The flowering Atacama desert: Spanish reading (A2)
An A2 Spanish story about the desierto florido in northern Chile: seeds that wait years underground, the pata de guanaco and the añañucas, and why the bloom does not come every year.
El año que el desierto de Atacama se llenó de flores
Reading for practice
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The narrator's grandmother lives in Vallenar and has told her about the flowering desert since she was small. One year it rains in August and in September the two of them walk through Llanos de Challe National Park, where the hills are purple, yellow and white. A ranger explains the mechanism: the seeds wait years in the soil and many of them germinate together when real rain falls. It does not happen every year, because everything depends on the rain.
Yo no le creía mucho. El desierto de Atacama es uno de los lugares más secos del mundo, y en Vallenar pasan años enteros casi sin lluvia. El suelo es gris, con piedras y arbustos duros. No parece un jardín.
Pero en agosto de aquel año llovió. Llovió poco, aunque lo suficiente. Mi abuela me llamó por teléfono y me dijo dos palabras: «Ya empezó».
Llegué en septiembre. Fuimos al Parque Nacional Llanos de Challe, cerca de la costa de Huasco, y después de media hora entendí sus dos palabras. Los cerros eran morados, amarillos y blancos, y las flores llegaban hasta el horizonte.
Mi abuela quiso mostrármelo todo en un solo día. Caminaba delante, señalándome cada planta con el bastón. Me enseñó la pata de guanaco, una flor morada de tallo largo, y las añañucas rojas, que salen de un bulbo escondido bajo la tierra.
Un guardaparques nos explicó el secreto. Las semillas esperan en el suelo, y pueden esperar años. Cuando llueve de verdad, germinan muchas al mismo tiempo, y en pocas semanas pueden aparecer más de doscientas especies distintas.
También nos dijo la regla del lugar: nadie pisa las flores y nadie corta ninguna. Las semillas y los bulbos hacen falta allí, en su propia tierra.
Le pregunté cuándo iba a pasar otra vez. Nadie puede saberlo: todo depende de la lluvia. Algunos años el desierto florece y otros no.
Saqué muchas fotos y, cuando volví a casa, se las mandé a mis amigos. Ninguno me creyó al principio.
Ahora entiendo la frase de mi abuela. El desierto no está muerto: está esperando.
¿Y tú? ¿Alguna vez viste un lugar cambiar de color de un mes a otro? ¿Qué flor conoces por su nombre? Si un día vas al norte de Chile, escríbeme y cuéntamelo.
About this article
What you'll learn
Clitic position inside a story: in front of a conjugated verb, attached to an infinitive, attached to a bare gerund and obligatory with an affirmative command, plus les turning into se before las.
The narrator's grandmother lives in Vallenar and has told her about the flowering desert since she was small. One year it rains in August and in September the two of them walk through Llanos de Challe National Park, where the hills are purple, yellow and white. A ranger explains the mechanism: the seeds wait years in the soil and many of them germinate together when real rain falls. It does not happen every year, because everything depends on the rain.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
de verdad
newreally, properly
De verdad strengthens what stands next to it: llueve de verdad is not a few drops but real rain. It also stands alone as a reply: ¿De verdad? means "Really?"
It is very common in speech, and it is a natural way to say "really" without reaching for muy.
al mismo tiempo
newat the same time
Al mismo tiempo means "at the same time". Note the al: it is the obligatory contraction of a and el. The uncontracted a el survives only before a proper name that includes the article.
You need it whenever two things happen together: Hablaban al mismo tiempo.
al principio
newat first, in the beginning
Al principio means "at first". It implies that things changed later, so it usually pairs with después or al final.
It is one of the skeleton phrases of a story: Al principio no entendía nada, pero después...
en un solo día
newin a single day
Before a noun, solo is an adjective meaning "single, only one": en un solo día. Elsewhere it is usually the adverb "only", as in aquí solo llueve algunos años; after a verb it can also mean "alone, with no company", as in vive solo. Current spelling rules recommend writing both without an accent.
One short word doing two different jobs, and telling them apart is part of reading well.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
la semilla
Las semillas
seed
Semilla is a seed. In this text it is the main character: the seeds lie in the soil for years, waiting for rain. The verb from the same root is sembrar, "to sow".
