Santiago

Santiago 27th Feb;

The first of my 3 overland legs is complete.....Bunny’s birthday is over - managed to text from Gus on way here.

 Gus is really playing up now ..... we have to push start her at every stop; the crew are always on the lookout for a slope. (One was a hairy clutch start in reverse about15 m from the cliff to the waterfall gorge...)

 Our last camp was by a waterfall 5 hrs out of Santiago, a dusty, basic place, but hot showers.

The drive could have been through Italy, but poplars instead of pines as wind breaks through the valley, full of vineyards and fruit trees....had a tour of a local vineyard Boduzzi, a tasting, and lunch on their lawns overlooking the vineyards and a chapel devastated by the recent earthquake, before heading off to beat the peak hour traffic of Santiago...

It’s a tired city in many ways, evidence of past Spanish glory in older bulildings...the Cathedral is huge and Gothic... and some new modern edifices......but everywhere is littered and dirty... the bustling local markets with all their colour and lack of hygiene are fringed by homeless souls sleeping on filthy rags amongst mangy dogs trying to find something to eat in the scraps... a block away is a mall lined with modern shopping centres......

The crew are ever hopeful of getting a compressor for Gus’ fridge and a new starter motor.....we have 8 new group members, 10 friends have departed Team Gus.

My Everest

Thursday 24th:

I survived the volcano climb!  

It’s 2,800m active volcano which constantly puffs out steam and gas (sulphurous I believe) We spent last night on a little boat viewing the mountain in shades of pink at sunset.

 I had a healthy dose of Clarinase to clear the head before a 4.30 pickup this morning. A 20k drive took us to 1400m before we started our slow trudge ever upward over pumice, dust and scree....we were all appropriately kitted out in windproofs, gaiters, and carried gloves helmets and crampons and an ice pick in issued backpacks for when the going got colder and icier....the first 1 1/2hr were by the light of our head torches...the volcano looked so non threatening, puffing out wisps of pink smoke in the first light of day. The second rest stop took us to the ice and we had lessons in using the crampons and picks, and how not to break a leg!!! The wind whipped up, making it hard to balance and turn ....zigzagged up, and up...

2 1/2 hrs later the clouds started to shroud the crater, and we were suddenly in fog....400m from the summit the guides said enough and we headed down. 1 1/2 hours was all it took, retracing our steps on the ice, then sliding down in the gravel... the knees will tell their own story tomorrow... we all nodded off in the bus ride home...

I’m so proud of myself... I so nearly didn’t attempt it!

Off for drinks on the lake and dinner before Gus heads for Santiago, camping 1 night en route night.

El Chalten and the Chilean fjords and lakes

El Chalten is a tiny little frontier town at the foot of the Andes in Argentina. It’s a higgledy piggledy town born from the tourism of mountain climbers and hikers, and little thought given to planning. 

The highest peak, Mt Fitzroy, was named after the captain of the Beagle who sighted it on his voyage with Darwin. It’s a very imposing granite “obelisk”, the highest of many jagged peaks in the chain. Our first night here was bitterley cold and wet, though we had a break enough in the rain to get our tents up. We huddled around the cook tent and in the truck making empanadas for tea and fortifying ourselves against the cold with the odd drop of vino!

The morning was dry but the wind relentless.....we thawed out hiking up to a glacial lake and a view of a peak called El Torre and Laguna Torre lake....ate a 420gm steak for dinner in a taverna... carnivore’s dream come true. (Bits of meat are few and far between, as Gus the truck still has no working fridge.)

Now the second day in El Chalten, freezing cold but sunny ...all reluctant to get out of our sleeping bags this morning.....even Gus was contrary and wouldn’t start. Hiked up to mirador of Mt Fitzroy before lunch, and then a 3hr horse ride in the afternoon. The valleys are beautiful, the beech just starting to turn yellow.....

My horse was a very kind mare ...she’d just foaled, and handled like a dream. The gauchos here ride with long stirrups and the reins in one hand (bit like a joy stick really). She walked easily across a bridge and the glacial streams, fast flowing but shallow; we cantered across fields full of dandelions,clover and daisies, with views to the snow capped alps and Mt Fitzroy. Felt like I’d stepped right into a Heidi movie......

Thursday 17th:

THE longest day ever....after a really early start we spent 12 hrs on a bumpy dusty Routa Quarente  (I was in the back seat!!) covering 550 kms north through more empty landscapes; could be the Oz outback except for the colour....and not a tree in sight for miles except poplars planted as windbreaks around the very occasional estancia; the sheep obviously do well here.....we visited the Cave of Hands (Cueva Manos)in a huge canyon, 10,000 yr old rock art with eerie similarity to Australian Aboriginal art...drawings are of guanacos and hunters, the hand prints are multi coloured and all left handed..

