This mountain is known to be the nest of Juanita mummy, discovered by a Peruvian–American expedition, supervised by the National geographic and managed by an American scientist called Johan Reinhardt. That’s why the mummy is called Juanita because Johan in Spanish is Juan and the female in Juana, followed for a diminutive (Juanita)

It is necessary to define too the bad called Juanita “mummy”. In fact, this is not a mummy, because it has never suffered the process of mummification, so that the right name is Juanita“ The baby of the Ampato “, sacrificed in the Inca period more then than 500 years ago being considered as the frozen body of a girl between 13-15 years. That frozen body is the best conserved in South America and probably in the world.

Why was the sacrifice done in the Inca period? Surely for weather reasons, because the powerful bosses couldn’t explain to the towns the drought that was affecting the Peruvian Andes in that times. Nowadays, that climatic phenomenon is known as the “Fenomeno del niño”.
That explains they sent emissaries to talk to the gods.

We walk from the 2nd camping site 5200m to the 6318 meters, which is the altitude of the top of the peak. This same day ,it is possible to walk down from the 6318 meters submit till the 4900m where we take the 4x4 car to come back to Arequipa.