After a lazy week in Fiambala we’ve successfully completed our To Do list (which, at the beginning of the week read ‘Fatten up’). Neil is particularly delighted with his unprecedented weight gain: 7kg in 7 days. We didn’t sleep too well though – possibly something to do with the 1.5l of Pepsi we each drank every day? Then Jonson gives us a ride back up to our bikes at Las Grutas, and we continue our trip. Here we are descending from Paso San Francisco to Laguna Verde. The road surface on the Chilean side is far better now than when we were in the area in 2011, despite the fact that the construction company which was working on the road went bust before they completed the work.

The first night sees us camping amongst the giant pumice stone, near the turn off to Ojos. The tent well hidden from the road.

In the evening it’s a bit breezy, but the morning is still and sunny.

The new paving means that we’re at the turnoff to Tres Cruces by 11:00, so have time to hitch to the immigration post at Maricunga for our Chilean entry stamps, and back again, then wander to a Tres Cruces base camp at 4700m before nightfall.

Base camp is a nice spot. L-R: Tres Cruces Norte (6030m), Central (6640m) and Sur (6750m).

We spend a tiring day hauling big packs up from base camp to a great high camp on the col at 5930m between Sur and Central, and on arrival it begins to snow lightly. In the morning it’s breezy at camp, so we decide to change plans and head to the easier Central peak first. The wind dies and we enjoy a lovely climb.

The summit crater ridge is a few hundred metres long and very flat, so we never work out which part is the real top – the summit book is buried somewhere under the snow. We walk the full length of the ridge a couple of times to make sure we’ve been to the highest point…

As we descend in perfect weather from the Central summit, we ponder the route we’ll take on Sur in the morning. Lots of ugly boulder fields between camp and the top.

We leave at 07:00, which is pretty early for us, and make steady progress for 2h30 up to the snowy col at 6440m. Here we’re not far from the summit in a straight line, but the going becomes trickier.

Crossing the boulder field takes 90 mins, despite the fact it’s only 100m of ascent, and 500m horizontally. We have to take care with all the fresh snow that we don’t fall into one of the large holes between the rocks, which are sometimes hidden by the fresh snow. Then we reach the rock band at 6600m.

Usually this is the dodgiest part of the climb, and somewhere you have to take care due to the steep, loose terrain. Lots of rocks and small boulders just waiting to be dislodged and kicked down onto those below. But with snow this section is much easier that we are expecting, and we’ve soon worked our way up it.

Then comes another boulder section which is slow going – the last 100m (vertical) takes an hour as we continue gingerly through the rocks. At 12:30 we’re on the summit. This is the bit we think might be the highest, though the summit book (which again we never found in the snow) and Leki pole marking the top are a couple of hundred metres away.

Here’s the Leki summit. We dug around a bit for the book before giving up. The flat Central summit is on the left.

Then it’s time for the two hour descent back to camp.

As we can follow our tracks from the ascent, we move much faster through the boulders. Lower down we spend an unsuccessful hour searching for the body of a local mountaineer from Catamarca who mysteriously disappeared on the peak last year. Various searches have been made to find his body, but as yet it remains undiscovered on the mountain.

We manage to descend from the summit to our bikes at 4400m in an afternoon, and in the morning cycle east towards El Muerto. A battle between Argie and Chilean winds leads to these fascinating lennies hovering over El Muerto all day. Ojos is the peak on the right.

When we reach the Muerto/Ojos turn off we go to fetch the 4 days of food we stashed there a few days before. Only to discover an Andean fox has ripped open the dry bag, and eaten all the good stuff. Gone are the biscuits, salami, sugar, nuts and raisins. Strewn everywhere in the sand is the pasta. Left untouched are the oats. Luckily we’re ahead of schedule so this loss doesn’t prove too important. It just means we can’t stuff our faces with delicious Frutigran biscuits, like we’d been looking forward to.

Then we continue towards ‘The Dead One’. It’s scenery like this that keeps enticing us back to the Puna.

