Acotango Climb

I drove to Sajama national park (an area that has 4 mountains over 6000 meters high) on Thursday June 18th, and from the very small Sajama village to the base camp of Parinacota and Pomerape. Or I thought it was the base camp, but later concluded it was in the next valley. I wanted to walk to the high camp and climb both mountains the next day, but after a while my backpack's left shoulder strap ripped off. Not a very good backpack. And I was carrying a lot of water. It was not too late, so I decided to make a really quick try on Parinacota. But I didn't want to leave any of my stuff outside low on the mountain because this is Bolivia, so I returned to the car and left most of my equipment in the car and took off again with smaller backpack and everything needed for a one-day attempt. By now it was almost 3pm. I climbed up until 5300 meters and estimated I could have made it to the summit just before the sun went down (of course this was a really optimistic estimate) but then thought it was better to return because I didn't feel like having an adventure in the darkness coming down. I returned to the car again.
 I thought about my options: the first one was camping where the car was at 4800 meters. It was windy and these mountains are volcanoes, and the soil is a very soft mix of sand and ash. It was quite dusty in the wind. I didn't like the idea of staying the night there because I have always tried to avoid camping alone at low elevations since I've read stories about thefts in all "major" mountain base camp sites in Bolivia. Here I hadn't seen anyone after the Sajama village that was one hour's very slow drive away, but there were a couple of houses along the way,and in this country there are usually people outside almost everywhere, except at really high elevations at 5000 meters and over. I still think it's extremely unlikely it would happen, but I just didn't want to take the risk of someone coming to wake me up in the night with a knife. And if you can rob money, why not take the car too? To be realistic, if something disappears from your remote camp in Bolivia I think they are kids stealing the stuff, not hard core criminals. Sure, almost all Bolivians I know are good people, but still a lot of people here wouldn't hesitate to steal if they have the opportunity. And many are looking for an opportunity to steal.
My car isn't very big so sleeping in it would not have been even remotely comfortable. In 2009 I made a trip to Sweden and Denmark, sleeping 4 nights pretty well in my car but it was a longer kind of car. It was a nice trip. I had a road bike with me and did rides and runs in both countries.
I made the decision to return to the village. Maybe I should have just climbed the mountain and not return and maybe I should have just camped outside, but I didn't. Not now. I didn't have the right feeling. I got lost two times, but thanks to my car being a 4x4 vehicle, I was able to make u- turns in the soft sand and not get stuck. This trip was the first time I ever had to use the 4x4. I took a hostal room for about 5$. Very cheap, but in fact the room was quite good for Bolivia.

The next morning I headed for the mountain called Acotango which is a 6052 meters or 19,855ft high mountain. As I was leaving the village I saw a tourist outside, obviously waiting for some sort of transport out of the village to the paved "highway" or the next town. In the countryside where people don't have cars and where there is very little public transportation, there are always people on the side of the road wanting you to pick them up. Driving close to Illimani a few weeks back I eventually gave up and decided to give an old man a lift since I was already driving super slow, but it turned out he was just curious and wanted to talk to me. So in general, there's no way I'm going to pick up a Bolivian stranger while driving, but a German tourist, of course. There are hot springs and geysers close to Sajama, the area is pretty, and the climbing is good so the Sajama area is a (very) minor tourist spot. Plus it's less than 3 hours from the Chilean coast and beach towns. We drove 30 minutes to the border town Tambo Quemado, talking in Spanish. From there I took a smaller road leading to Acotango. There is a good mining road going up the mountain. Up the road I saw a tractor working on the road and 3 men, and higher up a truck was coming down. I took the first spot where I could park the car because I couldn't see if there was enough room to pass. I was already at over 5300 meters! Definitely the highest I have ever driven. Also I knew the climb was not going to be very hard, but most of all, I didn't want to get on the miners' bad side. In this country they have a really bad reputation for being troublemakers, making protests and blocking the most important highways, and throwing dynamite while doing that. In Sajama I was told they would charge 100 bolivianos or 14 dollars for climbing the mountain.
The 3 men in the truck stopped to talk to me. Nice people! When I passed the tractor and the other 3 men, they wanted to talk as well. Nice people!
I walked up the road. Not because it seemed to go toward the summit, it didn't, but because I wanted to see how high it went and how good it was near the end. The snow line was maybe at 5350 meters but I have seen from pictures that later in the year there might not be snow at all. The road however was mostly free of snow and ice up until 5600 meters! Crazy. I was still quite far from the summit distance- wise. I had left the car really late by mountaineering standards at 11.20 a.m but it was ok because the mountain doesn't have glaciers, just snow. The snow was still ok the whole day, not too soft. I took a route mostly following a ridge leading to the summit. A nice route but the shortest routes would have been steeper and more exciting. No matter how short the actual climb, moving at 6000 meters is always slow and tiring and anyways it will take hours. Here is the final part of the climb:

Then the summit. My gps said 6073 meters which I have also seen online I think, but Wikipedia says 6052 meters. I continued and went down the ridge to the other side and then down a steep slope.

Overall it was a nice worry free climb with good views. Felt really safe, didn't see anything that could be dangerous. It was not windy now. Third 6000 meter mountain I have climbed during this year's mountain campaign.
I was home in La Paz at 10.30 that night. I need to go back to that area for more mountains but I'm not sure if I'll have the chance to climb more soon or if I'll have to do other things.