Until he quit the company in a design dispute this year, German del Sol, now in his early 50s, was explora's chief architect, and he still serves as an unofficial spokesman for its concept. His exuberantly romantic style, with its affection for sweeping staircases, enormous windows and splashy colors, has won international praise.

Del Sol also bears primary responsibility for explora's pampering style. He fervently believes, along with the Wallace Shawn character in "My Dinner with Andre," that life in general is "abrasive," and that nature offers an antidote, as long as one takes care to soften nature's rough edges. (At the firm's two hotels, this includes heated pools, Belgian chocolates on the pillow and van drivers who rush to place a little stool under the toes of descending guests.)

"Backpackers have told me this is not the true experience of wilderness," del Sol told me, without a trace of irony, in his airy studio in a hydrangea garden in Santiago. "Only if you have to pick up your tent and fix your own meals can you have the full experience. But I say, to the contrary: If you are worried all day about surviving, you don't have time to just be. With explora, you can go out in the rain all day and not care because you know you can be in a Jacuzzi in the evening."

Of course, there are travel options available between bare-bones backpacking and the explora's extreme-luxury approach. Even in the Atacama desert and Patagonia, one can find modest and reasonably comfortable three-star hotels -- if you don't mind a little mildew smell and some disappointing meals. But del Sol understands that my generation loves its SUVs and gourmet olive oils.

During my stay at the Atacama hotel, I ran into a tour group of a couple dozen U.S. travel agents. They predicted the resort would be a major hit with harried but adventurous North Americans of a certain age.

"Boomers want the class, the comfort, the Jacuzzi and the wine -- especially the wine -- and they also want to be outside," said Betsy Donley, a Phoenix-based adventure travel specialist, who was still a bit breathless from her gallop over sand dunes in the Valley of Death.

Explora journeys, to be sure, aren't risk-free. Visitors to Atacama must sign away any intention to sue for accidental injury or death, after reading a warning presented in del Sol's quaint English style: "As you may have already notice, or will become aware shortly, you are in the remote, in the "finis terrae" of all explorations. Everything you shall see and experience is the real matter of things. Nothing has been altered, domesticated of softened. This is it, in itself."

At least three tourists (apparently none from explora) have died in the area, either by standing too close to geysers or slipping while climbing volcanoes. As del Sol noted, Chile's nature isn't "domesticated." The tall, steaming geysers, which would surely be fenced and patrolled were they in the United States, simply appear after a turn in the road on a vast plain a couple hours' drive from the hotel, with nary a warning sign.

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