You need it in cooking, in gardening and in figurative use: la semilla de una idea.
escondido
escondido
hidden
Escondido is the participle of esconder, "to hide". Here it follows the noun and works as an ordinary adjective, so it agrees: un bulbo escondido, una flor escondida.
The same root gives el escondite, the game of hide and seek, and a escondidas, "in secret".
el cerro
Los cerros
hill, small mountain
A cerro is a rise smaller than a mountain. In Chile, Peru and most of Spanish America it is the everyday word and it fills the map in place names. In Spain la colina or el monte is more usual for the same thing.
In Spain it is less common in everyday speech, but it appears in many place names, such as the Cerro de los Ángeles.
el guardaparques
Un guardaparques
park ranger
The word joins guardar, "to guard", and parques: the person who looks after the parks. It has one form for both numbers, un guardaparques and dos guardaparques, and only the article shows the number. El paraguas and el sacacorchos are built the same way.
Compounds of this shape are very productive in Spanish and they all behave alike.
el tallo
de tallo largo
stem, stalk
Tallo is the stem, the part between root and flower. The phrase de tallo largo describes the plant with no extra verb: una flor de tallo largo is a flower with a long stem.
The pattern de plus noun plus adjective describes anything: un hombre de pelo blanco, una casa de techo rojo.
el arbusto
arbustos duros
bush, shrub
An arbusto is a shrub: woody branches but no single trunk, and lower than a tree. Next to it, duro here means "tough, stiff" rather than "difficult".
Without this word it is hard to describe any dry landscape, and the Spanish-speaking world has plenty of them.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
with an infinitive the clitics can go in two places
quiso mostrármelo
she wanted to show me all of it
When an infinitive follows another verb, the clitics can either attach to the infinitive or move in front of the first verb: quiso mostrármelo and me lo quiso mostrar are both correct. The order inside the pair never changes: indirect me first, then direct lo. Attaching the two of them adds two syllables, which is why the written accent appears: mostrar becomes mostrármelo; attaching just one pronoun to an infinitive adds no accent: mostrarme.
Both versions are live in speech, so you have to recognise each even if you only produce one.
a bare gerund keeps the clitic attached
señalándome
pointing each plant out to me
Here señalando stands on its own, with no estar in front of it, and in that case the pronoun attaches: señalándome. There is nowhere to move it to, because there is no auxiliary verb ahead of it. The estar plus gerund pattern is different: there both positions work, estaba señalándome and me estaba señalando. Attaching again adds an accent: señalando becomes señalándome.
This explains why the pronoun moves in some sentences and cannot in others.
se las: les becomes se, and las agrees
se las mandé
I sent them to them
Two things happen at once. The indirect object is mis amigos, that is les; but before lo, la, los or las it always turns into se, giving se las and never les las. And las is feminine plural because it stands for muchas fotos.
Les las mandé is instantly audible as wrong, and the change to se is mechanical and has no exceptions.
an affirmative command always keeps the clitics attached
escríbeme y cuéntamelo
write to me and tell me about it
With an affirmative command there is no choice: the clitics attach to the verb and are written as one word, escríbeme, cuéntamelo. A negative command does the opposite and puts them in front: no me lo cuentes. The added syllables usually call for a written accent: escribe becomes escríbeme, cuenta becomes cuéntamelo; but dame and hazlo carry none.
Here the position is not a choice, so it is worth learning as a pair: affirmative joined, negative separate.
before a conjugated verb the clitics stand separately
me lo contaba
she used to tell me about it
When the verb is conjugated and stands alone, the clitics go in front of it, as separate words, in the order indirect then direct: me lo contaba. They cannot be attached to a verb like this one. Here lo points forward, to the grandmother's words later in the sentence.
This is the default position that every other case in the text is measured against.
¿Alguna vez viste...? against ¿Alguna vez has visto...?
Alguna vez viste
Have you ever seen...?
In Spain a question about life experience normally uses the present perfect: ¿Alguna vez has visto...? In Chile, Argentina, Mexico and most of Spanish America the simple past is the natural choice for the same question: ¿Alguna vez viste...? Both are correct, and the choice is only a clue to where a text is from: the Canaries and the north-west of Spain also favour the simple past.
This story is set in Chile, so the closing question is asked the Chilean way; it pays to recognise both.
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