The beautiful South

   I don’t know how to describe our visits to Torres del Paine national park in Chile and the Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina.  They were both spectacular, both very relaxed, both with wonderful weather and in both places we were lucky to meet some really lovely people along the way.  Come to this part of the world and spend some time here.  With hindsight we would have spent more time down here and possibly a couple of days in El Chalten and a trip to Mount Fitzroy, certainly with the continued blessings of perfect weather.

   On Friday we took the bus to Torres del Paine National Park and hiked up to the mirador (look-out point) for the Torres.  It began with us shivering in the bus, thankful for our hearty dinner the night before, munching away on Nick and Megan’s home-made empanadas and longing for the warmth of the hostel’s Aga stove.  After 10 minutes on the trail we started shedding layers, warmed by the sun with a full day of clear skies to cross.

   On the trail from Hotel Las Torres we ascended steeply beside a glacier-fed stream, past Refugio Chileano before the path levelled out in a sun-dappled forest.  In a final steep climb we picked our way through and over a clutch of boulders before arriving.  And the view took our breath away.  Normally you look down or across from a lookout point.  Here, we looked up, and up.  The Torres loom over a chalky blue lake inviting you to stare silently for hours as they pierce the blue skies, and we did.

   Alternatively, you can choose this time to stand on a prominent rock and play the recorder, badly.  Twice.  In guess there are all sorts who visit the park.  Managing visitors’ toilet habits is quite a challenge.   “Do not burn your toilet paper” is not a sign I would have thought to see once, let alone three times.  Who does this, honestly?  Evidently someone who started the wildfires earlier this year, devastating the forest and shutting down the park at the height of the tourist season.  The English translation for that one was spot on.  Whereas I was told of another sign for which the English translation read “If you have to go to the toilet away from the facilities, please bury your waste.”  The Spanish original, shorter and pithier: “make like a cat”. 

Down Patagonia way – the bottom of the Americas

   Punta Arenas was a surprise and a revelation.  It was a pleasant little town, and its’ people came across cheerful and industrious.  For the first time on our adventure we found a place where everything just worked, easily too.  We wanted to go to see the penguins.  No problem, we can book you in for this afternoon.  We would like to see Fuerto Bulnes too.  Well we only do afternoons but here are two other operators with a choice of morning departures for the following day.

   The penguins were delightful in their breeding colony on Isla Magdalena.  They were delightful but poor buggers, their island in the Magellan Straight was bitterly cold.  “It was lovely, but muy muy frio”, Kizzy told our tour guide at Fuerto Bulnes the next morning.  "This is your summer, isn’t it?”  More of an indictment than a question, really.  “Here, there is no summer,” came the baleful response. 

   On the island you could see the moment, about 20 minutes into our hour ashore, that people started looking nervously toward the ferry anchored a short way off the beach, hoping for an early return.  One passenger disembarked, a lady in her eighties I suspect, although rugged up as she was it’s hard to be certain.  I took a look at her hospital issue walking stick and uncertain progress up the pebble beach and wondered if she would make the return journey.  Bless her but she found the only bench on the island and sat it out, in the windiest spot possibly of the entire Magellan Straight, without a single word of complaint.

   Fuerto Bulnes marked the most southerly point of our travels, a short (but surprisingly cold, wet and uncomfortable) trek of 40km from Cabo Froward, the very bottom of mainland South America.  It is the historic location of the first Chilean settlement to occupy the Magellan Straight, Mostly a recreation but evocative nonetheless.  Amusingly there is a marker you pass about 2km to the north that purports to be the geographical centre of Chile, being equidistant from the northern border with Peru and the extent of the Chilean Antarctic territory at the South Pole. 

Why is that man head-butting the tree and calling it an idiot?

   Despite warnings from the various popular guidebooks about difficulty booking connections in the high season, we had no trouble finding a bus to Puerto Natales.  Sadly I had trouble remembering to take the camera with us when we left the bus.  Hence, we have no photographic evidence of the southerly extremities of our travels.  Amazingly, the images here are in fact very lifelike recreations.  Gallingly, the photo I had the camera out to take was almost identical to the one here: taken specifically to put on the blog and illustrating the vast majority of the Patagonian scenery from the bus.

