Uyuni: 26 Mar

After the rivetting tour of the train cemetery (maybe I'll stop the puns when I eventually get some photos on the site), we checked into Hostel Marith, a pretty good place along the main road.  It would be a great place if there was a kitchen, slighty warmer showers, and the entire washing line outside my room didn't have large raw llama steaks hanging on it to drip dry in the desert sun.

 

But besides that, the 11 of us had a post-tour pissup at the well known (if you are a Gringo) Minuteman Pizzarria.  We even met up with James, the American we last saw in the hippy town of El Bolson more than three weeks ago.  Apparently, he found a secret herb garden at the place we were staying, and has been 'stuck' there since!

 

Anyway, I'm on a bus to La Paz tonight, stopping in Oruro at 03h00, where I have to change busses.  It's gonna be dodgy!

 

 

Altiplano (San Pedro to Ulyuni, Bolivia): 24 - 25 Mar

The 'desert' tour was EXCELLENT! Three days of driving though the most interesting places stopping every 40mins or so for amazing views, thermal springs, active volcanoes, flamingoes, red, green, white and clear lakes, salt lakes (driving through them!), rock formations, strange plants and cactuses, mud geyers, or brilliant food prepared for us on the spot by the driver. And we slept in really nice hostels, one of which was made and furnished entirely out of salt blocks.

And this cost 90US$!!!

The cheapest tour was 75US$, but they had no food, dodgy hostels, food poisoning = 17 hours on a drip in an Uyuni hospital, and drunk drivers---best 15 dollars I ever spent!


Mar 24:
Passes above 5000 metres a.m.s.l.
Lago: Colorada, Verde, Blanco?, geysers and walloping mud pools,
Altitude sickness
Braaied chicken with rice a super-bien-soup.

Mar 25:
too much to remember, need a shower...

The Salt Hotel

Mar 26:
Isla Pescada, cactuses, coral, pancakes!
Funny photos,
Middle of nowhere, can't tell land from sky,
racing through the 2 - 10 cm deep salt lake (end of the rainy season) for hours,
Uyuni, train cemetery.

La Serena: 17 - 19 Mar

17 Mar:

Arrived shell-shocked, or at least pretty tired, after a 7 hour night bus journey. The owners of the hostel in Valpariso had organised a hostel here for me, and Gladys the owner was there at 0h600 to pick me up and transfer me to the hostel. It was quite a nice place, with my own room, but I did pay for it.

Spent the rest of the day going round to tour operators and talking crap trying to find out what the sights to see were. Then met Laurent (French) and Aine (Irish) who found out that it is way cheaper/more convinient to rent a car, than go on tours. Got myself, Christina, and Kevin (arriving tomorrow) in on the deal, and planned a trip (only on Saturdays) to the telescopes 160km north at La Silla, owned by the European Southern Observatory.

18 Mar:

Kevin and Christina´s turn to be shell-shocked from the million-stop bus journey. Regardless, the five of us piled into the rented silver Toyota Yaris, and headed north along the Panamerican Route 5. After navigating to the turn off, it was 30 or so km along a narrow winding tar (dirt-road would put oservation spoiling dust into the atmosphere) road up to the observatory at 2400 m. All the telescope domes looks like mushrooms sprouting out of the dry Atacama desert mountain top.

The tour was really interesting and we first were shown around the New Technology Telescope and then the biggest one there, the 3.60 m one. The NTT is distinguished from normal telescopes in the methods of its mounting: it has a altitude/azimuth mounting instead of the normal equatorial mounting. This means it is more difficult to keep pointing at a specific point in the sky as the Earth moves under it (but computers and accurate control systems can solve this) but: can see almost all the sky, can move from any point to another, costs half as much, can support two sets of instrumentation switched by the flick of a mirror, and doesn´t have the tradititional domed roof.

