and August.
Seeds from more than 200 flower species sit in the red and rocky soil of the Atacama Desert all year, awaiting the winter rains, said Víctor Ardiles, chief curator of botany at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History.
Moisture from the Amazon basin arrives to the desert’s eastern fringes as modest rainfall, and from the Pacific Ocean to its coastline as dense fog. Dormant seeds must store up at least 15 millimeters (0.6 inches) of water to germinate.
“When certain moisture thresholds are met, (the seeds) activate, grow and then bloom,” Ardiles said.
Yet even then there’s no guarantee that brightly colored bulbs will explode through the soil.
“There are four key factors that determine whether this process reaches the seed – water, temperature, daylight and humidity,” Ardiles added.
“Not all the seeds will germinate, some will remain waiting … a portion will make it to the next generation, while others will be left behind along life’s path.”
The main threads in the floral carpet are pink and purple. But yellow, red, blue and white strands emerge as well.
Tourists flocked to the northern desert in recent days to marvel at the short-lived flower show. Some even trek from Chile’s capital, Santiago, 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the Copiapó region.
Most flowers will have vanished by November, as summer sets in. But more drought-resistant species can stick around until January.
“It’s one of those rare things you have to take advantage of,” said Maritza Barrera, 44, who hit the road with her two kids for almost six hours to catch the desert bloom in the Llanos de Challe National Park last week. “It’s more stunning than I could have imagined.”
Recognizing the ephemeral desert flowers as a conservation priority, Chilean President Gabriel Boric minted a new national park further inland in 2023, converting about 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of flower fields along the Pan-American Highway into Desert Bloom National Park.
“Nowhere on Earth does this phenomenon occur like it does here in Chile,” Ardiles said.
The world’s driest desert blooms into a rare, fleeting flower show
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The world’s driest desert blooms into a rare, fleeting flower show
- 2025 was one of Atacama’s wettest in recent years, with some high-elevation borderlands receiving up to 60 mm of rain in July and August
- Seeds from more than 200 flower species sit in the red and rocky soil of the Atacama all year, awaiting the winter rains, says Chilean botanist
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
