Day 40: Sairecabur The Bleak

The flat caldera of Sairecabur with Licancabur standing
imposing beyond its rim.
Are you getting bored of Volcanos yet?

Climbing volcanoes is quick and easy work, right?  We established that on Volcan Toco, on the third day of our Atacama 'road' trip.  So today we headed north to pay Sairecabur a quick visit, at 5,970m.

Well, climbing the volcano may be easy, but driving to it certainly isn't.  The turn-off to the mountain quickly led us into a bumping, jolting, precipitous and generally shit-scary world which we survived for about ten kilometres and no more.  At 4,900m, we abandoned our four-wheeled home and set out on foot.  This was not in the script.  The road was supposed to take us to 5,500m from where we could nip up to the summit in a few hours.  We now had an extra 600m to climb and no spare time to climb it in.  Bother.

Nonetheless we plodded up the 'road' until we reached a shoulder of the mountain, adorned with one of the Atacama's many telescopes and fine views across to - guess which volcano? - yes, Licancabur.  The wind whipped around us; Susan's toes, as usual, froze.  And the mountain above us looked like a pile of choss.  We were only 200m from the summit but somehow it looked a long and bleak distance.  Compounding our troubles, we were reaching our pre-agreed turnaround time and driving back down the track in the dark was not an appealing option.  Time to take a photo of Licancabur (not for the last time) and retreat.  Perhaps climbing 6,000m volcanoes isn't so easy after all.  In Thomas the Tank Engine terms, Susan and Guy were now sadder and wiser engines.

At least the day ended on a positive note when we found a beautiful camping spot by a lagoon and treated a flock of vicunas (a bit like small llamas) to their first lesson in English roots music, played on Guy's iPhone.  After a life of listening to the ice crack and the wind howl, surely they enjoyed the change?

Virc unias... timid creatures to photograph with a big telephoto!

Volcan Colorado in the evening sun.

Day 39: The Stone Cathedral and the Hidden Lagoon

The Stone Cathedral and the Hidden Lagoon

A warm night (a statement without irony).  I didn't even fully zip up my sleeping bag or wear my down jacket in bed.  This is the life!  Guy did a quick temperature check in the middle of the night to find out just how balmy the conditions were.  The result: -5 degrees!  How have we reached the point where we consider camping in -5 degrees to be a warm and luxurious night?  Something's gone wrong with this travelling lark; badly wrong!

But there was nothing wrong with the location.  Our rocky sculpture park emerged from the darkness but remained silent except for the porridge bubbling on our stove. (I will shortly be giving up porridge for life.  As a life-long vegetarian, even the prospect of a dead cow on my plate is becoming almost as appealing.)  Then the noise of a motor took us by surprise.  Another 4x4 was paying us a visit, skirting the rock pinnacles and taking an interesting course towards the hills.  What's around there, we wondered?  There was only one way to find out.

After about an hour and a half's off-road driving, with the car in 4x4 mode and both of us in tense mode (the further we went, the longer the walk out if we broke down), we began to descend through an aisle of rock to another lagoon.  This one was special: deserted (except for the landrover that had passed our campsite earlier), encircled by shapely summits, stocked with a wide colour palette (white salt, green algae, various blues of water and sky, every shade of desert between yellow and brown, pink flamingos, grey flamingos, grey-pink flamingos, black-and-white Andean avocets, and one very red 4x4).  We sat at the edge of the lake watching the flamingos eat their dinner, then settled to our own avocado-based meal.  I want to live in a country with this many avocados.

It was a wrench to leave the lagoon but making it back to the main road without incident was a relief.  Having a shower and sleeping in temperatures above zero, back in San Pedro, was a bigger one.  Zzzzzzz.

Approaching the Salar de Tara

Our trusty mining truck. I'm running the risk of wanting to buy a Hilux now!

Flamingos on the Salar de Tara

The beauty of the Salar de Tara

It's a long, long way to drive through the Puna!
(I think the tour agencies we saw thought that we were mad for doing this ourselves).