Since I´d always thought that grinding the mirror was the greatest obstacle to astromony, it was insightful to see how many problems actually have to be overcome including: maintaining a perfectly consistent atmosphere with that of the outside when the doors are opened at twilight, actuating the mirrors to negate the effects of gravity at dofferent attitudes, liquid helium cooling the CCDs to reduce noise, and cleaning bird-shit of the mirrors that are open to the world at night.

This is where the last planet was discovered (not in our solar system) that could possibly support life. The discovery was in 2005, but it took alomost a year and the South Africans help in Sutherland to verify the data.

We took a "shortcut" on the way home to visit the dry coastal towns that survive off the misty winds off the ocean (and of course fishing). A straight 6km on the map equalled 24km of treacherous mountain passes (up and down) that were incredible. Everyone else was petrified, but it reminded me of chasing JP van Belle (on an MTB) down Prince Alfred pass in his own car. The little quaint towns of Chrunrunga and Tres Cruces at the bottom were awful. There was even a hippo sized dead sea-lion on the 10 metres of beach between the rocks and the sewerage outflow. So we ate some biscuits, watched the sun set, and headed south along the bleak, but later beautiful coast while finally finding a radio station that had at last arrived at the late eighties. Or at least at little bit later the the end of the seventies.


19 Mar:

The plan today was to spend the day in the Valle Elqui, and the night at the Mamalluca Observatory. The Elqui Valley is a narrow flat-bottomed valley containing a year-round river flowing frm the Andes through the Atacama-like dessert. So it´s chokkas full of agriculture, especially papayas, custard apples, and most importantly Pisco grapes (mainly different Muscatel varieties). Pisco is a "refreshing, mild tasting, aromatic, wine spirit". Very much like brandy, but without bothering too much about good grapes, multiple accurate distillations, and long-term maturations. Most of the time its drank as Pisco Sour anyway which is a really nice drink made from Pisco, sugar, lemon juice, sugar, water, sugar, and sometimes a bit of egg-white to make it froth when whisked. Can also be flavoured with papaya, mint, ducle de leche (caramel condensed milk) or [the better ones] drank neat. Regardless, it's Chile´s natitional drink, and they´re very proud of it, and it is a huge part of the economy.

So we went on two Pisco Tours, Ruta Norte and Capel, watched some hilariously bad production videos and some hilariously good Pisco adverts, and drank quite a bit of Pisco in various guises. Then it was back halfway down the spectacular valley to the town of Vicuña where I had the most tasty 1/4 chicken ever, and then 9 km up more crazy narrow dirt roads (at night) to make it to the first show (20h30) at the Mamalluca Observatoy.

20h29 we get to the gate, the security guard, and his radio, only to learn we should have collected the tickets back in the valley at the official office. No amount of pleading was going to change anything, but the lucky break was that the tour would only be starting at 21h00. Some quick calculations, and we 'raced' back down the Indiana Jones road paid for the tickets and re-ascended to make it with 18 seconds to spare.

The tour itself was excellent! After being split into Spanish and English groups (there were about 40 people, and this tour runs 3 times a night, everyday!) we went to the top of the dome and looked at Saturn, stars, and various star clusters (that look like one star or invisible to the un-aided human eye) using the Cassegrain 30 cm computer controlled telescope. Finally got to see the rings round Saturn, which were amazing!

Then, down to the lecture room, and a talk on the southern night sky aided by a really good SkyGlobe type computer program. Then, outside to the Newton 30 cm telescope built by a famous guy called Dobson. This telescope has the same light collecting ability as the inside one, just much less zoom, which I found way better. More stars, planets and clusters, with our local astonomer guide Luis amazing us with his incredible knowledge of the constellations and stars in general. The only negative point of the evening was learning that the biggest telescope in the world was actually just sitting on my doorstep back in Sutherland, S.A.

20 Mar:

Laurent and Aine handed back the rented car that had served us so much better than going on gringo tours. And the rest of the day, just did admin stuff, recovered and ate. Getting on a 17 hour bus to San Pedro de Atacama tonight at 22h45, and then off to Bolivia---civilisation ends tonight!