And as the road to Muerto is the same one as to Ojos, it’s in good condition. Ojos is a very popular climb from this side as (with a good vehicle and driver and excellent acclimatization) you can drive to a refugio at 5800m and climb the mountain in a day. A 6900m peak as a day walk with no need to camp! Mad. Approaching from the Argie side is a far quieter and longer endeavour.

After a year of faithful service, our Schwalbe Extremes all begin to fail. In 10 days of riding two wear out and are unusable, and this, our spare gets a slash in its side wall. The other two are in bad shape too (but we’ll carry on using them for the next stage of our trip as they’re still better than anything we can buy in Fiambala or Tinogasta).

We soon arrive at Refugio Murray, a free and reasonably comfortable place to stay. Though it’s early, we decide to spend the night and socialize with the many Andinistas there to acclimatize for Ojos. The long discussion with experienced Chilean guides about what the clouds signify ends in the conclusion that the weather will change. But as it’s been ‘ok’ recently, no one knows if this means it’ll be for the better or worse.

For an hour at Refugio Murray that evening the clouds are more beautiful than any we’ve ever seen. Lennies over Muerto, huge cumulo nimbus over Mulas Muertas, these things over Volcan Laguna Verde.

In the morning it’s an 18km cycle to the base of Muerto. The road isn’t too bad, and we have to push less than half a km.

Camp is relatively low at 5100m, so in the morning we set off at 05:30. We have company for a change – Fabio from Switzerland, and his Chilean guide Fernando.

Near the top there’s a crisp breeze. But it’s a great climb.

And at 11:00 we’re in position to carry out that bank heist we’ve been planning…

Here’s the view from the summit, looking south to Ojos, Walter Penck and Nacimiento.

…and east to Incahuasi.

A rare shot of the both of us. Very useful having other people with us on the summit! Haz appears to have shrunk 10cm during the climb…

We descend to camp, admiring Ojos and Tres Cruces on the way.

After reaching camp, the clear skies rapidly disappear. We pace the 18km back to Refugio Murray, pursued by storm clouds.

But no lightning or snow ever reaches us, or the refugio. In the morning we head back to the main road and hang around waiting for a lift to Maricunga to get our Chilean exit stamps. It’s a pain in the arse for mountaineers coming in from Argentina that the Chileans put their passport stampers 100km from the border.

But we get lucky with lifts. A lovely family from Mendoza takes us west, and a Buenos Aires couple take us back east. (In our experience, the Argies are far more likely than Chileans to pick up hitch hikers.) Still, it takes most of the day and we only have time to cycle 2 hours before the wind and some light snow sees us set up early camp by the road. A bottle of cider warms us as Haz prepares dinner.

In the morning our tyre issues are alleviated when eagle-eyed Haz spots an old 4×4 inner tube by the road. Out come the Swiss Army knife scissors to cut us a load of patches to use as boots on the inside of all our tyres.

Some parts of the descent from Paso San Francisco to Fiambala are truly spectacular. First the zigzags down to Las Grutas, with views of Incahuasi, San Francisco and the lakes at their base. Then this section near Refugio 4 at Las Losas.

Then, far lower down, this colourful section in Quebrada Las Angosturas.

Red red rock.

And the road past all this magnificence is all tarmac. It’s a treat for us to fly down on it.

The 2000m descent from Refugio 3, where we’ve spent the night, means we’re in Fiambala before the shops close for the siesta. Our average speed for the day is 25.1kph. Pike whips out his notebook to ensure this gets correctly recorded in the Max/Min section of our Stats page.

We reach town having gone 115km – our first 100km+ day since September 2012! It’s also only the 2nd day in that period that we’ve spent all on tarmac. Probably just a coincidence. Back in Fiambala it’s rest time for another week before we head out on the last part of our Puna 9 trip…

Drying ‘shrooms in the hot San Pedro sun. They were ready in a couple of hours, as were the carrots.