Day 38: Volcan Toco and Hello NASA

P-PG68 - Susan - Atacama Cosmology Telescope, Cerro Toco

How long does it take to climb a five and a half thousand metre volcano?  Just over an hour and a half, as it turns out.  Of course, it helps if the road stretches up to 5,000m.  It also helps if you have just climbed a 6,000m mountain in Argentina.  It even helps that the wind, for once, has decided to lie down for a nap.  All these things combined are so beneficial that you can mince up to the summit, take your photos, and return to the car in time to eat another avocado for lunch, without even having to don your down jacket.  Why can't all mountains be like this?

After summiting Volcan Toco, we went to check out the ALMA Observatory - a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency and others to observe the clearest skies in the world.  The ALMA doesn't yet have a visitor centre and we were expecting to be turned around at any moment - surely NASA didn't want a couple of sweaty campers checking out their multi-million pound telescopes?  But we saw no one.  Under the circumstances, it would have been rude not to pay a call to the host of immense white robotic figures glaring into space.  Unlike the flamingos, they remained motionless while we took our photos - no need to delete the blurred shots on this occasion.  Then we slunk away.  We drove down a different track to return to the main road and found the exit blocked by boulders.  Ah, NASA didn't want our company after all.  Well, they should have blocked BOTH approaches to the observatory then, shouldn't they?  

Continuing up the pass towards Argentina, our next stop was a mini Monument Valley - a set of rock pinnacles sprouting from the gravel.  They looked as out of place as cacti sprouting from a snowfield.  Some of them also looked like they offered a superb wind break.  It was time to camp.

View back to the Atacama Cosmology Telescope from the path to the summit

Volcan Juriques and Licancabur from the summit of Cerro Toco (5604m). The border with Bolivia runs through the middle of the mountain and encompassing Laguna Verde (the lake that you can see to the right.

The Atacama Large Millimetre Array up close. I'm no astronomer but aren't they all supposed to point the same way to function as an array? I'll let NASA (&ESA) off given that it isn't officially commissioned yet.

More outposts of the ALMA. Nice of them to build a really wide road for us to use!

Small lake near the Salar de Pujsa

Moais de Tara

Moais de Tara... no jokes about this one please.

Our campsite for the night and a nice evening scramble!

Day 37: Laguna Chaxa and a Smoky Mountain

Laguna Chaxa with Volcan Licancabur in the background

Task number one: roll out of sleeping bag.  Task two: jump in cab (fast).  Task three: turn on heating (maximum setting).  Phew.  With more habitable conditions on the way, we drove to Laguna Tebinquiche and Laguna Chaxa, where flamingos dieted on salt-water shrimps and visitors took their portraits again and again.  It was a peaceful morning.

The volcano to the east, Volcan Lascar, didn't share the sense of tranquillity.  After an earth tremor in the night, someone had started the bellows in its innards (Mr Mantle stands accused) and fumes billowed from the crater.  Was this Lascar's usual way of saying good morning to the world?  Or was the mountain in a fouler mood than usual today?

We started driving towards it, having planned to camp at its base and climb it the next day.  With each turn in the road we drove more slowly.  Then we stopped.  And turned around. If Volcan Lascar refused to obey the National Park's no-smoking rules than I would rather it smoked into an empty campsite than an inhabited one.  Back to San Pedro we went.

But not to worry.  The Atacama is full of volcanoes so Lascar need not think we missed its company beyond endurance.  Instead, we headed up the pass towards Argentina to climb Volcan Toco, 5,604m.  At 4,800m we found a secluded spot on the shoulder of the mountain, looking out over love-affair volcano, Licancabur, and pitched our tent.  Another stunning view; another cold night (a balmy -10 degrees inside the tent).

Licancabur again!

Salt Flowers at Laguna Chaxa

Flamingo flies past Volcan Lascar (note the fumes!)

Lascar... fuming

Wild camp beside the track up to Volcan Toco

Licancabur sunset from the tent

Day 36: The Valley of the Moon and Laguna Cejar

Laguna Cejar

Even experienced 4 x 4 drivers like Guy (who has slithered vehicles into dry river beds in Oman with the road collapsing underneath him) need a bit of a warm-up when they haven't driven anything larger than a Brompton for a while.  So, our first desert trip took place close to San Pedro, not too far from help, in the Valley of the Moon.

