Paposo Bay

Paposo Bay lies on a narrow shore between the Pacific and the steep mountains of the Atacama Desert. Coastal fog, or camanchaca, supplies moisture to plants despite the scarcity of rain. Fishing families moved between the small coves, exchanging dried conger eel with visitors from inland. In 1794 the navigator Alejandro Malaspina recorded forty-nine Indigenous fishers at Paposo while noting other groups dispersed along the desert coast.