   Such is life.  We had a choice of five cameras we could purchase in Puerto Natales, all of which incorporated an idiot premium in the price (I swear, they separate it on the receipt).  One was an underwater digital camera with a warranty that expired in 2002.  Another was a Toy Story camera with fun games and three interchangeable fascias.  Sadly it only had capacity for 70 photos.  If we could have added a memory card that would have been the one for me.  We now have the next cheapest, a very pink Samsung.  “Do you have another colour?”  Quizzical stare from the assistant.  “No, we don’t have another camera.”  God help the next idiot.  I hope they find the one with fun games for Woody and Buzz.  Ours takes good photos.  We’re happy.

To the very bottom of mainland Argentina

   We spent Saturday morning at the beach and then the afternoon waiting for our bus to Rio Gallegos.  And waiting.  And waiting.  By the time it had arrived, two and a half hours late, we were a little concerned about making our connecting bus out of Rio Gallegos the next afternoon.  "No worries", the gentleman from the bus company assured us.  "The following bus will wait for your one, yes even if it is five hours late."  That was quite a relief because after a further delay of an hour and a half due to the bus electrics going down (see note 3 below) we were running over four hours late.  “Don’t worry”, the bus driver told us as he dropped us off in Rio Gallegos, “it will be here at 4pm”.  Actually, what he said was “don’t worry, they will be here at 4pm.” 

   When they turned up and opened the Andesmar bus company office they had no idea what to do about our predicament.  Four hours and many many words of uncomprehended Spanish later we left the bus station with assurances that a hotel and tickets for tomorrow would be sorted out for us.  I don’t think we were all that confident.  Thanks be to God, both these things did indeed materialise, and we are now bathed, refreshed and sitting in the final two seats on the El Pinguino bus to Punta Arenas.  However, we’ve not really succeeded in giving any of the people we met in Rio Gallegos (4 bus officials from two different bus companies, three hotel employees and a very helpful Mexican lady called Lina who offered to call her friends and find us a place to stay when we were getting desperate at about 6pm) a credible explanation as to why we want to go to Punta Arenas.  Suggestions on the back of a postcard please. 

   Our bus took us across the border to Southern Chile.  I provided the entertainment with my best impression of that tourist regularly featured on Aussie reality TV show “Border Control” who ticked the “nothing to declare” box whilst carrying a bag of fresh vegetables in his backpack … and then looked shocked when the dog found my backpack, of all the bags in the bus.  Paolo, a very nice Chilean chap gave us a caution and let us off without a fine, albeit feeling rather foolish.  Incidentally, we have now met up with two American couples in Chile and both of them also had "border control" moments crossing into Chile.  It makes me feel a little less foolish, and rather thankful that this didn't happen in Santiago airport where it seems they are pretty hardcore.

   Maps of our travels are below.  Not the most hi-tech I know.  The first one marks the main stops on our journey south from Rio.  Ans the second one shows the southernmost point that we got to - Fuerto Bulnes, about 50km north of Cabo Froward the southernmost tip of the mainland.  To get there would have involved 4 days of hiking there and back and 3 river crossings in each direction, and with maximums of about 10 degrees that didn't sound so appealing!

Down Patagonia way

    How strange things are at the bottom of Argentina.  Towards the top end of Patagonia (sort of like the beginning of the end of the world) lies Puerto Madryn.  The main attraction is the wildlife on the nearby Peninsula Valdes.  However, on arrival we were helpfully informed by a pleasant British chap, Jonathan, that the tours are quite pricey (about £55pp including park entry) and we had managed to turn up in time to see almost no wildlife.  Incidentally, Jonathan was travelling alone because, as he put it, it would be unfair to inflict his company on anyone for an entire 5 months.  Kizzy nodded sagely and reminisced at the 18 hours on the bus with me.  I bent down to tie my laces but sadly she was out of range of the cricket bat handle. 

   Puerto Madryn Is quite pleasant as a beach resort with blue seas, a sandy beach and a climate that’s lovely in the sunshine but turns chilly whenever a cloud gets in the way.  In other words, it’s a bit like Cornwall, which had me and Kizzy pining after pasties and cream teas.  After debating the merits of 18 hours on a plane and 4 hours on a train to have afternoon tea in Penzance, we stumbled across the somewhat surreal existence of “Welsh” communities that sprung up in this part of the world about 150 years ago. 

