Across the Puna with Ivan

Across the Puna with Ivan

We first met Ivan, an intrepid Spanish Overlander, a year back in Buenos Aries, we were both waiting for our trucks to arrive, ours from South Africa, Ivan’s from Panama and we met for a meal in one of the city’s great cafes.  We went our separate ways but met again recently, at San Antonio de Cobres, with our vehicles, to cross the vast and remote Puna province of northern Argentina.  It’s very nice to be in convoy in these desolate regions, especially after our recent breakdown and the fact that Big Bertha had lost 4WD capability.

But first a little about our journey from San Pedro de Atacama, over the Jama Pass (4,800m), across to Susques.  The pass was awesome – all the lagoons were frozen, but Vicuna and Llama still foraged up here and there was plenty of birdlife too.  We really enjoyed this road – a good thing too because we will have to traverse it again (twice) to collect our parts to repair Big Bertha from MAN in Chile.

In Susques, we met up again with fellow German overlanders Axel and Christine, and Jan and Anja – who were all travelling in the opposite direction.

Next we visited the Salinas Grandes Salt pan for some fun photos – practice for when we visit Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia.

From there we headed to San Antionio de Cobres, but didn’t make it because our transfer case broke.  After a week of temporary repair, we visited the Polvorilla viaduct, just outside San Antionio de Cobres and this is where we met Ivan.

The Puna is a vast and sparsely populated area at high altitude.  We were lucky; for the eight days we explored the area, there was no wind and clear blue skies every day.  Temperatures in the day rose to 5⁰c to 20⁰c and overnight dropped to 0⁰c to -13⁰c.   Some days both Ivan and us had problems starting our vehicles.

From San Antionio de Cobres we drove over the high and beautiful Abra de Alto Chorrillos pass (4560m) towards Olacapato (4,006m), a very small mining town where we slept overnight and waited for Ivan to catch us up again.

From there we visited the Desierto del Diablo (Devil’s Desert) and decided to camp overnight.

In the morning we set off in convoy to Tolar Grande, calling in at Ojos de Mar on the way.

Ivan and David briefly explored Tolar Grande before leaving for Cono de Arita – a perfect 147m high cone in the middle of a salt plain.  We camped here overnight (3481m) and Ivan flew his drone to capture some wonderful footage at sunset.

From here we continued south across the Puna towards Antofalla, descending down to the surrounding salt planes.

The salt flats were followed by another high pass and we decided to camp next to a frozen laguna half way up that was teaming with birdlife and llama. Ivan treated us to a pizza night (reciprocating a fish night we had) which was very enjoyable and the next morning we had fun trying to start our trucks at the high altitude and low temperatures.

We called in at Antofagasta de Sierra for lunch before continuing to the volcanos and their lava fields just beyond. We stayed the night beside another laguna just outside town before continuing to El Peñón for lunch and then onto Laguna Blanca to camp. That evening we were treated to a spectacular sunset.

The next day we were invited to a Pachamama (mother Earth) festival at the local village. An annual event across the region, it involves a lot of speeches and then food offerings to Mother Earth.

From here it was a day’s drive to Belén, where we stayed for a few days in the municipal campsite. We were not feeling so good (bad colds) and Ivan very kindly cooked us a chicken stew (the optimistic dog didn’t get any!). We said goodbye to Ivan here (as he went south and we went north) and we hope to meet up again soon.