Valapriso, Viña del Mar, Reñacca: 15 - 16 Mar

Mar 15:

After checking out the posters in the bus terminal, and realising that it wuld be better to be closer to the terminal than the centre of town since I was only going to be staying for a night, I walk to the nearby "El Rincon Marino" on San Ignacio 454. It turned out to be one of the best and cheapest hostels I´ve stayed in. I even had a non-bunk bed which means way more sleep.

I walked around the arty student town of Valpariso that night. The town is built on a narrow (300m) coastal plain hosting the town centre and docks, which then rises almost vertically a 100m to the rest of the town. To get from the lower to the higgledy-piggledy upper part of town, there are tens of scenic acsensors or furniculars (one angled train carriage pulled up a railway).


Mar 16:

Got up really early to catch a bus to the famous ritzy holiday town of Viña Del Mar. It´s a more quiet leafy green town than Valpariso, but certainly not as hip and happening as I was led to believe. It does have a huge ritzy shopping centre better than most S.A. ones, and the beach is pretty nice---Natal colours with Cape Town water temperatures.

North of the town is the party town of Reñacca, which, at four in the afternoon, is like a party beach town with a hangover. Huge black/grey pelicans fishing in the sea though.

Walked back passed the famous flower clock, and tried to catch the train back to Valpo, but the stations were miles apart, and the busses cheaper, so caught a bus. And then had a pleasant walk back from the far side of town back to the bus station to bok the third last seat out of town to La Serena leaving just before midnight.


Eventually, after walking around

Santiago: 13 - 14 Mar

Mar 13:
Everyone I´d ever met said go to La Casa Roja hostal. So I did. Took me about hour and a half (enjoying the morning rushhour bustle, rather than taxing my brain trying to work subways and taxis [busses = impossible]). Plus I was accosted while resting in the shade by a well travelled old Chilean man on his way to play golf. He was waiting for his taxi, carrying golfclubs and pins and flags?!? And really, really thought that Pinochet was the best thing to hit Chile, and good bloody luck to the recently inaugurated (yesterday!) 'communist' lady president!

Got to the Aussie run Red House and it was great and huge with tonnes of people and great facilities.
Who should walk in 10 mins later, but Kevin and Christina! So we spent the rest of the day seeing the sights of Santigao, city without limits :-) .

Santa Lucia,

Mar 14:

Got up early to watch the changing of the guard, but K+C just wouldn't get their As into G :-) So we ran a couple of kms to get to Plaza De Constitucíon by 10h00, and then found out that today wasn't one of the alternate day changing of the guards. Oh well, it was a 50/50 chance. Luckily before Kevin started again, the president (first woman president ever) on her second day in office walked out of the building into us and started greeting every one she passed (with only few bodyguards trailing behind). She was on her way to the chopper on top of the Ministry of Agrioculture building, and there were snipers on all the skyscrapers around the plaza.

Then we went to:
Precolumbian musuem,
Pablo Neruda´s house where he lived with his third wife,
Cerro Santa Christobel with the virgin Mary statue looking over the city,
A furnicular to the top, and a sendero back down again.

Mar 15:

Went to see the damn changing of the guard again, and it was excellent. Almost an hour long ceremony with full marching band, drum majorets :-) and everything.

Then had coffee to plan stuff with K+C, and walked back to hostel to checkout by 01h00. In the next 42 minutes I :
checked out,
walked 7 blocks and found the Metro,
learnt how this cities one worked, and bought a ticket,
missed the train that was already there (I wanted to make sure it left in the right direction),
caught the train to the sneaky furthest out bus terminal (Pajeritos?) that cuts out 20 mins of inner city bus traffic (and cost),
found the first bus to Valpariso,
booked it,
boarded it 3 mins later,
and it left 5 mins later.

Not bad for 42 mins!