   Our trip to Gaiman, two buses and an hour and a half down the road was a surreal antidote to homesickness.  The Welsh settlers here found somewhere a little bit drier than Cardiff and now in their 8^th generation or so they still maintain a close affinity with the homeland, dual-language signage and truly embarrassing clothes for the kids and all.  Tris, I have to ask, is this really how your mum dressed you back on the borders?

   We stopped in one of the 5 tea houses in town to indulge in a “Welsh” tea with more sticky and sweet cakes than Kizzy could manage.  The proprietors were pleased to see us, as was the young man in tourist information.  We were the only tourists in town when we arrived.  We were later joined in the tea house by an Argentine family who looked a little bewildered by the place but clearly realised that this was it for the town and ordered the tea out of curiosity.  We were directed to the town’s first house, built by David Roberts.  Dave, if you’re reading this, your first house is nothing to shout about but at least you’re on the property ladder.  I don’t think you’ll convince Clemmie to move to Gaiman any time soon. 

   Incidentally, this blog is as you can tell about 4 days behind the times.  Today was the first day in which we started heading north.  We took a day trip to Fuerto Bulnes, 60km south of Punta Arenas at the bottom of mainland South America.  To put this in perspective I will put a map up with the next post.

Our Uruguayan adventure

Our Uruguayan adventure

   Uruguay is a wonderful place to go for a long weekend.  I’m sure it’s great for longer stays too.  It’s one of those pleasant sort of places where things are easy and relaxed and we found it easy and relaxing from the moment we arrived until the moment we boarded the ferry back to BA.  Our first night was in Colonia del Sacramento.  A small town, with a quaint and well-preserved historical centre, it is heavily promoted in guidebooks and at the tourist offices of BA.  The reality was something of a surprise.  Despite being high season, it felt very quiet and laid back.  No hordes of tourists, in fact with the boat fully booked out for Monday returns I had expected it to be madness but our hostel was only half full.  It seemed like a nice place to go back to for Valentine’s day, three days later, and it was.  We spent half the evening sitting in a plaza listening to the chanteuse from a restaurant that was handing out free bubbly to passers-by.  We had enjoyed a big lunch and we indulged on a dinner of gourmet Belgian chocolate from a little shop around the corner.

   On Sunday we took the bus to Montevideo and spent the afternoon wandering the centre of town, including the Carnaval Museum, which we found out was free on Monday’s about 10 seconds after paying UR$130 for entry.  It was practically empty and provided a good opportunity to cross lines that were not meant to be crossed and pose with some of the costumes.  We also stumbled across a little (free) museum, Palacio Taranco, which backs onto Plaza Zabala.  Really just a beautifully appointed house, frozen in the 1850’s and really lovely to stumble upon during our lazy ramble.  Nice loos too.  Actually, Montevideo had some wonderful finds.  One of the best was the Catedral Metropolitana, on Plaza Constitution.  I have no photos of the inside as we popped into the Sunday service.  It was stunning though, you will have to go see it for yourself.  I can’t recall stepping into a Cathedral so beautifully and tastefully appointed.  I don’t know why it isn’t celebrated in guidebooks and on tourist sites.  Whoever designed it (actually, the internet tells me it was Bernado Poncini of Switzerland who gave it a makeover in 1858) made superb use of colour and light and shade and just the right amount of gold leaf and decorative stonework.  We also spent a lot of time on the beaches on Sunday and Monday, it was so warm that Kizzy went into the water twice.  Blue blue sea, what a pleasure after the muddy brown Rio del Plata separating BA and Colonia.

   We popped back to Buenos Aires for most of the day on Wednesday as we waited for our bus to Puerto Madryn.  We gained an hour as we crossed back into Argentina so we had time to finally find the small scale Statue of Liberty in a park in Belgrano.  We spent some more time camped out in the Recoletta shopping mall using their free wifi to book our accommodation in Puerto Natales and  arranged our travel from El Calafate to Bariloche.  We’re now booked and paid for to travel by bus along Route 40 with Chalten Travel.  As luck would have it we’re now hearing bad things about this journey, but we shall see.  A full review will be given after we make it to Bariloche on 28^th February.  In the meantime, we had our glorious trip travelling “cama suite” with our fully flat beds.  The food was ok, they did serve bubbly after dinner, there were no personal dvd players but we did get to watch Prince of Persia, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Apocalypto in Spanish (with Spanish subtitles) and the first 30 minutes of X-Men: First Class in English.  The seats went fully flat, although we only worked out how to get the feet bit to raise up at about 7am in the morning.  Sadly no photos, not sure why, probably because we were both feeling a bit scummy for photos. 

