Back home after three weeks in South America, there still remains some of the magic of Chile and Bolivia which we experienced on our trip through the Atacama Desert, across the Salar the Uyuni and on top of majestic volcanos.

We, a group of five Swiss and three Germans, were given a warm welcome in Calama, Chile, by Jeff’s team (Jeff, Pat, Carlos, Pedro and Ricardo) and it soon turned out that we all shared a common sense of humour. Our different mother tongues (Swiss-German, Aussi, American English, Spanish, Aymara, Quechua,…) only contributed to this and made us more than once become actors in a bizarre pantomime.

And the scenery was magic: Starting our trip in San Pedro de Atacama our three 4WD Nissan Patrol (and I still believe they had their personality, too) took us safely to the Valle de la Luna, to ancient Inca ruines, salty lagunes and the geysers of El Tatio. These were smoking furiously, spitting water fountains into the early morning frost and were flooded in mystic light by the rising sun. And if someone had expected that the desert might be dull, he was shown the opposite by the magnificient colours of the cone-shaped mountains and volcanos (shades of yellow, brown and red – with areas of light green and topped with whitesnowcaps) and by the coloured lagunes (Laguna verde, Laguna Colorado, ….) we passed on our ride from San Pedro to the Salar de Uyuni. And then the wide plane of crusted, shiny white salt, which formed the big Salar. The stage was set for a fascinating photo shooting and 4WD race on Bolivia’s “only and best highway” – followed by one of Carlos’ delicious barbecues on the Isla de Pescada in the middle of the Salar – sunset inclusive.

Acclimatizing like this was really fun – as you can drive up to and higher than 5000 meters of altitude (even one of the custom checkpoints between Chile and Bolivia is at 5020m) you often don’t realize that the air “up there” is really thin and even small sporty activities make you breath heavily. Yet after one and a half week in an altitude at around 4000m and several walks through the desert, canyons and caves we were best prepared for our summits – the three volcanoes Isluga, Guallatire and Parinacota at the border between Chile and Bolivia. For each of the climbs we set up a base camp – prime locations for all three camping sites with premium views over the surroundings and the most beautiful starry sky in cold nights. For Isluga and Guallatire we left reasonably early and despite the climb itself being no technical challenge we had to fight hard against the loose sand – two steps up, one step back – to gain height.  The penitentes on the summit edge of Guallatire just gave a first impression what we were going to expect on Parinacota, though our guides Pedro and Ricardo cleared the track such that almost everyone were able to make the summit.

For the highlight Parinacota, we reduced our equipment to the minimum needed and stowed it into (and onto) our backpacks. After a rich lunch (filling-up our carbohydrate stores) we set off for the high camp on 5200m. After a short night at three in the morning we left the camp for the long and exhausting ascent to the summit of Parinacota. At the beginning of the penitentes zone me and Ivo decided reluctantly to turn around and go back to the high camp (thanks Jeff for taking both of us down). After an eight our ascent, Beatrice, Madeleine, Oliver, Raimund and Rasso finally reached the top together with Carlos, Pedro and Ricardo, who set a really good pace during the whole ascent, “killing” the penitentes with their ice axes.

And after a long, long day we all met back in the base camp around the long table in the kitchen tent. One last time, our crew spoiled us with another fantastic and opulent diner before we left our camp for Putre and Arica the next day.

After these fascinating, adventurous, awesome and magic days - what’s left to take home …?

· With Jeff, Carlos, Pedro, Ricardo and Pat we did not only have a brilliant and hard-working crew and responsible guides but found real friends.

· Carlos’ enthusiasm of food brought us fantastic barbecues in the middle of nowhere - and the insight that any steak that is left after diner must be a mist(e)ake.

· We got the chance to see guanacos, llamas, alpacas and vicunas, flamingos, nandus (with babies), several more birds, viscachas and mice; we are still missing a condor and the puma (whose footprints we saw in the Parinacota base camp).

· Cactuses can be more than nine meters high (and only grow 1cm per year), but we still have no clue what makes them grow arms.

· Coca leaves taste like black tea (at the first try J).

· The Salar de Uyuni consists of salt.

· Added tire, ratchet, hose, fan, shock, boiling water, hay perdido liquido and clamp to my English vocabulary – and now have a clue where you can find these parts in a Nissan Patrol, and that you can fix all of them…. But at the very end duct tape will fix everything – even sleeping mats.

· There is so much more to see in Chile and Bolivia!

We were a great group and it was a really fun trip – thank you so much Jeff, Carlos, Pedro, Ricardo and Pat! See you soon in Bolivia!!