We eventually find a place to camp by the roadside, in what was an old road camp, dusty stony and not a bush in sight, and it’s our cook group’s turn for dinner....thick mintestrone soup around a huge camp fire... and only a few hours sleep...

Friday18th:

On the road early again through pretty little  Puerito Moreno and across the border again into Chile - we’re headed through a national park on the way to a ferry ride past the Chilean fjords to Puerto Montt. TJ decides to try a short cut through another border crossing...the Argentinian border is easy; the Chilean is for Ag purposes only and the guards are not pleased with processing us; but don’t send us back through no man’s land, but make us unpack the truck and search every bag and confiscate some food....we have to push start Gus for the second time....

We drive along a vivid blue glacial lake, surrounded by parched treeless hills, then start our ascent into the Alps.....the vista changes completely.....

the panorama could easily be Swiss as we descend.....a very rough road through the national park, pine covered hills, glaciated mountains, and lush growth of wild fushias and nameless plants with massive leaves. We back in a lush humid world of mosses and lichens, racing streams... the odd wooden cabin or farm house. 

We shopped for 4 days in Cohaique (oh how I hate the shopping days; our group dynamics are not good, and shopping on limited budgets with no fridge when everyone is tired and hungry is trying to say the least.....)

camp high on a hill beside a lake overlooking town; the sunset is glorious, the showers are freezing cold and we stay up to toast in English Sam’s birthday... 

Saturday 19th:

Sarah Tomlinson (- a bright bubbly 23yr old from Brighton; we’re going to check out the family trees) organized a hand made card and festooned the truck with balloons for the birthday....

another long day of lush mountain scenery and forests, a rough road, an idyllic lunch stop where the boys all line up to throw stones in the river while the girls look on .....we find a camp site along side a fjord....we brave a swim, set up a huge campfire on the beach and celebrate Sam’s birthday. Even found some fresh mussels to saute. There are many bottles around the next morning when I put the kettle on

Sunday 20th:

More of the same as we drive north up and over another mountain spur, headed for El Chaiten. Twice we have to push start Gus, and several times on way to camp site the boys had to get out and check the rickety wooden bridges... (TJ clipped the guard rails of one and they sneaked back in the dark to fix it.) A 13 point turn helped them negotiate the curve onto the bridge on the way back...

We camped 25 kms out of town in a grassy patch along side a stream... we’re up late cooking as we have to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to go for tomorrow and be packed up and on the road at 6.30.... this camping is hard work.....but off road vehicles and camping are the only way one gets to see this unbelievably scenic place.

El Chaiten is  almost a ghost town after a devastating volcano covered it with ash in 2009. Many houses are dug out, but struggling to survive after 30 mths because there’s still no power, sewerage or fresh water. It’s eerie..... school’s playground equipment still half buried in ash, just the peaks of roofs poking out through the ash/sand as we back onto the ferry for a tedious 9 hour ride to Porto Montt....an old once prosperous German settlement which thrived on sending grain to States before the Panama Canal was built.

Procured smoke salmon and strong old cheeses from local market as a supper in our VERY BASIC camp .... a stony dirt patch on the edge of town  beside a servo and truck depot; litter and you don’t want to know lining the nearby  fence..... but it turned into a wonderful night around the fire. Terry the old Aussie bushie from Mandura was a closet balladeer.... he sang and serenaded us with old folk songs and classics in the most beautiful voice.....

Walked into “Banos” at servo at daybreak, and stumbled across 3 young kids are sleeping huddled together on scraps of cardboard....

I wake up with sore throat and a head cold... easy drive down to Pucon, a pretty tourist town on a lakeside, at foot of a volcano....not sure whether I’ll make the climb up there tomorrow....these old bones are starting to tell the tale of sleeping on a ground matt and rough travelling for 6 days!!!!

Patagonia

Sunday 13th,  Valentine’s day in Oz, and we’ve have just got in from the wilds of Patagonia and found out Kate and Josh are engaged... It’s been the hardest secret I’ve ever had to keep, and the pair of us couldn’t stop crying when we finally spoke on Skype!

