Altitude attitude

The highest mountain in Australia is Mt Kosciuszko at 2228m altitude. Now in South America, they scarcely bother giving such little hills a name. 

We marveled at the passes over the Andes between Chile and Argentina, and were turned back from a few due to weather and rockfalls - which only added to the mystique. We ticked off the major milestones as we passed them at 1923m (Mt Feathertop our Australian favorite), 2228m Mt Kosciuszko, 2500m, 3000m etc.  

We received our first taste of altitude sickness one night when we camped at 3650m with a breathless broken sleep, headache and nausea. But after spending some time traveling the Alta Plano in Bolivia at around 3800m for weeks, any thing under about 4000m seemed rather pedestrian.

The Mitsubishi Fuso begins to get noticeably breathless at about 4200m where the accelerator stops responding properly, and the engine tops out at about 2400rpm. Usually when you run out of power ascending a hill, changing down a gear delivers plenty more power. Not so at altitude, where changing to a higher gear (and lower rpm) delivers more power.

Our highest camp was at 5100m on the side of Volcan Ollague, perched on a tight switch-back on a ridge-line to avoid rocks coming down overnight. The following morning we drove to our highest point at 5350m, where the road became impassable. We managed another breathless 200m altitude on foot over the next hour or so. It was a fascinating experience.

We spent another memorable night at the stunning turquoise glacial Punta Olimpica at  4670m. The following day we descended over 4550m - fully twice the height of Australia!

Yet another fantastic experience was paddling for a couple of hours at 4350m on  Lago Surasaca in the fantastic Zona Reservada Cordillera Huayhuas in Peru.

We could not resist, at the end of our time in South America, making a mad dash up the length of Argentina, to spend just a few more days and nights at altitude.