10-Mar Misadventures in Copiapó

La Plaza de Armas en Copiapó

We woke up early to catch a 7:00 a.m. flight to Copiapó.  No sooner had we stepped off the plane than we were greeted by a large scorpion.  Copiapó is an arid, barren landscape of composed of rounded hills composed mainly of dirt.  Town itself is inhabited mainly by miners.  As you may recall, Copiapó was the site of the mining accident and rescue last year.

We took a minibus into town and set about finding a hostal and trying to track down our mountain guide.  After 3 tries, we finally found an acceptable resedencia.  The guide, recommended as the best by Lonely Planet guide, was a different story.  We phoned him and agreed to meet at 3:00 pm in the plaza.  He showed up 20 minutes late.  He had just returned from Ojos de Salado with frost nipped toes.  I was immediately suspicious of him.
1. He did not respond to our emails thoroughly
2. He dropped the ball on our permit
3. He did not have the gear to rent to us that he promised
4. He wanted to turn our 12 day trip into a 7 day trip, which is not enough time to acclimatize to the high altitude
5. He did not seem that interested in guiding us
All my warning flags went up, plus the word on the street was that conditions on the mountain were unfavorable- windy, cold (-20 C) with deep snow.  We spent the remainder of the afternoon interviewing other outfitters and looking for gear to rent. 

As a bright spot, we met a local outfitter named Ercio who has spent a lot of time and energy trying to improve the tourism in the area.  Dismayed by our experience, he offered us a tour.  He spent 2 hours with us trying to track down gear, but owing to a lack of adequate equipment for rent, we eventually scrapped the idea of climbing.  Instead we opted for a tour with Ercio.

Pepper Trees are very common here

Back at the Residencia, I noticed that my fav Patagonia wool 1 tank got left at te hostel in Santiago.  This brings my loss total up to 1 water bottle, 1 pack towel, 1 trekking pole (broken), fav blue pendant mom bought me in Ouray, and now the tank top.  Ironically, I just mailed my other tank tops home. I climbed into bed before anything else bad could happen.

Still have problems with a virus on my camera disc.  Will post pics later.