By 4 o'clock I was booked into a great old clean guesthouse in Valpariso, after driving though about 150 kms of Boland scenery (including two Hugenot Tunnels!).

Temacu: 12 Mar

Mike, Debbie, Ray, and Jaden dropped me off at the main bus station of this transport hub early in the evening. There were busses to santiago every 10 mins or so, so I had tonnes of choice. I decided to get on a late cama (bed) bus to get a 'good' night's sleepand arrive in Santiago (the capital of Chile) at a reasonable hour (07h00). This meant I had 6 hours to kill. So begged the bus lady to look after my mochillo (backpack) and walked forever downtown to find a supermarket.

After about 8 kms, and twice nearly turning back, I follow a stream of Santa Isabel (big supermercado) bags to their source, and found the holy grail. It must be remembered that I had done a HECTIC 2 hour mental and physical race that mornig and only eaten 2 alfajores (two biscuits, caramel centre, dipped in chocolate) since! So I bought a 2kg roast chicken, litre of milk, bag of plums, found the central leavy green plaza, and ate it all.

Can't really remember the rest, but I walked back, got on the bus, fell asleep, and woke up in Santiago.

Fundo el Gringo, Vilcun: 10 - 11 Mar

Mar 10:

Well in the morning, Christina, Kevin, and I caught a lift with Michael going to work in Puerto Montt to see the town and his Semillas Marinas offices. Their offices do S. Africa proud---tasteful,. modern, overlooking the pretty harbour/bay, and right next to the high-tec underground parking. Just perfect.

The Puerto Montt fish market however, was not. Although it was very interesting with tonnes of fish, shellfish, and some other seafood, but it did rank high on the rank scale (sorry about those puns). There were some nice resturants/kitchens, but on Mike's advice (one PhD. in intestinal bacteria), and hearing about the annual death toll there from food poisoning, we decided not to eat there (last outbreak traced to here had 136,000 cases, and about 9 deaths).

The Artesanals (craft) market on the way back was interesting, since there is a very strong Mapuche indian influence, and they specialised in silver jewelery, alpaca and sheep´s wool knitting and weaving, and apparently postcards.

The copper church was, well, plated in copper.

Even the school kids get a three hour 'siesta' period for lunch, so they all go to the pier to smoke various substances and vry.

Then, after another hectic day's work (not for me), Mike and drove back to his house, met his colleagues (also South Africans), Ray and Debbie, with baby Jaden (the official Mad Scientists support team), and left for the Volcano, Temacu and the Chilean orienteering championships.

1,000,000 Toll roads later along the Panamerican highway, we turn off just after Temacu, and headed east for about 60km to and though the little town of Vilcún. We were staying on Mike´s German friend´s farm Fundo Del Gringo (Farm of the gringo) who has lived in this beautiful green countryside overlooked by Llaima Volcano for some 20 years. Along with being a dairy,and now beef farmer, Dietrich? has also been a multiple World Champion Orienteer, during his many years as a professional. So that´s how Mike met him in Chile.

Anyway, one day I´ll put a photo here of our little log cabaña overlooking the misty green fields, fading into the SMOKING!!! volcano Llaima, and being woken by only the sound of cows´s swiss bells.

Mar 11:

But alas, there was no time to enjoy the peace and quiet, we had to defend South Africa's honour at the Chilean National Orienteering Championships. Well, at least Mike had to. Back to the town, turn right, and into the National park really on the slopes of the Volcano. The mapped area is very varied as it is where the stone fields (extending down from the ice-cap) meets the scrub, meets the impenetrable (fight!) Araucanía forest.

On another day, I´ll put a photo here of just how vicious the Araucanía trees are (something between monkey puzzles [Norwegian pines], Joshua Trees, and a little bit of sisal cactus.)

The parking lot was filled with busses and trucks from various army barracks---the army realising the sports potential in helping to take out the evil Argentiniana Empire (and the Sinister Bolivian Axis, and the Peruvian Tyrants), provided a sympathetic base for Dietrich to start O events in Chile.

