There’s a story behind every sunrise in the Puna. This is ours.

It all began with a man who came to read the stones. Rubén Darío Patrouilleau was a geologist; he arrived in Catamarca to study its high-altitude lakes and found himself captivated by something no instrument could measure. Where others saw rock and minerals, he saw destiny.

Those were the days when the Puna didn’t appear on any itinerary. No roads, no cell service, no one around: just volcanoes unnamed on maps, turquoise lagoons lost in the driest desert on the planet, and the Seismiles watching over everything from above. Patrouilleau organized the first expeditions with seasoned mountaineers and an old Land Rover brought from Brazil as the only vehicle available. It was pure expedition tourism, in a land where needing something and not having it could cost you your life.

That is how Alta Catamarca came to be: grand from the very first day, because the place demanded nothing less. And like a fire that ignites and is passed on so it will never go out, that first flame reached us.

What came next is the part we're most proud of.

Today, the current owners of Alta Catamarca work every day to refine the language of Catamarca so that the world can understand it. It is a quiet and constant effort: reconciling two eras that should never meet—a planet racing at the speed of light and a corner of the earth that still survives without electricity, without technology, without the internet—and, at that impossible intersection, creating journeys that speak to the heart of even the most unlikely of people.

To achieve that, it’s not enough to simply love the destination. You have to build it. We create systems where none existed before. We forge strategic partnerships with every key player in the region. We educate ourselves tirelessly, take the world’s best as our benchmark, and translate all of that into the reality of the highlands. We are a licensed travel and tourism company, with our own fleet, local guides, and the formal structure that such a demanding destination requires, because passion without professionalism is merely enthusiasm.

And with every step we take, we carry with us the province’s most cherished name, the incomparable name: La Alta Catamarca. We bring it to the world with the conviction that it deserves it.

After all these years, we still catch our breath when Pissis appears on the horizon—the tallest dormant volcano on the planet—or when a salt flat stretches as far as the eye can see. That undiminished sense of wonder is what truly drives us: we feel it every time, just as we did the first time, and our only ambition is for you to feel it too.

There are mountains you climb and mountains you respect. Ours are respected. And no one knows them better than someone who has been exploring them for over 30 years.

Everything we are was already there on the mountain. Everything we will be, too.