January in Catamarca turned out to be the proverbial ‘month of two halves’. The first week we carbo-loaded in Fiambala, tucking into as much steak, ice cream and wine as we could. We called it training. The next 17 days we headed to the Puna for some exercise. We were expecting to stay longer, so took 35kgs of food, calculating that this would last us at least 21 days. Being unable to carry such a weight along with all our trekking gear we employed the services of a couple of mules for 3 days to lug our kit from the road to a base camp near El Arenal at over 5,500m, and were at, or above, this altitude for 10 days.

We lost a few days to high winds before embarking on what on paper looks like a climbing spree, though in reality we spent most of the time twiddling our thumbs in our tent. The only conventional entertainment we had with us was an MP3 player with loudspeaker and a pack of cards; and on arrival at El Arenal we realised the speaker had no charge. This didn’t really matter though when we discovered that the MP3 player didn’t work at altitude. It was less of a discovery really than a reminder, as it had happened before, but for some reason we’d forgotten. (If anyone can explain the science behind this please email us – the MP3 wasn’t cold, it just didn’t work with lower air pressure.) So we took to amusing ourselves with more simple entertainments. Taking our pulses each night (see graph below) became a highlight of our non-climbing days, and the administering of eye drops to counter the dry Puna climate became something to look forward to. Fortunately (in a perverse kind of way) lots of our kit began to break, so the mending gave us something to do in quieter moments.

When the weather improved we climbed Volcan del Viento (6,028m) and two days later Ojos del Salado (6,892m). The second highest mountain in the Americas was the highest we’ve ever been, and on the climb we passed by the highest lake in the world at 6,390m. This was about the 4th ‘highest lake in the world’ we’ve come across on our travels, but this time we think it’s a valid claim. We climbed Ojos with Arkaitz from Spain and Lisandro from Rosario, and spent a happy hour on the summit in perfect conditions, looking down on all the other volcanoes far below. When the pair left us at camp the next day we went the rest of our eight Puna days without seeing another human being, and for seven of these days the only signs of life we saw were one buzzy insect, one jumpy insect and a small patch of lichen. It’s a lonely old place up there, and we were in love with it.

Next we climbed Medusa (6,144m), then moved south a few kilometres to climb Cazadero/Walter Penck (6,684m). Finally we headed to Nacimiento (6,478m) for our 5th summit in nine days, before walking out to the road. Arriving at the tarmac in the late afternoon we assumed we’d be back in Fiambala that evening, but this was before we found out that we are the worst hitchhikers in the world. Most Argie drivers would pick up a man in a mask wielding a chainsaw, as long as he stuck his thumb out, but these two tired looking hikers had no such luck. Admittedly there wasn’t much traffic, but still we were frustrated to have to wait 23 hours by the roadside until some nice Porteños took us back to town.

And there we settled back into our lazy Fiambala existences. Hanging out at Ruth’s place, getting information about mountains from Jonson ‘Mr Puna’ Reynoso, eating steaks at Audrey’s OhLaLa, watching far too much ‘Law and Order’ on TV. Janne Corax turned up, so it was good to catch up (we last saw him cycling into a huge storm in La Rioja in May) and hear about his latest swashbuckling Asian adventures. He also gave us a couple of English books to read – the first we’ve seen since August – which was a good thing as we were both rapidly losing the ability to spell.

We like this sleepy little town a lot. If there’s a place we can see ourselves moving to in South America it’d likely be La Paz. But we’d have a summer pad in Fiambala.


Pulse Graph

Bars are our sleeping altitude (left hand scale), Green line is Haz’s pulse, Red line is Neil’s (right hand scale)

Photos

Cycling stats
None.

Hiking Stats:
Days of hiking – 15
Distance – 190kms
Height ascended – 8,500m
Peaks climbed – Volcan del Viento (6,028m), Medusa (6,144m), Nacimiento (6,478m), Cazadero/Walter Penck (6,684m), Ojos del Salado (6,892m)