Advertisement
Published: April 14th 2010
Antarctic Expedition Ship
The National Geographic's Antarctic Explorer. A top-end option for voyages to the South Pole.
I'm also pretty sure they have a minimum age requirement for this vessel - over 65!When I first decided to travel round the world for a year or so, one of my greatest concerns was how I would manage to get around South America when I didn't really speak the language. The idea of doing it all on my own, and the risk of ending up in the wrong location, or even the wrong country, was a little concerning. So, I booked a three week trip though Patagonia with a tour company known as Tucan, thinking that easing into the solo trips might be a good idea.
Of course, after I arrived in Argentina I went off and explored Iguazu and Mendoza by myself, so I was feeling a lot more confident in my abilities to find my way around South America by the time I flew south to Ushuaia to begin the tour. In fact, I was suffering a little bit of belated buyer's remorse as I wondered whether it would be easier to do Patagonia by myself rather than just jumping on a tour bus and going with the herd.
But having paid for the tour, and it being the day before the trip started, it was probably a little late to
Ushuaia Town
This was the view for most of the time there. change the plan.
No really interesting stories about the flight to Ushuaia. The flight made a stop half way, at El Calafate (or maybe Bariloche) to let some folks off and pick up some more. After flying in Australia this was more like a bus service than a flight. At least there wasn't livestock at the back of the cabin.
That was especially good from my perspective as I was sitting in the back of said cabin.
For those who've flown in South America before, you'll probably be pleased to learn that they now prohibit smoking on board flights. Of course, this is one of the only places where you can't smoke.
It was a pretty rough flight. I'm not the happiest flyer in the world, but I managed to not have a hissy fit when we started to shake around the sky. I was assisted in this by the fact that three Israeli girls in front of me were well and truly having an attack of the nerves, complete with tears... and I definitely wasn't going to be pegged as a princess.
Maybe this Argentine machismo thing is having some sort of influence on
Charles' own Beer
Beagle Beer from Ushuaia. me. Next thing you know I'll be climbing mountains, smoking cigars, and drinking my coffee espresso-style.
So, two out of three aint bad.
First impressions of Ushuaia were positive. Clear blue skies and a pretty town sitting on the water. Looked just like a postcard and I was looking forward to taking some good photos once I'd booked into the hotel.
Of course, by the time I'd made the five minute taxi ride to the Tucan accomodation the skies had turned to gunmetal and it was raining...
At least I think it was rain... it was cold enough that it might have been sleet.
The next four days continued to prove to me that I should have taken my photos whilst I had the chance. The weather remained bleak, windy, and wet until the day we left for Chile. Of course, after the hot of Mendoza and the humidity of Iguazu, I found the cold snap quite refreshing. At least for the first day.
As a result I discovered some omissions in my baggage; to whit any form of long sleeve t shirt. Fortunately Ushuaia has only two kinds of commercial establishment, a tourist
The Beagle Channel
If you think this looks cold, you should have tried being there. shop, and an outdoor outfitters shop. Imagine a main street that looks like Paddy Palin has been mugged by some twee Australiana junkstore, only to be rescued by Kathmandhu and you have some idea of what I'm talking about.
Tucan had arranged to have everyone meet and do the administrative business the evening of the first day. It turned out that there were fourteen of us on the tour, with another couple who were going to join us halfway through the journey (at El Calafate). First impressions were a little bit daunting; there was a Swiss couple who were only teenagers, a Brit/Polish couple in their twenties, me, then the rest were all about ten or more years older then me. We had another Brit, a Belgian-Turkish couple, a Dutchwoman, another Swiss lady, an Aussie, a German, and Bernie and Maree... the senior citizens of the tour (also Australian).
Normally Tucan trips are dominated by Brits and Aussies. Jules, the guide, was even a bit surprised by the Continental mixture of the group... especially the fact that there were so many different languages being spoken. It became normal to hear at least three different langauages being spoken simultaneously,
Island on the Beagle Channel.
