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Published: December 27th 2010
Hi everyone and Feliz Navidad from Chile!
Just a note before you read this; for some reason the crappy computer in this internet cafe has mixed the photo names and the comments, so they now look bizarre. Sorry. Hope you enjoy them anyway!
Thanks for the Christmas messages, very much appreciated. It's impossible to really get into the Chritmas spirit here as it's so ridiculously hot and sunny, but I've tried. Ironically, I think I had my coldest Christmas day ever...but more on that later...
To continue the story:
4 friends and I left Santiago two weeks ago on the night bus at 2pm on the Friday and arrived in 'El Norte Grande' (the far north) at 9.30am on the Saturday! The journey was actually fine as we forked out a bit more for 'luxury' seats that fully recline and I actually managed to sleep for about 8 hours. At one point I woke up and there was a thick fog with visibility of about 5 meters! Didn't stop the driver barrelling along the Panamerican highway at high speed though. Bizzarely, at one point he stopped the bus and got out brandishing a large kitchen knife. We
A dust twister infront of a volcano
Not bad for the middle of the desert!wondered what the hell he was doing as he waddled over to a ditch, leapt over it, and with a deft flick of his wrist pierced a huge piece of cactus which he then bought back to the bus. We never did find out what it was for!
On arrival in the barren, industrial town of Antofagasta we searched for a 4x4 to hire for the drive to San Pedro de Atacama, which is the nearest pueblo to all the main desert sights. We found a great car for $160 each per week. We drove across the desert for 4 hours to San Pedro, which is an amazing little place with 2,000 people which looks like it's straight out of a spaghetti western. On arrival we found a great hostel called 'Eden Atacama' which has loads of hammocks, a great kitchen and comfy rooms for only about £10 per night. We decided to stay for 5 days to see all the sights. On Friday we checked out the local meseum which explains the history of the Atacama and the Atacameno peoples. It was interesting for me as I studied the Incans, Aztecs and Mayas at Uni and the far
North of Chile was a real frontier-land where all these cultures fought for possession of territory and resources. We then explored some Incan ruins at Pukará de Quitor before driving up an, erm, 'exciting' mountain road to a viewpoint with great vistas over the volcanoes, salt flats and oases. On Saturday we drove through the desert to Los Flamencos National Park which is a huge salt flat with colonies of flamingoes. Amazing sight to see nothing but salt for miles and it's amazing anything lives there at all. Apparently the flamingoes eat small crustaceans that can survive in the saline conditions. After that we found another oasis with semi-thermal springs for a swim and lunch before heading back to San Pedro. On Sunday morning we got up at 3am to drive up to the highest, and third largest geyser field in the world. You have to get there for sunrise as the contrast of the air temperrature (-12 bloody degrees!!!!) with the steam makes for a spectacular sight as the sun comes up. The geysers are at 4,300meters and we drove up in 2 hours from only 2,300 meters. I drove back down in the daylight on twisty mountain roads
Early morning at El Tatio geysers
Traditional outfits and music on display. and the views were incredible. That night, after a long siesta, one of my friends Mel (from Canada) said she wanted to give us a 'star tour' as she has a Masters in astronomy. We drove out of town at about 10 to the middle of the flats (armed with wine, pisco and beers) where there was no light pollution and watched the sky as the moon set. At about 3am the moon finally went down and the stars were unlike anything I've seen before. We could see a huge swathe of the milky way and Mel pointed out tons of stuff which I'd never heard of, like Magellenic Clouds and different star clusters. It got pretty cold by the end so we headed back to the hostel at about 3.30am.
The next day we had planned to go sandboarding and found some pretty cheap boards to rent for the day. We drove to the 'Valle de La Muerte' (The Valley of Death!!) to find a huge dune that we had been told about by the guys in the rental place. It didn't disappoint but unfortunately, unlike with snowboarding, you have to walk back up every time you board
Sunrise behind a geyser
Said to be the oldest church site in Chile. The roof is made of cactus. down, which was pretty knackering in the midday sun! The boarding itself was great fun but there was definitely a knack to it, which I didn't get at first. After a while I stopped falling on my face and swallowing mouthfuls of sand though, so it turned out ok! The others wouldn't listen to my excuses that I was a skier, not a boarder.
That evening we drove to the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) as we had heard that, at sunset, the light on the crazy rock formations glows bright red and gold and is worth seeing. Unfortunately there were quite a few other people there but we managed to walk to a rocky outcrop with fewer tourists and watched the sun set. The landscape really was luna, with bizarre obelisks of rock that have been worn and shaped by the wind and sand over the millenia. The photos, again, don't really do the place justice; you'll have to try to imagine the 360 degree panorama for yourselves!
The next day it was time to return the car and head back to Santiago to begin planning my Christmas day summit of Volcán San José
Diamond geysers
Dirty old sods... with Matt and Merida. I got back a couple of days before we left as I had a LOT of equipment to beg, steal and borrow...and buy. I managed to get hold of a really good jacket, sleeping bag, crampons and gloves from a Chilean friend who does some mountaineering but I had to take the hit of buying a pair of boots, which was particularly gruelling as I have a perfect pair at home but they were too large and heavy to bring with me. After a couple of days of planning and stocking up on food, altitude sickness meds and gear, we were ready for the 'ataque' (as a summit attempt is called in Chile) of the 5,856 meter beast. We drove up to a parking spot at about 2000 meters early in th morning and strapped what seemed to be rediculously heavy packs to our backs. 6 days of food weighs more than you think! The first day we walked up to a refuge through mountain meadows and up a steep gully, and camped there for the night. We met a crazy Chilean mountain man called Nelson who must have been in his late 70s at least.