I’ve been talking about going to Patagonia for 20 odd years and I finally made it.... it’s as wild and windswept and as remote as I always imagined.... the plains are stony and treeless, great big gibbers strewn everywhere, a low prickly bush similar to saltbush as far as the horizon stretches; the road is dead straight and seemingly endless. We could be in the Oz outback except for the colou rand the language, but the humour was there....

Gus the 1985 model truck is gutsy if somewhat contrary; she lets her windows rattle down,   gaffer tape is the last resort on occasion to plug the freezing air leaks, and she thinks twice about starting when the mood strikes her....but she’s mostly reliable

6th Feb:

We drove most of the day across endless plains via Rio Grande to San Sebastian on the border, Argentinian first, simple enough.....then 10 kms of no mans land in semi desert, a few cattle, a few sheep, a “few” flamingoes, pale pink in an unexpected vista...then 1 1/2 hrs in the Chilean border. So much security in such an inhospitable place.

A ferry across the Magellan Straits led us along a similar road looking for a “wild “camp for the night. It was late, freezing cold, and blowing a gale, when we drove past a small ghost to en of an old estancia, a sheep station.... not unlike Newcastle Waters township, but a little grander.... the tour leaders looked for some undercover shelter for the night...

The Estancia it its heydey would have been very impressive - a Cucina  or kitchen, a carpenters area, a store, quarters, huge boatshed,  and the grandest 21 stand shearing shed with “broken” glass windows, pens everywhere.... the only thing still used, and where we set up camp for the night. The naysayers were many; the brashness of youth and charm of the tour leaders  won the day...(the Frenchman and American speak Spanish). ...

Shearing was recent (there were a hundred odd bales in the huge storage), and the smell of lanoline on the boards and the odd carcass in the races overwhelmed a few to start with ... needless to say I loved it.  We had to find a sheltered spot in the huge yards to pee and brush our teeth, all the while surrounded by howling winds and a sky painted with soft pink hues.....all overlooking a once grand establishment in a lifestyle that collapsed when the bottom fell out of the wool market. We went to bed in thermals and were still cold; thank God for the shed...

7th - 11th Feb:

Patagonia national park and the Torres del Paine - in the local language/Spanish it means Towers of blue - and they are stunning. The mountains are beautiful, seductive, but moody..... we’re blessed with beautiful weather, a heat wave in fact for the locals. The view from our tent is amazing; blue, white; then grey and threatening .... but always magestic.

The first leg of 3 days of walk takes up to Grey glacier - 22 km warm up. the 2nd is 2 walks around the mountains with different vistas, the 3rd a very testing 700m ascent over 11km to view the towers above the volcanic crater... the knees  are telling the tale now.

12th was a drive across more treeless Patagonia to los Calafates and the stunning Moreno glacier - equivalent of a 20 story building in a blue living breathing groaning wall of ice, the only one that is not receding in the current climate apparently..... every few minutes a loud boom signals a crash of ice into the lake.... the glacier itself is the size of buenos Aires....

Tomorrow we’re off to El Chalten

Last day in civilization

The wait's almost over, the journey in our new home for 9 weeks, the truck, is about to start....


Her name is Gus - not sure why a truck has to be female, but her attributes appear to be few apart from offroad ability and sturdiness. We all met up last night and had a bit of a chat about what's to come. I can feel the tingle of excitement again, but a bit dubious about just how much sleep I'm going to get ...


There's a mix of young and old ( more women than men, and I'm by far the oldest female!) 21 passengers, 2 crew and 1 extra French guy who's learning the ropes. There's a large contingent of Aussies, 4 Dutch, a few English, a Swiss lass and an American. We all have to share the chores... should be interesting to see how it all pans out!


The crew leader is a young enthusiastic Yank who looks a lot like Choo; his co-driver an equally enthusiastic Dutchman. They're all tinged with wanderlust, addicted to the outdoors and the freedom of tour guiding....


We all going out for some last minute supplies, a good feed, and then the "fun" begins.... not sure when I'll be able to next blog, but here goes....

Haberton Estancia and walk in the park

Iʼm marking time here in Ushuaia, absorbing all thatʼs passed and wondering about whatʼs to come. Itʼs wonderful that when you expect nothing will happen, lovely people walk into your life, if only for a fleeting moment.....

A tour in a catamaran down the Beagle Straits...more seals,more cormorants,more penguins...

to Haberton Estancia - the first land taken up here by the son of an English missionary, Thomas Bridges; he became the “White Indian” and learnt the language of the indigenous peoples. A working sheep station until 1980ʼs...a six stand shearing shed with an old Lister engine....amazing old infrastructure..