   We’re now in Puerto Madryn but I think there’s been enough typing for one evening.  Kizzy is now asleep and it’s time for me to go to bed too.  Before I do, it’s Byron’s birthday today (it’s now just past midnight on 18^th Feb) – Happy birthday matey!  Lots of love from Argentina.

More notes but mostly some photos from BA

   Here are a few more photos from our last days in Buenos Aires.  The first is of Kizzy looking nervous as I posed her in front of the Obelisk and a hefty contingent of oncoming traffic in the widest avenue in South America – Av. 9 de Julio.  22 lanes wide, evidently, although I can only count 20 (and not because I ran out of fingers and toes!).  The second is of me enjoying the sun in front of the art museum in Tigres, a waterfront suburb of Buenos Aires up in the delta of the Rio Parana. 

   The next one is in a bookshop called “the Grand Splendid”.  It’s part of a chain of bookstores, but this one is a destination because it used to be an opera theatre and fell out of use.  The seats and the internal doors have been removed and filled with books on the three main levels, and the stage has been replaced with a coffee shop.  It’s all very decadent to have the boxes as comfortable reading areas. 

   These two are taken in front of the Floralis Generica in the Plaza de la Naciones Unite (United Nations), behind the Museo de Bellas Artes in Recoleta.  As of Saturday it has been a month since I last shaved
(or as Kizzy pointed out, a month that we've been away).  

   And these two are of Kizzy in La Boca, which is evidently a bit of a rough port-side neighbourhood that’s just outside the main centre of BA.  As well as being the home of Boca Juniors, I guess it’s the Brixton equivalent, noted for its atmosphere but a bit edgier.  That said, I can’t imagine a concerned resident in Brixton telling a backpacker to get on the next bus back to central London because it wasn’t a safe neighbourhood.  We went to the bit for tourists – the colourful block around the Caminito.  It’s very touristy and very heavily policed.  The statue is of a gentleman who had something to do with building up the area – hence he is holding a trowel.  But Kizzy thinks that given the area, it‘s more likely he was going equipped for an armed robbery. 

   On our last day in town we took a free walking tour from Congresso (near our hostel) to Plaza de Mayo and then back up to the Obelisk.  We tool almost no photos as we´d done the same walk twice a day since arriving in BA to and from school.  However, we did find out (pretty late after being here for two weeks!) that the tour of the Casa Rosada - the President´s Palace - was free and only possible on weekends.  What a wonderful opportunity for Kizzy to pose on Evita´s balcony and for me to get fashion inspiration from important figures in Argentine history.

   There were two things we noticed that were funny in both odd and amusing ways.  The first: there is a little cottage in amongst all the high rise buildings on Av. 9 de Julio - actually, it´s perched on top of one of them and we didn´t notice it until Saturday when it was pointed out to us by our guide, Virginia of BA free tours.  The final two are part of the quest of the President, Christina Fernandez, to be an icon, chasing comparisons with Evita at every turn.

   We´re now in Uruguay - more photos to follow soon.

Notes on the city

   It’s hard to write about a city when you’re staying still for any length of time.  The observations can seem inane, or overly personal, or heaven forbid: preachy and self-righteous.  After all, how many comments does anyone want to read about the jolt I get every time I see a toddler living on a traffic island?

   Most of our time in BA has been light and amusing.  It has been easy to perplex our Spanish teachers through a combination of bad grammar and terrible punning (which seems to be a very English brand of humour).  Both Kizzy and I are improving - we successfully changed the booking for our bus journey and avoided the penalty charge - in spite of some ongoing frustrations.  We’ve not yet learned the past tense so all our conversation is about the future.  In fact, we’ve now finished our two weeks of lessons so “no vamos a hablar Español en el past-a tense-io”. 

