After climbing Kilimandjaro, we wanted to get even higher, but the crowd in Africa made us search for a not so popular mountain. So we found the vulcanic peaks of the Puna de Atacama. The region is not so common and you cannot find a lot of info from the place. This resulted in some difficulties, but lets not jump so forward. At the end of this page you will find a “What will we do differently” section.
| Travel: Frankfurt – Mendoza 1,5 days (TAM, LAN) |
| Bus: Mendoza – Fiambala 1,5 days |
| Last village before the Atacama: Fiambala |
| Trek duration: 12 days |
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We reached Fiambala on the 31th of December in the middle of siesta. We learned that people do not really hurry in Argentina, they do not make fast decisions. so we waited patiently for our tour guy Jonson Reynoso. He will transport us to the beginning of the track and bring us back at the end too. He arrived and took us to our accomodation and we discussed the details. 98% of the population speaks only spanish, so I had to use my “manual” spanish (using hands and feet) We prepared for our morning departure, bought a nice wine from the Mendoza region, celebrated New Year and went to bed.
Day 1: Fiambala (1400 m) – Quemaditos (3500 m)- Camp 1 (3700 m) |
Next day we met Reynoso packed our stuff on a jeep which was not the planned one because that was defect (nice signs) and headed out. After 2 hours of perfect paved roads we reached the spot where the driver switched the 4×4 on, and after a couple of minutes we reached Quemaditos, our starting point. We packed out and began.
Quemaditos – Lets go!
Camp 1 at the waterfall
It was 1 p.m. the sun was scorching. We first went a bit downhill to reach the small river and continued along it. We could see the track but did not always follow it, because the sand was too soft. We reached our first camp after ca. 4,5 hours at 3700 meters. The wind started to blow but we could find some shelter. We learned later that the wind came every day in the same time. We cooked built our tent up and cleared some water.
Food! – it was really bad…
Our tent in Camp 1
As the sun went down the temperature started falling too. We hit the sacks and tried to get some sleep. The wind kept shaking the tent until around midnight. Because of the new surrounding and the animal life and their sound we could not really sleep. The next morning we found small traces of vicunas and fox footprints right next to the tent.