Some of our food for the 17 days we were expecting to take to reach the next shop in Antofagasta. It weighed in at just under 29kg (between us).

The first 100km out of San Pedro were as easy as they come – flat and paved. Then we left Peine, the last Chilean village, and the surface deteriorated as the temperatures soared. Though we left Peine with 10 litres of water each, which we expectedto last 2.5 days to the border, we soon realize this is nowhere near enough. In the heat of the day, Neil’s cycle computer registers 49C (we know this ‘has no scientific meaning’, but include it partly as an interesting fact-let, but mostly just to annoy Neil’s dad). Finding this concrete structure with some leaky pipes was therefore quite exciting.

The roadsigns on this route were of the 1960 and 1970 variety – almost all to abandoned stations on the old international railway line. This was one of the most charming – we camped by it on our third day.

Between San Pedro and the border the landscape was pure desert – arid, brown and dull. There were still a few colourful flowers around however. Like these beauties….

…and these.

Our first few lunches were real treats. Pittas covered in a thick coating of peanut butter.

Until we reached Paso Socompa we didn’t know whether the Carabineros there would actually allow us to cross. Though we’d already obtained our Chile exit stamps in San Pedro (the immigration guys there had just assumed we were leaving via Paso Sico), we’d been told by some officials that the Argies might not let us in. We needn’t have worried. This is the small graveyard at Socompa, with the volcano of the same name behind.

The heaviest Pike’s bike has ever been. 17 litres of water, 14 days (11kg) of food, 10kg of trekking kit. All added up to 65-70kg, including the bici. And some people always tour with bikes this heavy? Ugh.

The scenery on the Chilean side was so dull that we began questioning whether we would still likethe Puna in Argentina. We need not have feared. From the moment our descent from the border began, we were back in love…

Though maybe not with this short sandy section near Laguna Socompa.

The fourth night saw us camp at the turn off onto the road to Llullaillaco. At dusk the aliens arrive.

But as the track looks like it hasn’t been used by a vehicle in the past decade at least we don’t have to push off the road to find a flat camp spot.

Our water reserves on the way to Llullaillaco. The next source proved to be penitentes at 5100m, just above our base camp on the mountain.

Dry the Atacama may be, but there is a bit of rainfall on the Argie side. Enough for these delicate little plants to thrive.

The tracks to Llullaillaco turn out to be better than expected, and almost all rideable until the afternoon wind picks up. Then we begin getting tired…

But the views revive us. Love the colours in this part of the world. The Salina de Llullaillaco is the low, flat white thing on the right.

Our camp behind the shelter of a rock is a good one. Llullaillaco dominates the site, and the whole area – there’s no higher peak between Ojos a few hundred kms to the south, and Huascaran up in Peru.

In the morning it’s only 8km to the point we’ve chosen to leave the bikes. It was a lovely 2 hour ride.

An hour long repack at 4600m sees us ready to head to the peak on foot. It’s less than 2 hours of walking until we reach the lowest convenient penitentes – they’re the ones in the red little patch in a line directly below the summit.

Seeing as it’s been a while since we melted penitentes, we’d forgotten how long it takes. 18 litres and 3 hours later we’ve finally got what we think is enough for the evening, and then to take down the mountain with us to continue the cycle to Mina La Casualidad.

While Haz melts the snow, Pike’s in charge of knocking over the penitentes and bringing them to the pot…

In the morning, there’s some wind up top, but otherwise the weather is perfect. We head up to the right (then climb up the NE gulley, which is between the two rocky ribs on the right, near the top of the mountain).

By lunch we’ve found a good, sheltered high camp. At 5930m it’s the highest we’ve ever slept. As we’re so well acclimatized, we both sleep superbly.

We spend the afternoon wandering, trying to work out which is the best way up in the morning. Few people climb the peak, but we do find a set of footprints which prove quite helpful.

As has become our custom on the Puna, we don’t bother leaving too early in the morning. Though it’s only -11C at dawn, we don’t set off until 07:15, about half an hour after the sun hits our tent. Here we are in that gulley.