   We have learned a lot of the marvellous ways of Buenos Aires.  They do do good steak here but you need to go to the right places.  We found a simple test last night at the wonderful El Desnivel (I know it’s raved about all in the guidebooks but it really is very good food): when you ask for your steak vuelta y vuelta (properly rare) the waiter thanks you, nodding his approval.  It’s a really nice touch and it was one of the two best steaks I’ve ever tasted. 

   The locals have a love of queuing that far surpasses the British.  This photo is of a queue for a local bus.  That’s right, 65 people (we counted, what else do you do in a queue?) patiently waiting in a precise single file line with no cutting-in or encroaching.  And when the bus arrives they all wait their turn patiently.  It helps that buses are plentiful and cheap.  But the bus queues are nothing compared to the Sube queues.  The Subte is the subterranean metro train system.  The Sube is the new magnetic payment card for Subte and bus travel in the city.  In order to pay bus fares, people horde loose change here (evidently there’s a shortage).  The Sube brings freedom from this, but the queues are madness.  We went to the bus terminal yesterday to buy our onward tickets to Patagonia.  On our way back, no more than 20 min later, a Sube card application point had set up and already had a queue 300m long.  That is over 600 people who have stopped whatever they were going to do in order to queue for a long time to get a bus pass that they plan to use some time in the future.

   Everywhere in central BA has air-con.  Scratch that.  Everywhere in central BA except our hostel has air-con.  (That’s fine, the hostel is roasting but it’s like getting a sauna experience every evening.  I’m so decadent I’ve started indulging in an invigorating cold shower before bed.)  However, it’s all single units that hang off the side of the buildings, generally just below or often through a convenient window.  A 15-story apartment building will therefore have about 45 units hanging off the side.  What this adds to the BA experience is an irregular pattern of dripping water that you encounter as you wander the streets.  It’s marvellously surreal.  For the first week I couldn't work out where these big drops of rain were coming from as I sweltered in the 37˚C heat under bright blue skies.  The one day where we did get proper rain it was torrential and it lasted for hours.  There was no need to look around for the source, it was everywhere.  The sort of rain that obscures your vision as you try to avoid the spontaneous rivers on every street and footpath.  We figured it was just one of those things but our mate Sean popped over to Uruguay the next day where in Montevideo “the cataclysmic BA weather” had made the news, so I guess it was worth getting excited about.

   BA has been a lovely home for two weeks (although it is nice to have finished school!).  Tomorrow we sail to Uruguay for a weekend in Colonia del Sacramento and then Montevideo, before coming back to BA on Wednesday to catch the deluxe cama suite bed bus down to Patagonia.  The first leg is 18 hours, but we’re told it’s “better than flying first class!”  Admittedly that’s from someone whom I suspect has never actually flown first class.  Nevertheless, we’re looking forward to Uruguay and very excited about the bus!

Life in BA

   Less than a week into our stay in BA and we already feel like locals.  To save money we’ve been walking most places, getting to know our way around the central districts pretty well.  We had our second day at school today – 7:30 alarm for a 9:30 start.  I think we had both forgotten how tiring concentration can be.  We returned home this afternoon and I promptly lay down for a nap!  We’re not at any useful conversation standard yet, although I am starting to have a few of those moments where suddenly a light turns on somewhere in the brain: this is why people were looking at me funny.  It turns out that Argentinian Spanish is like Spanish Spanish, but with some different words and lot of shooshing (words written with "ll" or "y" in them tend to be pronounced with the "shh" sound) – yes Jason, you did tell me it would be like this. 

   Tonight we met up again with Sean, our friend from Posadas.  It was lovely catching up over dinner and as we started heading home we found Dan and Gita hailing us from the window of a friendly bar.  More beers ensued and now Kizzy is pleased as punch that although we’re thousands of miles from home, “we have a social life!”  Dan and Gita are doing a very similar trip to us. It turns out they were on the same flight from London, spent the same day in Rome and the same three days in Rio.  We overlapped again in Ilha Grande, Paraty and Iguazu Falls but until today the only time we’ve actually run into each other has been on the 6 hour bus journeys,  It was really nice to have a few drinks together.  Just a shame we could only stay for a couple – it’s a school night and I’ve got homework to do!