We met late in a trip that had already taken my husband Jordan and I deep into the Chilean Patagonia. Journeying to the ends of the earth we rode sturdy criollos alongside spindly guanaco herds, hunted fossils of giant sloths, felt the grumbles and groans of crumbling glaciers before flying north. Waking in Patagonia and ending your day in Atacama Desert is truly like traveling to Mars – although separated by only a few hours in a plane, the landscapes are completely opposite. Arriving content but weary, I found myself wrestling with the dry altitude (the Spanish-colonial pueblo of San Pedro de Atacama rests at 7,900 feet above sea level). Jordan, however, had his mind set on one thing: summiting one of the majestic volcanoes lumbering in our horizon. We chose Cerro Toco, elevation 18,386 feet.
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