Today was the short course---no more than 1 hour (normally). The map was a tiny 1:15,000 with more squiggles than Rocklands in the Cederberg. I could go on for hours about how insane the terrain (terminal moraine---ha ha) was (5m contour interval means nothing if all the volcanic debris has erroded into adjacent furrows of 2 - 10 m). Suffice to say Mike fell twice and hurt his bad shoulder, and withdrew from the Elite race (there were about 10 other easier categories), and I had extreme difficulty finding 2 controls which cost 50 minutes, and so finished in 2:03. The winner (an Austrian did it it 1:01). Mike did later redeem us to easily win the Sub-Vets (35-40) category.

Mar 12:

Packed up all my stuff since I wasn't coming back to the farm, my own bedroom, private bathroom, clean kitchen,.... where was I. We caught a ride with Dietrich for the much earlier start today. 09h00 Instead of 12h00, but the Chilean organisers had been well over an hour late yesterday, and last night was the end of daylight savings time in Chile, so we were expecting another highly efficient smooth running operation (And they wonder why they lose so many wars!).

[If you don't do AR or O, you can skip this paragraph.]
Today was the long course (8km as the crow flys, about 20 km as Colin shuffles), and I had nothing to lose. After coming about 7 th yesterday, I now knew to respect the terrain, navigate properly, and longer events are more my forté. Got the fifth start and easier found one 1.3m high rock in the middle of the inpenetrable jungle, and, yes, it went well. One minor/pretty major mistake saw me arrive at control 5 only to find it was 7 (if I hadn´t found it, I´d still be out there). But then then the 'back nine' was all kloofs in open landscape, which is much more what I'm used to. So, I finished in a very respectable 2:01 (quicker than the short course). I think I was 4th (discounting the Swiss and Ukraine guys who helped setup the course) and 6th overall in the Elite main category. Mike did his age-group first, and again cleaned up. Then I met him having fun doing some of the elite controls closer to home. Since he has a residency permit, he is now the sub-vet Chilean champion. All in all, a successful and very educational racing weekend.

Puerto Varas: 8 - 9 Mar

8 Mar:

An interesting trip over the Andes seeing just how violent wind can be. Crazy squalls, watersprouts and rainbows. Again impossible to tell whether the water was from the lake, the sky, or the ocean.

I then met Kevin and Christina for an expensive beer in the nice but kind of touristy town of Puerto Varas. A little while later Mike Graz picked me up on the way back from work to stay at their lovely house on shores of the picturesque Lake Llanqueue. He, and his wife Heather (unfortunately back in Cape Town working), are friends of mine from the Cape Town adventure racing community, and he is now a successful perlemoen aquaculture business launched by good old Irvine & Johnson.

9 Mar:

Did Ensenada (a town cross between a salad:ensalada and a pie:empanada) and
Lago Todos Los Santos (part of the Cruce Lagos to Bariloche),
Rio Pehue (where Mike, Heather, Jon, Wessel, etc. went white water rafting.),
Saltos Pehue (the Cataracts on the river),
then navigated to a shortcut track (Sendero Solatario) from the river up a couple of hundred [vertical] metres up Volcano Orsono. Turned out that this 6km track (from the tyre marks) is the most epic mountain bike singletrack, all through the rough forested volcanic rubble. Mike and Heather had better do this before they leave! Then walked down the most scenic smooth tar road back to Ensenada eating kilograms of blackberries, until Chilean family stopped us and showed us that we could also eat the minature pomegranite-looking berries called ¿Muerd? which were delicious, tasting slighty like minty breadfruit. A couple of kms later, the same family (in a double cab) passed us and offered us a lift back to Esenada, and then back to Puerto Varas. So we piled into the back with the dog, and had free, convenient ride home.