The Argentines and Chilenos take their territorial claims very seriously. How would you like to be the policeman who had to live in this hut? especially when Jules was giving us a spiel about where we were, or what there was to do in a certain region. The Swiss Schoolteacher, Helene, usually had to translate into German for the two teenagers, and Philippe, the Belgian, had to translate for his partner Belinda, the Turk.
Ironically, Andreas, the German, couldn't understand the Swiss when they spoke German. Happily, for me, he did prove a number of Germanic stereotypes, right down to the sandals and socks.
And taking beer rather than water when heading off for a full day hike.
The trip was a bit of a high end tour of Patagonia. It wasn't a backpacker-style trip, and in hindsight I think I might have preferred roughing it a bit more. On the other hand, staying in hotels was a pleasant change to hostels. This meant that the tour had its own vehicle, rather than using public transport. In our case, the transport was a truck built to resemble a bus and named
Fankie. Think the Magic School Bus's larger brother. Very comfortable, built on a truck's chassis, and capable of crossing just about any terrain... except for earthquake zones, but we'll get to
that in a bit.
The basic outline ofthe tour was to start off in Ushuaia, head across Tierra del Fuego into Chile to Torres Del Paine and Punta Arenas, then cross back into Argentina and head north, stopping in El Calafate, El Chalten and Bariloche, before crossing the Andes once more and returning to Chile, where we'd stop in Pucon and finally end up in Santiago. All up the trip was about 4000 km over three weeks. At each location there was planty to do, although the part I was most looking forward to was the three days camping in Torres Del Paine National Park.
Ushuaia was once a prison, before becoming a naval base and, latterly, the preferred stopping off point for Antarctic cruises. I'll admit, I had a quick look at the price for a cruise to the great white land, but when the last minute discounted fares were still over $4000 (US), I decided I might have to leave that voyage until later in life. Or at least until the USD is lower than the Aussie Dollar. Ushuaia claims to be the End of the World, and, despite the fact that there are a couple
of small Chilean towns further south in Tierra Del Fuego, there don't seem to be too many people arguing the claim. Probably too cold.
We got a chance to do a cruise out into the Beagle Channel whilst we were Ushuaia. This is the Channel mapped by the
HMS Beagle back in the Nineteenth Century. Those of you who tend to regard Richard Dawkins as
God (and that is ironic in itself) are probably well aware that the
Beagle was the ship that carried Charles Darwin on the voyage that led to his development of the Theory of Evolution. The ship actually spent a fair bit of time down around Tierra Del Fuego and Patagonia before heading to the Galapagos and Australia, the parts of the voyage that are a little more famous.
The Beagle Channel is home to some penguins, a lot of cormorants and an island simply known as Sea Lion Island, which, strangely enough, is rather crowded with sea lions. There's also a very cute little lighthouse in the middle of the channel that must have been the equivalent of a posting to Siberia back in the day.
The cruise was a lot of
fun, although the weather was very windy and a little bit grey. I went a little bit crazy taking photos of wildlife, and playing with the new teleconverter. Turns out the teleconverter doesn't play completely nicely with the autofocus on the Nikon and also has a tendency to result in over-exposures...
Once back on dry land, a few of us went for a hike up to the Glacier Martiales, the itsy bitsy glacier that overlooks Ushuaia. Before we went up there Jules had warned us that it was a little bit of an anticlimax, especially if we'd seen glaciers before. The term
ice cube may even have been mentioned.
Anyway, never having seen a glacier I didn't really have any idea what to expect. So, a chairlift ride and a bit of a climb later, I found myself looking at what seemed to be a pile of snow. All a bit disappointing really.
Definitely no walls of ice... although apparently this is one of those glaciers that has been melting for the last decade, so once upon a time it was a lot more impressive. Still, it was a good walk, and it was good to get
up high and look back over the town and out to the Beagle Channel, even if I couldn't even see enough ice to count as an ice cube.
After a hike through the Tierra Del Fuego National Park the next day, where Luke and Anna, the twenty-somethings, and I discovered that the Argentine version of easy is a little bit different to a European version of easy, we packed ourselves into Frankie and hit Chile.
