HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN

THESE ROADSIDE SHRINES ARE HOMES FOR LOST LOVED ONES' SOULS.

I COULDN'T TAKE my eyes off it. I'd just landed in Calama, Chile, in the Atacama Desert, and barely seven miles down Route 23 from the airport was this, this... structure. It was a triptych made of concrete blocks, trimmed in fluorescent orange paint, and festooned with garish fake flowers. In front of this edifice sat a small blue hatchback atop a plinth. A portrait of a young man wearing a gray hoodie was displayed on one wall. A few leggy saplings sprouted nearby.

I might have been less surprised to see Matt Damon tromping around in a spacesuit than to spot a tree here-even a small, frail one. The area receives only five millimeters of rainfall annually. Somebody waters those saplings.