Bariloche: 3 - 7 Mar

Mar 3:

Sarah, Kevin, Christina and I left on the scenic bus to Bariloche early in the morning, with me hoping to meet Mat and other Sarah for a backpack to a Refugio in the mountains. Like clockwork (thanks Sarah :-) ), Mat met us at the station and the race began. Bus to the centro, get some lunch, get some hiking food, Mat to rent a sleeping bag, meet Stephanie (a cool computer programming American friend of their friend living in Bariloche), re-pack into trekking mode, and catch the 14h15 bus to the Catedral ski village starting point. And everything went according to plan!

The 4 hour hike to Refugio Frey along the mountain shores of Lago Guiteritz was great: thick green bamboo-like bushes, and giant lenga tree relics. The Refugio was toasty, with kitchen, gas, toilets (squat-style) and a cold lake for swimming. And snow from last weekend still filling the shadows. Great mixed supper including the miracle grain coiquey ??? and red-wine.

Mar 4:

The next day we watched La Carrare del Los Cuatro Refugios (The Race of the Four Refuges), which is a 2-day mountain running stage race of about 5 hours a day. I think Ian Adamson was winning at our refugio.

CAPTION: Refugio Frey (PC1), a bit of the lake, and the favourites in Race of the Four Refugios.

Then an excellent scramble up to another lake, and up even more passed the windswept ´futbol´ field, to a viewpoint looking down over another huge valley headed by the snowy peak of TROGDOR. Okay, actually it is called Tronador!

Back in Stephanie´s fantastic apartment in the centre of Bariloche, we (Mat, Sarah, Steffie, Karina, and me) made pizzas, salad and drank a little bit of wine!


CAPTION: Carina, Colin, Sarah, Stephanie, and Matt.

Mar 5:

Woke up late. Said cheers, to Mat and Sarah, and finally walked a little around the Swiss chocolate village of Bariloche. I have NEVER seen so much chocolate in my life---whole supermarkets selling only chocolate!

Stephanie and I then went out to a concert of the 'band' Circuit Ensamble. Unfortunately due to a large mug of wine beforhand, which washed down a steak and chorizo (huge pork sausage), I fell asleep and can't comment too much on the quality of the performance. However the words I would use all begin with vowels: eerie, interesting, awf... Suffice to say, the only words I understood and that were said forwards, were 'The serpent awakes' (and that was in Spanish)!

Mar 6:
After messing around town all morning (not even the biggest supermarket opens before 09h00), and since it was an epic day, I rented a forlorn MTB from some schoolkid running the adventure shop. Since the brakes didn't work, I found some Allen keys in the backroom and started to fix them, till she confiscated the tools and said I'M not qualified to do techinal stuff to the bike!

So I took the bike on a journey it'll never forget. Firstly, up a Constantiaberg Mast ascent up Cerro Otto (which most tourists/skiers reach by a 1km high cable car from the edge of town). Here I found an ex-Ukranian cross country skiing champion/instructor looking bored in the warm weather. He gave me some water and suggested I do the ski circuit/track on my MTB. Well, I wasn't going to say no to that, so I completed my first Nordic-skiing circuit all along this ridgetop in the Andes.

Then, pedalled to the top of the 360 degree resturant, got bounced from it because I wasn't going to pay to go in, but the bouncer later pointed out a tap for me when he saw me gasp down the last sip of my bottle. Great view, great short downhill to the top carpark where I accosted a guy with 4 bikes on the roof. After looking nervously over his shoulder, he explained this epic MTB route to me (that unfortunately ends in a huge lovely private golf estate).

CAPTION: The first 30m of the most epic MTB ride down Cerro Otto.


Well, when I took the pic, I had no idea how good it was going to be. It was 8km of rolling cross-country skiing track, then about 6 km of steep downhill 'roads' with in sane switchbacks. It is really a downhill/cross-country ski lane in winter, but just perect for MTBing, all through thick jungle.