The going is mostly on reasonably steep scree, to about 6500m where we reach some Inca ruins, and a path coming from the north, which is the usual route up the mountain. From here it’s gentle and easy to 6730m, and some more Inca ruins. As far as we know, this is the highest archaelogical site in the world. The last 20m (in the photo) to the summit are a bit rocky, but we’re on the top by 10:45.

On the summit it’s windless, sunny and beautiful. Pike sits down and begins penning a novel.

Then we descend, past the Inca ruins. High on the mountain are many stray bits of wood, which once formed the roofs for these buildings. Though the wood is over 500 years old, we could easily have been persuaded it had been taken up there only the week before.

We make it back to the bikes on summit day, then continue in the morning. Our GE investigations hadn’t thrown up a jeep track from the base of the peak for about 5km in the direction of the Salina de Llullaillaco, but luckily one exists and the surface is ok.

Which makes the descent to the Salina a beautiful little ride.

Though it doesn’t look far when we set off in the morning, the Salina is below 3800m, an 850m descent – far further than we’d been expecting.

The track by the Salina is a good one.

And the scenery is spectacular. Some flamingoes wade around in the Salina’s lakes.

What do the clouds mean? Who knows. We have real trouble reading the weather round here.

The surface remains pretty good as we climb above the Salina and over towards Mina La Casualidad. A few short steep section see us pushing, because of our heavy bikes.

Each day we cycle until the sun goes down, or we’re too tired to continue. To our surprise the daily schedule turns out to be almost exactly the same as the 17 day plan we drew up in San Pedro. The only difference being that the 60km road from Llullaillaco to Mina La Casualidad is far better than expected and we reach the abandoned mine in a day, rather than the 2 we’d envisaged.

Arriving at the mine/town the wind is howling, for the only time all trip. Most of the buildings at La Casualidad have fallen in and no longer have roofs, but the church is still structurally sound. We roll out our Thermarests and spend a comfortable night by the altar.

Six days after leaving the border guards and we nearly have a human encounter at the mine on Salar de Rio Grande. But though we come across some portacabins, which are lived in, all the miners are at work on the other side of the Salar. Fortunately they’ve left their dining room door open and we’re able to fill our water bottles from their water dispenser, leave a thank you note, then continue.

The road’s ok for a while, then deteriorates. Sometimes off road is better, sometimes not. We flick between one and the other.

And then the road sort of disappears, and we’re left with this exciting choice.

Do we go up the ‘down track’, which shoots directly down the mountain at 30-40%? Or do we take the more circuitous ‘up track’, which takes a more leisurely 15-25% gradient? We have plenty of time to ponder this on the 5km push to get to the base of the hill.

We opt to push up the ‘up track’. It takes all afternoon.

Through the gravelly sand.

To begin with we’re able to take a bike each.

But on the really steep parts it’s 2 people to each Surly. First we push up Haz’s, then go back for Pike’s. Llullaillaco (over 2 days away by bike) still dominates in the distance.

After an afternoon and then a few morning hours of pushing, we’re riding again, and descending to the Salar de Archibarca.

A mini Laguna Colorada lights up this small salar.

In these parts, vicuñas are our only company. So few people do they see, that some of them are even relatively tame and come and inspect our tent one morning. They’re creatures of habit, and we often come across tracks like these.

At the Salar de Archibarca is a water source, but we never find it. This water is too salty and dirty to drink. We’ve still got some litres left however, and know we’ll be able to melt more penitentes on Volcan Antofalla, where we’re headed next (it’s the lump on the left of the shot).

The road to it begins promisingly enough, but it doesn’t last long.

By early afternoon we’re too tired to continue, and set up camp further than we’d hoped from the peak. This is at about 4450m, and still 14km in a straight line from the summit.

