The “driest place on Earth” is blooming with flowers after surprise rainfall

What usually looks like this:

and this:

is now looking like this:

Welcome to the Atacama desert, which is the driest place on Earth (if you exclude the poles). The average rainfall in the region is about 15 millimeters (0.6 inches) per year. But every five to seven years, unusual rainfall in the autumn causes more than 200 species of flowers to bloom in spring.

The last time this happened was in 2015, when iconic pictures of the valley turning pink made headlines. This time, however, the bloom has come earlier. Just two years after the previous one, and tourists are flocking to enjoy the phenomenon called “desierto florido” or flowering desert.