The drive to Punta Arenas was notable for the fact that we drove through a signposted minefield. Apparently the Chileans and Argentines have a few unresolved border tensions... and Chile's support of the Brits in the Falklands didn't do much to foster harmonious border relations. Still, it was good to see the Argentines had properly signposted the minefields and even fenced the area off.
The highway running through the minefields was probably a slight weakness in the concept however.
We had a day in Punta Arenas, mainly to wonder around and get an idea of its history, before we headed out to have a look a penguin colony on the Otway Sound.I was expecting the penguin watching to be a little
Sealion pup in the Beagle Channel
He was very cute, even if he wouldn't pose properly for me. bit like a trip to Philip Island in Victoria; we'd stand in a group miles from the penguins, freezing in the Antarctic winds, and watch as they came ashore. Of course, I also had Fairy Penguins in my mind, so was expecting to see little dots.
So it came as a bit of a surprise to walk the path at the penguin trail, go up to a wooden screen/viewing area, look out the slit and see Magellan Penguins about five metres away from us. And they are much bigger penguins than those Fairy Penguins. Of course, being penguins, they weren't being all that active, but there were a coupe of babies that were just losing their juvenile feathers.
It was a memorable experience, and for a while there it was possible to ignore the wind and cold (which was suitably Antarctic, so at least I got one thing right in my imaginings).
After the Penguins, we headed into Torres Del Paine National Park for three nights of camping and hiking. This national park is named after the Torres Del Paine, three rock towers (or, in Spanish
torres), all greater than 2500m high, that dominate part of the
Sealion Island
Just a couple of the wolves of the sea (as they're called in Spanish). park, along with the
cuernos or Horns. They are the centrepiece of a couple of hiking circuits, the W and O treks, which are two of the most popular hikes in South America. The rest of the park consists of some beautiful glacial lakes, a number of glaciers and lots of wildlife... including condors, pumas, guanacas and deer.
Guanacas are related to llamas. They're smaller, less wooly versions, which look a little like a kangaroo around the head. We did see a lot of them as we travelled through Patagonia, so maybe they occupy the same niche as roos do back home; farmers' pests.
I managed to hike two of the three legs of the W trek, including the leg up to the Torres themselves. All the walks were beautiful, but the end of the Torres walk was one of the highlights of the Park. The final stage involves about a 500m climb over just under a kilometre, so you're climbing a very steep path and (if you're in the same condition as me) stopping every 2 minutes or so to have a bit of a breather. However, once you finally make it up to the lookout point,
you are rewarded with a great view of the Towers and a small glacial lake. Very picturesque, and a great place to catch your breath, have lunch and enjoy the fact that you're not one of the people still trying to climb the path.
The other highlight of the park was the chance to go kayaking with icebergs on Lago Grey. Paddling between icebergs was a little eerie, but I did manage to get close and touch an iceberg, although we weren't allowed to go climb them... too much rick of one toppling.
When I say we managed to touch an iceberg... what I really mean is we rammed it. Now, I'd like to suggest we were taking revenge for the dastardly sinking of the
Titanic but the reality is the two of us in the kayak were having a fight over who was steering the vessel.
At least we weren't drunk at the helm.
After Torres Del Paine we headed out of the park to stay at Puerto Natales for a night before making the transition back to Argentina and headign to El Calafate. Puerto Natales was a very small town with a little microbrewery
Beagle Channel Lighthouse
I'd like everyone to note the silly hat I have. Don't worry, I've since bought worse. and some very good food (including a vegetarian restaurant, something of a rarity in South America). Unfortunately that is about as much as I'll say about it in a positive way, because I managed to leave my credit card in one of the ATMs in town.
Of course, me being me, and the absent minded type, I didn't relise this fact until we'd crossed an international border and I was sitting having lunch in El Calafate. Cue a significant red faced moment and a little bit of a panic attack as I tried to work out how I was going to get the new card delivered and how to get money in the meantime.
All I'll say is that my Credit Union proved significantly disappointing in their ability or desire to assist me. It was about three weeks before I saw the new credit card. And my brother proved very helpful... going above and beyond to transfer money to me via Western Union.
I'll buy you an
ipad in the US Keith!