The following day comes that unlikely meeting with some other humans. From 5km away we spy something shiny, but it’s flickering and we decide it must be some kind of fabric left behind by previous hikers. But no, it’s a 4×4 parked at 5350m, and the heat haze is making it shimmer. After setting up our high camp, it’s hours before the occupants of the 4×4 and tents return. They’re locals from Antofagasta, and have climbed the mountain without any acclimatization (other than from living at 3400m). They’ve taken an age over it – more than 10 hours to get up to the summit and back, and when they return look absolutely shattered.

The weather remains perfect and we’re on the top before 11:00 the next morning. It’s a fantastic spot, with some more Inca ruins, and superb panoramas in all directions. Llullaillaco is to the NW, and our next target, El Condor, is just visible to the S.

Descent down scree to the tents is a rapid affair. 1030m (vertical) in 55 minutes. Zooooooooooom.

The rocks in this area are mesmerizing. Had we been leaving in a 4×4, rather than on bikes, we’d probably have taken about 5kg of these black volcanic beauties each.

Descending the 10km back to the Salar de Archibarca makes us realize why we’d been so tired climbing up in the opposite direction.

Most of the descent (right hand track) we’re able to ride. The footprints give away the fact that much of the climb we were pushing…

Then comes another climb above the Salar de Archibarca. It isn’t long, but it’s a bitch. The first part is rideable….

…but then it becomes so sandy that we’re forced to improvise harnesses. These webbing straps really are very useful.

The scenery continues to amaze.

But it’s difficult to appreciate, when you’re pushing down hill.

When we’re riding though…..WAAAAAH!

Nearing Caballo Muerto (Dead Horse).

Then we reach a larger road, the motorway from Antofalla village to Tolar Grande. The surface improves, we can ride it all again. The colours are fabulous (we promise we haven’t touched up any of these shots on the computer).

But Antofalla village is a sad, dying little place – the likes of which you come across all the time in Bolivia, but rarely see in Argentina. We see our second car in 11 days. It’s sportier that the usual 4x4s you see in this area.

Until the late 1980s, when the ‘road’ from Antofagasta was completed, Antofalla was cut off from the rest of the world. In those days the residents stayed, but now the young know what they’re missing…

The climb from the Salar de Antofalla over towards Antofagasta begins steeply. It’s not long before we stop for an early bulghur wheat lunch. And for Haz to fix her rear derailleur which was bent in a fall on day 3 (Pike: (having not seen an animal in 2 days) Ooh look, a fox!; Haz: Where? (Looks left, falls off bike in the sand)). For 10 days her lowest gear wouldn’t work, and we didn’t want to risk bending the derailleur in the middle of nowhere, in case it snapped. But some careful pressure bends it back into position and 1:1 begins working again, sort of.

By this time we’re itching to get to Antofagasta and some food. Though we’ve eaten well for 15 days, we haven’t eaten nearly enough. Pike is heard to mutter that he’s ‘slowly starving’ on a number of occasions. (On reaching Fiambala a few weeks later, the pharmacy scales prove he was only slightly exaggerating.)

Climbing above the Salar de Antofagasta is thrilling, but we’re too tired to make the 1300m up to the pass before nightfall. When it begins raining (I mean, on the Puna, really) we set up camp.

Only just more ‘by the road’ than ‘in the road’. In the morning a confused motorcyclist looks quizzically at the tent as he bumps by.

Why did the vicuña cross the road? We really would love to know why these beasts insist on running across in front of any vehicle or cyclist that passes. Is it a game? Is it a dare? If anyone knows the reason, please let us know – it’s something that really puzzles us.

The food that survived. On Day 16 we made it to Antofagasta, and this is all that was left of the original 29kg. We were both ravenous, so went out in search of cake and ice cream. Neither of which could be found….

Cycling to Incahuasi in 2011. In our experience, biking to the base of the mountains is usually the most tiring part of the journey to a summit in this area.

Then comes the hike with heavy packs to high camp. Haz heads for Ojos…

The reward: panoramic views of the Puna. A high altitude desert of giant volcanoes and colourful lakes, seen here from the summit of Ojos.