Our pulse and blood oxygen level is allright. We are well, although our altitude is only the same as the summit region of the Eastern Alps (3800 m).
However this is the starting point of every venture to the higher regions of the Andes. We are quite concerned about our technical equipment as we intend to use them in extreme circumstances. I remember to the remarks of our esteemed geophisicist and meteorologist colleagues „there are nail sized high-tech equipment, which can measure 18 variables, and there are DIY equipment, which weight 12 kg and quite hard to assemble (way more complicated than an IKEA guide)”. However if the former cease to work, in most cases, you can't do anything on the field, whereas there is still room for manuevre in the case of the later (just think about MacGywer). There are both high-tech and DIY alternatives with us for slightly the same purpose, we will try to make all of them work, but sooner or later there will be problems we have to overcome.
Today, in order to acclimatise ourselves, we made an ascend to 4500 m and returned to our camp at 3800 m, next to the Laguna Santa Rosa, where we will spend the night again. We have also collected mud samples from this salt marsh for our biologist colleagues back at home. Tomorrow we will travel to the Negro Francisco Lake where we will download our data loggers and make geophysical measurements. I will try to keep up with you in English too if my blood oxygen level allows it, see you soon.
