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The morning of January 8, the day after our summit of Ojos del Salado, Bob, Ken and I woke after a deep sleep at 19,200 ft (5852m). L We had granola and some hot drinks for breakfast, but were quick to get on the path that descended to the rest of our group, 2000 feet below us. There we found the team breaking down our camp and loading up “Samu”, our 4-wheel drive, once again. This time our destination was Copiapo, where we were yesterday afternoon. We collected our passports, which had been held by the “Carabineros”, the local border police who patrol this frontier region between Argentina and Chile. Charlie prepared one last lunch along the shores of Laguna Verde and then we were off for the 4 ½ hour drive back to Copiapo.
When we got to Copiapo showers at the hotel were of course the first pressing order of business. Later the team all found an excellent pizza restaurant on the Plaza. |
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eila was with us as well; she remained at high camp to help us prepare dinner and breakfast. Oswaldo, Juancho and Charlie left just before dark to join all the others down at Atacama camp.
At 2:10pm, precisely 24 hours after we were on the top we drove in sight of Ojos from the dry plains for the desert. We saw dark storm clouds which obscured any view of the top. This showed us that we were indeed lucky to have had such a nice summit day and for that matter to have had all the good weather that we have seen these days in the high desert.