El Calafate was another little town that seemed to be founded on the basis of its local attractions; in this case the Perito Moreno
Lighthouse at the End of the World.
Located at one end of the Beagle Channel. Glacier. It's a big, blue wall of ice, that more than made up for the disappointment of the Martiales Glacier in Ushuaia. While we were there, we got to see a couple of big chunks of ice falling, but unfortunately no icebergs were calved.
When I say that this is a big glacier, and knowing that the photos are a bit hard to make sense of when it comes to perspective, the wall of ice was actually 60m high. That's 20 storeys. Mighty impressive. This also meant that some of the 'little' falls of ice were probably about the size of a house.
As an aside, in El Calafate we had the extra two join us. Neil and Stacey, a British couple. They were a few years younger than me but were good value and seemed very keen to do the various outdoors activities on offer, joining Ana, Luke and I.
From El Clafate we headed north to El Chalten, where we hiked around Mt Fitzroy for a couple of days. There was an option to go ice climbing or ice walking on the nearby glacier but I was on an enforced austerity drive and instead opted
An itsy bitsy Glacier
Glacier Matiales, located above Ushuaia. for the (free) option of a long trek to another lake. Bit disappointing to miss out on the ice climbing, but I'm sure there'll be other glaciers to see and climb as I travel.
There'd better be!
After a two day bus ride through the most barren parts of Patagonia, we finally arrived at Bariloche, the highlight of the trip, at least according to Jules, who may be biassed by the fact that she used to work at the snow resorts around town. We were in Bariloche for two days, and I took the opportunity to get out, have a look at the lakes around the town and also, finally, get a haircut and shave. Bariloche itself was very pretty. The whole place felt very swiss, down to the St Bernard Dogs, multitude of chocolate stores and the pine covered hills and beautiful lakes. We didn't really get up to all that much here, more just enjoying the town and its multitude of gastronomic delights.
Oh, they also do some pretty good beer there as well.
As it was summer, we were kicking around in shorts and tshirts. Apparently Bariloche is the place to be in
Winter, when the mountains are covered in snow and turn into some excellent ski slopes.
Anyway, after Bariloche, we made the last (planned) border crossing and headed into Pucon. This was our second last stop on the tour. We had three days planned in Pucon before the final road trip up to Santiago. Pucon has a bit of a reputation as an adventure town and offers horse riding, white water rafting, white water 'surfing' (where you boogie-board down the rapids), dirt bike, mountain bike and quad bike rides, but the real reason for its reputation is the chance to summit an active volcano, Volcan Villarica. This has the added bonus of being able to toboggan down the slide of the volcano on an inner tube once you've reached the top.
Of course we all wanted to do that!
So, having arrived in Pucon, signed up to do the volcano climb, and had the best chocolate pudding I've tasted for a long time, I was safey ensconced in my slumbers that Friday night.
Well, at least until 3.30am.
Why that time?
Well, I was on the fifth floor of the hotel, and woke up to
the shutters of the windows rattling. My first thought was that the wind must have come up during the night and I really needed to go close the shutters. The second thought, a few seconds later, was that there was no wind.
This was followed by the realisation that the bed itself was now shaking, as was the rest of the room.
So, some thirty seconds into it, I finally realised that I was in the middle of an earthquake.
I blame the good chocolate pudding and the sleepiness.
Everyone probably realises that this was the big quake that hit off the coast of Concepcion. To orientate everyone, Pucon is about the same distance from Concepcion as Santiago, so we were realtively close.
At the time I wasn't really thinking about the size of the quake, more the fact that the entire room was moving about a foot or two in all directions.
I'd like to say that at this point I remained calm and collected, keeping it together and carrying out the actions that are recommended by emergency services. Things like standing under the arch of a door, or getting between a table
Beaver Dam and associated Wasteland
Beavers were imported to Tierra Del Fuego for their fur, but they quickly became a plague of proportions similar to that of rabbits or cane toads in Australia. They destroy the forests around their dams and leave the place looking like a post-apocalyptic waste. and a wall.