I eventually arrived shaken an excited at the golf estate: some very logical interpretive navigation and a bit of pleading stupidity and smiling saw me out of the security gates, and onto the 20 tar section with the wind back to Bariloche, home,

Mar 7:
Another morning spent horsing around town trying to sort out some simple passport questions. And then it was of to Nacional Parque Llao Llao which is pronounced shouw- shouw. Double L is a whole different letter of the alphabet (as is Ñ), which has a 'sh' sound in Argentina, and a 'ly' sound in Chile. So don't even think about pronouncing llama with an 'l'. it is 'shama'.

Well, as Pooh said, 'Oh bother, it looks like a spot of rain.'. But not enough for me to pack my rain pants. But after a 30 km (2.60 Peso) bus ride along the beautiful Lago Nahuel Huapi, it was raining like I was in Northern Patagonia, for I was in Northern Patagonia. Actually, I do not have any evidence that the water was indeed coming from the sky, and not just from the waterspouts on the lakes (Perito Moreno, Perito Moreno Oested, and a whole bunch more similar sounding generals).

So I kitted up in everything I had for extra warmth, including sunglasses, and headed into the free municipal park. The walk was epic, all though tunnels in the 'bamboo' which kept me sort of dry, and certainly out of the wind. Well, lots of rain, lots of wind, lots of rainbows, lots of forest.


CAPTION: The insane wind of Bahia Lopez from Llao Llao Park.

And on the return loop of the Circuito Chico that I was on, I somehow ended up being given a lift in a huge old bus/winnibago with an argentinian honeymoon couple and there 2 year old. They saved me many kilometres of walking in the rain until their bus broke down back on the main public bus route.

That night Stephanie baked these amazing brown raisin breads, and we went out to her favourite resturant, the excellent something Vegetariano. Great vegetarian food, which surprisingly was a welcome change to Argentina's carnivorous diet.

Crack of dawn wake up to say many thanks and goodbye's Steffie, and catch the 50 Peso bus to Puerto Varas.

El Bolson: 27 - 2 Mar

28 Feb:

So we got off the bus in El Bolson, pretty shell shocked after all the busing, and wandered around for 5 minuted or so feeling like most of the people who live here (it´s a serious hippy town), when Agustin Porro (which coincidentally means joint!) offed to shown us his little wooden house in the backyard of his farm to see whether we wanted to stay there. So we piled our mochillos in to the back of his Ford Sierra, and drove 5 mins to his farm on the banks of the River Quenquenchua where he and his very extended family live.

To understand the geographic/culture/climatologic shock that we were now experiencing, you would have to have been there, and more importantly, have to have been to the dry (as in Karoo), toy (as in built solely for rich tourists), and commercial/impersonal Calafate and Chalten towns---which are, however, undeniably beautiful.

But this little wooden house amongst the plum and I-don´t-know-what-you-call-little-yellow-plums-that-taste-like-Cape-goosberries trees, with little bridges and stepping stones over all the canals from the river, was really what I needed. After stuffing ourselves with plums, we borrowed the bikes and pedalled for about 1 minute before a thicket of ripe blackberries next to the river put an end to our travels (fresh fruit isn´t that common in Argentina okay!).

Agustin then gave us a dodgy map, some instructions in Spanish (Kevin, Christina, and Sarah can speak Spanish, but I can read maps!), and we set of for a four hour walk in the jungle to see the Casscades. To cut a long story short, the walk was pretty, but I still had a stomach bug which took the Botanical Garden Sanitaros to solve! And meant that I had good weird herbal tea at the bar on the way home as opposed to the great beers from the micro brewery. A huge supper of white rice finally closed of that topic.

Town is a 10 min walk from our farm and involves crossing the river on an Indiana Jone suspension bridge over the raging (OK, not really!) river. It is pretty unstable, so I was very impressed seeing a guy cycle across yesterday. I think he was drunk though.

CAPTION: Belguim waffles. Self-explanatory.