You can see the scale of the geysers from this pic
The view from the Incan ruins. Streams from high in the mountains create green strips in the brown, barren landscape. He seemed to know the place like the back of his hand and told us our 'official' map was full of errors and that he knew a better way up. We had realised by this point that decent cartographers are in short supply in Chile, so we decided to trust him. We got up at 4:30am to start up towards the next camp. We had been camping at 3,100 meters and the next camp was at 4,200 meters...a long day!! We made it up to the snow field and strapped on our crampons. I quickly taught Matt and Merida about ice axe arrests (essentially, how to stop yourself sliding down the mountain if you slip on the snow). I was worried that I'd forgotten the technique since a previous trip up Mont Blanc 5 years ago, but it seemed to work so we were happy!
We trekked up seemingly never-ending snow fields past glaciers and frozen streams until we eventually reached the camp at 2:30pm, exhausted. Unfortunately about 2 hours after we set up camp the hot sun had melted sufficient amounts of glacier for the small streams running by us to flood the ground under the tent. We
frantically pulled up the pegs and shifted it to another spot, whilst diverting the streams with channels dug using our ice-axes. At that point I suddenly felt pretty dizzy, sick and generally lacking in oxygen so I had to lie down in the tent for a while. Luckily, we had planned a rest and acclimatisation day after the long 1000 meter ascent, so I had time to recover. Unfortunately, the clouds came in the next day which made it cold, and the planned washing of our now-reeking clothes in the mountain streams failed to materialise. The next morning was another early start but we only had 500 meters to ascend that day to the next camp. We climbed a snow field and a scree ridge whilst everything was still frozen to avoid the dangers of rock-fall. We managed to get to the next camp, at 4,900, but noon, giving us about 15 hours to aclimatise (still not very long!) before the final 'attaque'. This was the highest altitude I'd ever climbed to, let alone camped, which was pretty exhilarating!
We all felt the altitude that day, even though we were taking the anti-altitude sickness meds preventatively. We kept a
close eye on each other though and made sure we didn't get worse. We had packed a luxury meal of smoked salmon and mash for that evening, which helped to re-energise us a lot! Melting snow from the glacier to drink took a long time but we had packed enough fuel to keep us going.
That night, Christmas eve, we had peanut butter and jam tortillas to celebrate...lavish eh?! From the camp we could see the ominous dome of the peak billowing sulphurous fumes, which was a little intimidating, but, with Nelsons expert knowledge, we thought we could make it.
On Christmas day at 3:00am (6:00am UK time) we got up and realised it was bloody freezing...literally. The water in our bottles, which we had kept in the tent, had frozen solid. Luckily there was no wind though, which meant it only felt like -15 degrees, rather than the -20 it would have been with wind chill! By the light of the moon we began to trudge up a ridiculously steep scree path towards the point at which we knew we had to cross the glacier to reach the summit. Unfortunately, in the dark and without a marked
More rock madness
They were flat and salty, surprisingly. route, the crossing point was impossible to find. All we could see was an expanse of white glacier clinging to the side of the mountain and we were damned if we were going to cross it without knowing where we were going. We continued up to the ridgeline, parallel to the glacier but Merida started to feel really ill. Our toes felt numb too and, after discussing our options, sadly decided to turn back. We decided that, in the dark and without a decent map and no obvious route, plus an ill group member and the icreasing wind and cold, it wasn't worth the risk. We were all pretty down after that decision, to say the least. We had reached 5,300 meters and only had another 500 to go, but we knew it was at least 5 hours more to the actual summit.
A couple of things happend on the way down which mad us really glad we had made the decision. Firstly, we met a huge Belgian tour group who had guides to set up their camp each day and carry all their food. This made us feel better about how far we'd got by ourselves. Then we
met an American who had tried to summit the year before and had got about 100 meters further than us before collapsing and having to turn back. Then Merida found out she had frostbite in her toes (which are recovering now, thankfully) and Matt and I were not far off ourselves. Finally, Matt realised his crampon had lost a screw and was useless. If that had happened half way across the glacier, or after we crossed, we would have been screwed ourselves!!
So all in all, we were pleased with the 5 day effort we had made. We all hiked and camped higher than we had ever done before and saw some amazing sights. We didn't feel like being the subject of a news headline about stupid gringos who had pushed on despite having difficulties! What's more, because Matt's crampon was bust, we decided to toboggan down the snow fields on our packs, so, in the end, we had a white Christmas and got some sledging in too!
The hike down took most of the day and we were exhausted by the end of it. We managed to find a place open where we ordered 2 huge chorrillanas
and beers and toasted our efforts. We will always be a bit annoyed about not making the top, but Nelson's philisophy of 'cumbre o muerte' (summit or death), didn't really appeal to us!
We've spent the last two days relaxing and waddling around Santiago like penguins bacause of our rediculously sore muscles. I am planning to leave for Patagonia to do some more trekking in two days as I only have until Jan 26th until I have to be in Buneos Aires to begin my internship. I will blog again in a couple of weeks but, hopefully, this has quenched your thirst for Chilean travel updates!!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Tom
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sue
non-member comment
Happy Xmas!!
Hi Tom, Well done with the mountain climbing..not being one myself I am full of awe for your efforts!! You may have heard that Hannah has had a little girl on 24th dec. Both are well and bonny. Large baby...10lbs 4ozs..she says she won't be doing that again in a hurry!! All the family here send their love and best wishes for a happy and successful 2011!! Lots of love Sue and Keith xx