As we drove through the valley, we hopped out of the jeep every few minutes to walk between high walls of evaporite crystals, crawl into caves, climb smooth sand dunes and stare at bands of rose-coloured rock, undulating in sync with the dance of the tectonic plates below.  It was a place for the camera rather than the written word, but suffice it to say that, if this valley looks like the moon, then the moon is now on my wish-list of future destinations.

Later in the day, we drove to Laguna Cejar - a complex of three small lakes dwarfed by the beaches of salt around them.  Swimming was permitted in one of them and, as we had arrived in the heat of the afternoon, we thought of taking a dip.  But we quickly discovered how desert temperatures plummet at sunset and, half an hour later, we had given up any such idea.  Campers, take note.

We are campers.  We didn't take note.  Instead, we found a tranquil spot to pull off the track and eat our avocado salad in the back of our pick-up truck.  (The delights of car camping!  Food other than spaghetti comes into play!)  Then we lay down to bivvy under the milky-way.  It shone bright and clear and absolutely stunning - as bright and clear as our fast-freezing breath pluming above us.  I slept in my down jacket inside my sleeping bag (rated to -18 degrees) but my chances of waking up too hot were nonetheless nil.  Star-scapes this clear come at a price!  Even so, thanks to my Golite sleeping bag, I would happily bivvy again in the desert.

Rock formations in the Valley de la Luna

Weathered salt canyon in Valley de la Luna

Sand Dune, Valley de la Luna

Licancabur from Valley de la Luna

Salar de Atacama from Valley de la Luna (the horizon is 200km away!)

Photogenic Valley de la Luna

Licancabur (again) from Laguna Cejar

Day 35: To The Atacama

Time to return to Chile and start our 4x4 adventure in the Atacama desert.  First, there was the twelve-hour bus journey to get through but, far from being a chore, it served as a super-juicy appetiser (if super-juicy can ever be the right adjective for a desert).

As we drove over the Andean mountain pass from Salta the hairpin bends of the road strung out like spaghetti below us, leading to the border post at 4,700m above sea level (surely the correct height for eating pasta in a mountain hut, not filling in official documents) then coasting down a two thousand metre ramp into the backpacker town of San Pedro at 2,500m.  To our left rose Licancabur - a volcano so beautiful that, if Sauron had had an eye for symmetry, he would have modelled Mount Doom on it.

In the evening, we arrived in the watch-your-bags mining town of Calama and hired a red 4x4, which had been numbered and flagged ready to descend into the huge copper mine of Chuquicamata (not our destination).  We signed an unintelligible contract in Spanish, omitted to mention that we were planning to spend the whole week driving off road, and revved out of the half-built airport feeling both smug and scared.  Now for a week in the desert.

Spaghetti!

Salt flat ahoy!

Mining truck

Volcan Pili on the Chilean side of the border

Let's off-road!

Day 22 : Those Incas

So far we haven't heard all that much about the Incas but in Salta (north west Argentina) we're starting to come into contact with their antics.  The High Mountain Archaeology Museum was an excellent place to start.

Those of you who are mountain types might have been interested in the Inca mountaineering boots on display.  No Scarpa Mantas for those Incas, I'm afraid, or La Sportiva Nepal Extremes.  No, eight layers of wool sewn together made up the mountain footwear of choice in the Inca Empire.

And what did they do when they made it to the top?  Well, nothing as innocent as eating a Snickers bar, which is mine and Guy's activity of choice on the mountains.

The museum houses three incredibly well-preserved bodies of children who were thought to have been given a glug of booze and then buried alive in a sacrificial ceremony at the top of Llullaillaco Volcano in the days of the Inca Empire.  We saw the body of the seven-year old boy, completely intact, looking as though he could still have been alive yesterday.  It was actually quite overwhelming.

We haven't made it up any mountains with Inca ruins yet, as our Del Plomo expedition didn't work out, but the children's remains were found at 6,700m.  Sounds a bit high to me; I think I'll leave it to those Incas with their woollen boots.