Tuesday is market day in El Bolson! And Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday. And it´s damn interesting, though certainly not huge. The best stuff is the food, and I tried it all: every-berry smoothies, (vegetarians close your eyes) wholewheat sheeps tongue drizzled in olive oil and herb rolls, waffles with raspberries and dulce de leche and cream, and I´m now eating some cherries and blackberries that I bought. Oh yes, lots of local preservative free beer. In fact that´s where I´m going now, on a brewery tour (I´ll bring back some tips for SAB Astrid!), just after I tell you about drinking maté (and Argentinian herb tea that is way more than just a way of life here---really) with a family from Comodoro Riverdavia (pronounced commorrorroribadabia) for 2 hours. Well, I did. More than a litre of it. But the Dad drinks about 5 litres a day. We had three lage thermoses worth.


MATÉ drinking:
Put a lot of loose yerba maté in a small gourd.
Fill with hot water from the thermos that you will always be carrying, and that can be refilled anywhere (even out in mountain huts).
Drink the whole thing, through a flattened engraved silver straw with a tea strainer at the bottom.
Hand back to the oke with the thermos WITHOUT saying thank you (unless you didn´t like it and won´t be having more, and want to get off the planet).
It gets refilled and passed to the next person.
Replace the yerba maté when really watery.
Refill the thermos when empty.

You may appreciate that the last two instructions create an endless loop. It does.

CAPTION: Kevin, Christina, James, the Argentinian couple, Colin, Sarah, Matt, Sarah drinking mate.


1 Mar:

Well, we eventually got up, packed our stuff for hiking, and caught a cab to the bottom of the hill where the walk to the Sculpted Forest begins. Two hours of huffing up one side of the spectacular Bolson Valley saw us reach the amazing forest.


2 Mar:

More excellent markets, with juice, steak rolls, fruit sweets, and waffles with rsberies and cream.

CAPTION: What's your flavour?

That [late] afternoon, we finally got going to see the Swiss skinny dippers at Lago Puello that that Nigel always talks about. Alas, the wind was a little cold for even the Swiss to be trying that. James the American highschool kid staying with us was also plannig to get on the bus, but the treats at the La Anonima supermercado kepp him occupied for just longer than the bus driver was prepared to wait. Unluuuucky!

Lake and sun and moonset were beautiful. As was the delta of the Rio Azul flowing into the Lake. Nice beaches, but howling wind. Lots of signs on camping 101, including many instructions on how to avoid rats (turns out two people died there of a hantavirus some years ago!).

And then back to a couple of kilograms of leftovers of the superb super from the night before, which tasted even better when sober.

Bus: 25 - 26 Feb (El Chalten - El Calafate - Rio Gallegos - Comodoro Rivadavia - El Bolson)

Yes, that´s right, more than one day on buses.  In fact, [lucky] 42 hours!  And did I mention, that I had a serious case of drinking-dodgy-water stomach?  (looking back now at the way I signed off my last post, I can now appreciate the warning signs... :-)  )

 

Anyway, it took some research in CaféLatté, and a morning in Chalten to carefully synchronise, confirm, book, and pay for 4 different buses with no more than a 4 hour gap between to get to El Bolson near Bariloche.  And I spent the four hour gap with my buddy Moshe (who I met in Buenos Aires) and the two Natalies at a great, but not too expensive wine bar having pizza. Being Israelies, they easily helped me sneak my stuff into their hostel to store for a few hours.

 

What else, well, most of Patagonia is about 6.359% wetter than the driest part of the Karoo.  But because the vegetation is multi-coloured, it is a bit more interesting.  And the underground oilfields are being pumped continuously with small bucking-bronco/Texan/whatever oil-pumps, while the oil tankers line up along the whole coast.   Having said that it is very dry, there are plently of incredible, blue/green rivers crossing the scrub, without even a green tree lining the banks.  A combination on the dry air, and cold, long winters.