The track was clearly better than further North, but the corrogated
surface did not allow speed above 25 km/h. While the driving was
painful, the landscapes were georgous. Different colours of sand and rock, snow capped volcanos, and salt lakes appeared in rapid sequence. We decided to move on the highest point of the track at the junction with a track leading off to a mining town. The pass was at 4998 m, the highest we had ever taken the camper to.
Only a few kilometers after the border we found Laguna Verde. This lake at 4400 m altitude freezes overnight and turns a bright greenish blue around 11 o’clock in the morning when the ice has partly melted. We stopped at a tourist stop (the tourists stop here in the landrovers and sleep in very basic shacks. We asked about the possibility of getting a guide that would lead me up the volcano Lliancancabur
that we now saw from the opposite side. We were to told to go down to some lonely dwellings and found there in a one room house an older woman and her husband eating. The man was of Indian origin and looked about 120 years old. But as I would find out later clearly much fitter than I was. When we discussed it with the man it seemed possible to climb, but we thought we would try this on our way back and decided to drive further North.
Besides the fact that Kate and I had a major row we parked right next to the xxx Geysers where we spent the night. With hindsight it had not been a great idea. While we had been used quite well to sleeping between 4000 and 4500 m that night none of us slept well and we woke up with big headaches. Actually we got woken by a group of 4x4s stopping at the early morning stop at the Geysers. The night had been around -20°C and so we had to wait quite a long time in the morning before the engine had warmed up and allowed us to start. We had covered it with blankets over night and opened the hood to get the sunlight right on the engine in the morning. Eventually, we made a start and drove towards Laguna Colorada.
I was obviously very proud when we had made it in 4 hours. But then my guide who - by then I had found out - was 59 years old told me that he had made it already in 2,5 hours up the mountain and one day he had lead two groups in two successive climbs within one day up the peak. This and the fact that I got a cracking headache on the way down calmed my pride a bit. When I finally arrived back at the camper all I could say to Kate and the girls was: "I need to sleep" and fully dressed I went on the bed and fell asleep. Only a couple of hours later (it was in the middle of the afternoon) I woke up again.
After a few hours at speeds between 20 and 40 km/h we came to a lake with hundreds of beautiful pink flamingos that was painted in a deep red colour. For the first hour we just sat at the edge of the lake and listening and watched the flamingos feed and walk about. From time to time a 4x4 Toyota stopped by, the tourists got for 5 minutes and then rushed on. We really felt privileged to be able to spend the time just observing. We decided to stay right at the edge overnight.
The following morning we drove back to Laguna Verde. I agreed with the guide to be picked up at 4 am the next day to climb the volcano. Very early I got up and waited outside the camper until a clapped out 4x4 came along. The guide had also got 4 young guys from San Pedro on board who wanted
to climb the volcano too. First I was a bit worried that I would be the slowest of the crowd and not have much fun, but soon my fear turned
into competitiveness (surprisingly) and wanted to show the guys who were 20 years younger what a great climber I was.
It was an amazing climb up the volcano with the sun slowly rising. It got warmer and the black contours of the surrounding mountains slowly woke up and turned into snow capped peaks. We could also see the lake turning from white to greeny blue. The guide had told me that normally it took tourists about 6 hours to climb from 4500 m altitude to the almost 6000 m of the peak.
We spent the rest of the day at the Laguna, but then decided to go back down to San Pedro to fill up and rest before going on to the final part of our journey to Argentina. First, when we wanted to get out of Bolivia there was nobody at the border station which was in the middle of the desert. After a short while we decided to cross the border anyway. Getting back into San Pedro we also decided not to enter properly via the border station either - going through all the formalities just for half a day we thought is not worth. So we sneaked into town on a small side road and managed to get out again the following day.
The drive into Argentina the following day went over a brand new road at the altitude of around 4000 - 4500 m through marvelous landscapes. We stopped at some amazing rocks in the middle of the sand desert for lunch. While we went for a walk around the rocks a couple of busses
arrived to take pictures.
We drove on and made it to the Argentinian border station where they were quite friendly - especially when we played the "mundial trick". However, they wanted to write our bicycles, computers and cameras on the entry papers to make sure we would take them out again. We found a spot a kilometer off the main road for the night.