Where cactuses grow higher than trucks

Our first stop is the remains of the country’s largest pre-Colombian settlement – the ruins of Quilmes in the Tucumán province. A narrow path allows you to walk along the slopes of the 2,300-metre-high Alto del Rey, giving you a wonderful view of the holy city. The climb is not difficult, but the dry air in the desert makes the short hike a little challenging. We stay overnight in the visitors car park and in the morning we are visited by llamas who belong to the site.

What makes the landscape special here are the giant cactuses. To do a size comparison, we park the Axor next to a cactus that is a full seven metres high! We really enjoy our stopovers in the small villages along the route. We buy our food in the marketplaces, the "mercados centrales", and enjoy freshly baked empanadas.

Then we head back to the legendary Ruta 40. This section in the Salta province is still untouched, which is why we once again appreciate the immense capacity of the Axor’s air filter. This is because even in low winds, a lot of dust is swirled up and we don’t want it to get into the engine. We head north and head for the Paso de Jama, the northernmost border crossing between Chile and Argentina. But in order to reach the Atacama region, we first have to cross the Andes – that’s almost 2,000 m up to 4,830 m and then back down again! Some of the roads climb very steeply up the mountain, so we take our time and stay overnight in the last village at an altitude of almost 3,900 m before heading to Chile the next day.

Since June 2020, Andrea and Mike Kammermann have been on the road in their Expedition‑Axor. From the northernmost point of Norway to the Canary Islands, the Swiss couple has visited large parts of Europe and even made a detour to Tunisia. Distance covered on the road: 83,000 kilometres!

Especially due to pandemic-related restrictions, further destinations were unreachable — until now: From now on, Andrea and Mike are discovering South America. Stay tuned to see what happens next! The current tour is the second one that the Swiss couple has embarked on in their Axor. In 2018 and 2019, they travelled to more than 20 countries and covered a good 47,000 kilometres.