Note that I've spelt President with an ´a´. That is because Chile now has its first woman president. President Bachelet was inaugurated whilst I was studying Spanish in Santiago for two weeks. She is also the first twice divorced, single mother in the post. Her father, like thousands of others was murdered by Pincohet. Not that Pinochet murdered with his own hands. But he gave the orders that opened up the torture chambers, with the full support of the USA´s CIA. President Bachelet is part of Chile´s lost generation - she didn´t get to party, like the young do now in [View Full Entry]

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As promised at the end of the last blog, I've been on pilgrimage to Welsh Patagonia. Or, at least my stomach has, as I visited a number of Welsh tea shops. For those of you that don´t know, my mother was Welsh. When I was young ( I know that´s difficult to imagine), our parents used to take us down to visit the Welsh relatives in the school holidays. A highlight of those childhood visits was our Aunt Olive´s teas. The Welsh teas in Patagonia though, didn't live up to my memories of the huge spreads that our Aunt Olive used [View Full Entry]

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"There were Giants, in the earth in those days." (Genesis 6:4) Early reports from the first European explorers in the land at the end of the world, in the very south of the Americas suggested that there were giants. It is these giants that gave Patagonia its name. The Tehuelches people, although not giants, were very tall and well built. It is the first meetings with these indigenous people that gave rise to the tales of giants. There is though, some dispute about the origin of Patagonia as the name for the province. Both versions though are about the Tehuelches. [View Full Entry]

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"I have the feeling that Patagonia is the most desolate of places...a land of exiles, a place of de-territoriality" (Jean Baudrillard) was right. El Calafate is now the worst type of tourist trap. But it wasn't always that way. Mass tourism in Patagonia is a recent thing. Once upon a time it was very different. The old Patagonian Wild West was a land of Pirates, outlaws and rebels. (Maybe its their pirate past that explains the desire to empty the tourists wallets!) Butch Cassidy and the Sunda [View Full Entry]

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"Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. It is the only form of adventure in which you put on your clothes at Michaelmas and keep them on until Christmas, and save for a layer of the natural grease of the body, find them as clean as though they were new. It is more lonely than London, more secluded than any monastery." (The worst journey in the world; Apsley Cherry-Garrard) The Antarctic is a land of extremes. It´s the highest continent, with an average elevation of 2250m. Its ice [View Full Entry]

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"I'm the last of the Wollastan race. There were five Yahgon tribes, each from a different place, but they owned the same word. Before I could walk, I had travelled with my mother all the way up to Cape Horn, tied to her back. She used to take me uphill to camp and eat some birds that fly over the sea and answer from their nests on land whenever someone whistles." (Rosa Yagan - the last link. The story of a Native American woman from the End of the World; Patricia Stamuk.) I've reached the end of the world, Ushuaia. The [View Full Entry]

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Vote for me, I'm an alcoholic! That was chat show Charlie´s (Charles Kennedy´s) surreal pitch to his own political party, as I was packing my bags to fly from England to Argentina. I spent Christmas and the new year in England visiting friends and family, after my year long trek in Africa. It was a short break to ensure that people still know who I am! England felt familiar, although I no longer have anywhere in that country that I can call my own home. In fact, it didn't seem that anything much had changed in the last year. Life had [View Full Entry]

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" I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills... The geographical position and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colours were burnt and dry, like colours in pottery... The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it, was the air. Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are [View Full Entry]

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Imagine: You and 13 others are in the high court. The judge grants you bail. But, then the court is invaded by a group of armed soldiers wearing black T-shirts. So, knowing that the armed men known in Uganda as the Black Mambas are not exactly a welcoming committee, you ask the court to take you back to prison. For protection, from the tender mercies of the Black Mambas Urban Hit Squad. Welcome to Kampala High Court. Welcome to President Museveni's Alice in Wonderland concept of 'justice'. The High Court's top judge James Ogoola described the incident as "a despicable act [View Full Entry]

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"A militiaman came up to kill me. I was astonished because he was a friend. He used to come to our house every day. He farmed my father's fields...We used to play with him and he was like a brother to us, even though we were not from the same family. I asked him why he wanted to kill me when I had done nothing to hurt him. I begged him to take pity on me. He said nothing but just hit me on the head with a machete...when he thought I was dead, he left". Uwayisenga, 7, from the Genocide [View Full Entry]

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