Reading about ancient civilizations and exotic cultures was a way to discover my vocation to become an archaeologist and anthropologist. I was about 14 years old when I first ascended a small hill, and ever since that first hike, mountaineering became a great passion in my life.
I ascended to the summits of more than one hundred mountains above 5,000 meters in the Andes, including mount Pissis (6,882 meters), the second highest volcano in the world, and mount Aconcagua (6,962 meters), the highest peak in the western hemisphere. I also climbed mountains in Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Northern Chile and Patagonia. In my view, high altitude archaeology and the anthropology of sacred mountains are ways to learn about our world, preserve its genuine cultural diversity, and celebrate the human spirit of exploration.
National Geographic explorer, Johan Reinhard, invited me to join a group of archaeologists during a one-month excavation at 5,800 meters inside the crater of mount Misti, an active volcano in southern Peru. Subsequently, we conducted an archaeological mission to rescue the remains of a mummy that had been destroyed by treasure hunters on the summit of mount Quehuar, a dormant volcano above 6,000 meters in northern Argentina.
In 1999, Reinhard and I codirected the project to the highest archaeological site in the world and we discovered three extraordinarily preserved ice mummies, on the summit of mount Llullaillaco (at 6,739 meters), in Argentina. We spent a month on the mountain, facing snowstorms, and extreme weather conditions and we discovered and brought to safety the three best-preserved mummies and the best documented collections of artifacts from the Inca civilization.
