Leaving the wonderful Socaire we were bound for Tuzgle, the highest climbing in the atacama for us and according to he Petzl Roc trip the best bouldering in Argentina. So we were all excited. We crossed into Argentina with no problems and even got a game of table tennis in the border control. Then halfway into across a lonely strip of desert disaster struck as the truck ground to a halt. Collectively we push started the truck twice but the engine kept cutting out. Stuck we popped up our tents again in the middle of the desert and off went Seb and Tom again to find help. The net day was filled with lonely walks, movie watching and lots of eating before Seb returned in a big truck destined to tow us to the nearest town some 100 km away. It was a slow tow and at 10pm the truck abandoned us after Ernie collided into the back of the truck. They would come back at 2am with a longer tow bar but this was after I had settled into a deep sleep outside in my bivvi bag. Everyone else had squeezed into a corner of the truck. The only space left for me was to sit in the communal shoe box for the remaining 16km journey which remarkably took 6 hours arriving in the charming town of San Antonio de las Cobres at 8am. The town was a hell hole, an old mining town with no charm or character.
As the truck was clearly severely in need of TLC as a group we decided to abandon the truck and make our own way to Cordoba and then onto Los Gigantes in the Sierra de Cordoba range. This involved a 5 hour bus ride to Salta and then a 12 hour overnight coach to Cordoba which was most pleasant apart from the man refusing to let me get my sleeping bag out of my pack before getting on, I was outraged as the coach was freezing.
Highlight of Cordoba was the ice cream and steak night. We quickly moved onto the climbing. Beautiful granite hills stretching for miles.We stayed in our tents by a beautiful alpine stream which was great for bathing. It was actually nice to be away from the truck for a while, with no duties or routines it made for a very relaxed stay. The walk ins were over an hour so we worked hard for our climbs but once we found out where the non slab climbs were they were well worth it (hate slab climbing!) After 8days the truck had still not caught up with us and we had all ran out of money and food. So beating a hasty retreat from the angry refuge owner (whom I couldnt pay) we hitched a ride back down to Villa Carlos Paz where I left the rest of the group in order t catch up with Kirsty who was due to fly in to Iguassu!
To see photos from this leg please click below!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150390875373780&set=a.10150371029028780.357348.501123779&type=1#!/media/set/?set=a.10150359854238780.355692.501123779&type=3
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