Instead I stayed in my bed, working on the theory that I'd be better off with something soft below me and only a wooden roof above me in the event that the building collapsed.
That and I was naked and didn't really trust my ability to walk across the floor.
So, the game stats: The earthquake lasted for three minutes in Pucon, and was somewhere between 7 and 8, rather than the 8.8 in Concepcion. Still, rather scary...
When it finished, I threw some clothes on and bounded down the stairs and outside. Where I was in time to witness the rest of Pucon (it seemed) racing to their cars and heading away from the hills.
At this point I remembered the Volcano.
Quick glance to make sure I hadn't missed a torrent of lava streaming down the hill.
The rest of the tour started to come out around the same time, with a couple of amusing stories, including one guy who'd run out into the corridor naked, before deciding that clothedness over-rode the safety requirements.
Then you also had the guys who had made the decision to get
dressed properly, even if it meant getting caught inside with an aftershock. Of course, that also meant that they were dressed in warm clothes, rather than the t-shirt, shorts and thongs that I was wearing.
Anyway, Jules admitted that this was the largest earthquake she'd ever been in, then we waited for a couple of hours before heading up to bed, just in time to start packing for the planned volcano climb.
Unsurprisingly, when we arrived at the climbing company we were told that the climb had been cancelled. In addition all other activities were off for the day, including rafting and horse riding.
We got back to the hotel just in time to see the ranks of cars pulling up at the petrol station as a little bit of a hoarding mentality broke out. There was a similar mentality going on at the supermarket, where I saw one lady claiming that all the bread rolls on the shelf were hers, and no one else could have any.
Considering she would have needed about five trolleys to carry the rolls, I felt she was perhaps over reacting.
Anyway, the rest of the time in Pucon
The world's most southerly Post Office.
Located in Tierra Del Fuego National Park. was a little bit of a let down. Everything was cancelled and we also discovered that the road to Santiago was not trafficable by Frankie. It seemed a couple of large bridges had come down and we were going to struggle to get to Santiago.
So, finally, we got called together by Jules and told that Tucan's management had made the decision to take us back to Bariloche and leave us there.
Not really an acceptable decision according to most of us who'd made plans to be in Santiago based on the tour's itinerary.
What was worse was the letter sent by the head office was, to put it mildly, insensitive and cold. Suggesting that we might have been aware of an earthquake suggested that the Director had failed to actually ascertain our situation on the ground. This was coupled with the advice that we would be unable to recoup any costs associated with the termination of the tour in Bariloche and we should, in essence, shut up and not complain about things.
Considering my insurance company had already advised me of it's intent to fund any excess costs associated with the quake, the advice seemed
Frankie
Our home on the road for three weeks. That yellow colour got progressively more and more brown as we drove. erroneous, leading me to question just how much of an effort the director had made to see if there were any other possible options of getting to Santiago, or even assisting us, her customers.
All in all, it was a bit of a let down, especially after Jules and James had done their best to help us and been great reps for Tucan during the tour.
Anyway, come Monday morning we loaded up into Frankie for a final trip and headed back to Bariloche. We got there that afternoon, despite a slight hiccup at the Border, where the Argentines almost tunred us back because the bus wasn't scheduled to come through on that day.
Once back in Bariloche it was off to the Bus Station to book tickets out of town, unless you happened to be Swiss, whose government had taken care of the arrangements. Ana, Luke and I had decided to make for Mendoza, where Neil and Stacey were also heading. Mendoza was only a short bus ride from Santiago, which suited the other four well as they had another Tucan tour starting from that location in about a week or so.
I on the
A real live minefield
Never thought I'd see a minefield marked properly, and especially not on the border of Chile and Argentina. other hand, was heading back to Mendoza to then head further north, up to Salta and eventutally into Bolivia. But that's another blog I think.
As a final thought, the Spanish word for earthquake is
terramoto, which I love; it accurately sums up the fact that the earth is moving and the terrifying feeling that comes of it.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 11; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0461s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
anonymous
non-member comment
bloody brilliant mate- I have photos of that exact same lighthouse! Oh and it snowed when I was there... so I get the cold bit!!