Monday, April 14, 2008

The magic land around Pissis volcano





Pissis volcano is placed in the ‘Andes Septentrionales’, to the south of the Atacama dessert. The area that surrounds this volcano is over the second highest plateau of the World, where we can find plenty of wildlife adapted to the harshness of such environment.

Countless Vicuñas live on these high flatlands, where the more colorful flamingos are seen on the distant lagoons. As there’s a high content of minerals on the lagoons waters, the more beautiful combination of colors can be found around the area of Laguna Negra and Laguna Azul.

This is certainly an area worth visiting if you happened to be on the north of Argentina. Several volcanoes have been rarely climbed, offering countless possibilities for those adventures seekers who enjoy nature where the closest human being around is at several hundred miles away.

The new Solio solar chargers helped me to keep my X9i battery charged during the many days I spent on the mountains.


Have fun!

Manu

Mt Penitentes, Argentina



Hello!

I am back from the mountains and happy to be ready to share our fantastic discoveries with you guys.

Together with a group of five people, we climbed Mt. Penintentes (4300mt) placed in Mendoza, Argentina. What makes this mountain so special is the fact that was climbed by the Incas 500 years ago. The Inca's built a stone cairn 10 meters below it's highest summit, which has a direct line of sight with the placed where the Inca's sacrificed a boy of nine years of age. This mummy was found in Aconcagua, at the bottom of the Southwest ridge. Mt. Penitentes offers a perfect view of that spot; therefore the Incas’s chose this mountain to become a ‘secondary altar’.

It is fascinating to feel that we were standing at 4300 mts, at the very same place where such indigenous people once venerated their Gods.

I used X9i to record logs during our three days climb and can now see in Google Earth the exact location of the Inca’s cairn on Mt. Penitentes!

For those ones interested in information about the boy that was sacrificed in Aconcagua, I recommend to search for ‘Aconcagua mummy’ in Google and you will get information from different important sources. The Archaeologist who has published good documents (in Spanish) and who was present at the moment of the excavation is called Juan Schobinger.

Have fun!

Manu