I was befriended by a 14 yr old boy Ivan and his family, who was most concerned that I travelling alone, and couldnʼt understand the tour guide (and he wanted to practise his English!) ..... he shadowed me, translating for me...

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3rd January:

the day before I meet my next tour; decided to keep fit with a 12km walk in the national park.

En route to the bus, I caught sight of my “home” for the next 9 weeks.an orange 4WD ruck with Dragoman Tours;  what have I let myself in for!!!!

The park is just beautiful, quite unspoilt if you can walk and keep away from the myriad tourist buses..

A revolving door moment introduces me to Cecelia, a bright redhead from Buenos Aires and we do the walk together.

Sheʼs a teacher and history student, especially Medieval and South American history. She speaks some of the native/ Inca tongues - they sound so musical. It really whets my appetite for Peru and Bolivia.

With her English and my very limited interpretation of Spanish, we even manage to have a conversation about Michael Mooreʼs film and 911 - the conversation takes a VERY long time!

... she shares her mate (hot local herbal drink) with me as we stare out across the mountains and the straits....

It was another chance meeting that you wish could continue, but my tour starts tomorrow... I have to catch that big orange truck!

Antarctica mainland

I thought I posted this from the ship - we all know what happened to thought!!....the photos are on facebook

22nd: The sea has settled, the skies are clear….Gap crew reckon the ship is charmed as we head for Elephant Is. Huge icebergs, blue and white and a magical sky, -1deg  but about -20 on deck with the wind chill.  We anchor at Pt Wild where Shackleton's men spent the winter - just a rocky Chinstrap penguin colony at foot of a glacier. A bust of Pedro the Chilean captain who took Shackleton back to rescue his men  stands proud against the sleet. Incredible bone chilling stuff….. the swells are huge as we beach on rocks, the wind and water is icy… I have 4  layers on and 2 sets of gloves. Get dumped on by a wave….they were made of sterner stuff than me!

23rd: This ship has the world's best loo. - an uncurtained panoramic window.  Flurries of snow flakes flit by as we sail to Deception Is, a flooded volcano caldera, through narrow Neptune's Bellows to Whaler's Bay, a deserted whaling station and research centre abandoned after being smothered in volcanic ash. It's blowing a gale now, a blizzard in fact, with horizontal snow stinging our faces as we walk up to Neptune's window. Updrafts suck the snow up vertically as we peer over into 50ft drop . Old buildings and caldrons, old graves, all half buried in old ash - an eerie place, but a ghostly beauty about it. A few swimmers brave the chill wind for a dip in the sea. The odd visiting penguin and seal, but they don't breed here - maybe they know something we don't…..

24th: What a difference a day makes…

The "real" Antarctic at last as we head down the Peninsula through sea ice,  glaciated islands and icebergs. The sun peeps through now and then throwing different lights on the mountains, the snow, the  drifting ice.  I lean over the bow and watch the ice crash against the hull as we wend our way up the Lemaire Channel, past crabeater seals resting on the ice. They barely raise a flipper, and float off on their ice flow beds. At the end of the channel we anchor in a mill pond sea, and get ready for a zodiac cruise in "iceberg alley"….

Hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes; the ancient ice iridescent, an electric blue ….. penguins porpoise around the boat, hundreds, of crabeater seals lounge on the ice, even a leopard seal (reptilian looking evil guy out of Happy Feet.) Kayakers get their first paddle…

Photos are never going to capture this place....

Back to the ship, anchored at the base of a huge glacier for a bbq feast on the back deck, in perfect sunshine, listening to Gypsy Kings. You have to keep pinching yourself….

We retrace our steps through the Lemaire Chanel and a pod of Orcas play in the distance….

We anchor at Fort Lockroy, a restored British research base, now a fabulous museum, a fifties time capsule, and the most southerly Post Office, staffed by volunteers (currently 3 young women). It's plumb in the middle of an Adelie penguin colony. These comical little birds sit for hours, heads into the wind, on their nests of rocks; the mate occasionally waddles up with a reinforcing rock ….

Blue eyed shags and their chicks sit atop their iguano nests….

We dine anchored here, watching the sunset from the Polar Bar deck. We wave off the campers (so wish I could have gone!).

10.30, and the last rays of the sun linger a long time, lighting up the snow with shades of pink …. the half moon is already high in the sky. It's a magical night where darkness never really comes…

25th: Our last landing, and a chance to set foot on the Antarctic continent  proper - a few of us celebrate being part of the 7 Continent Club. The Chilean base Gonzales, staffed with military, and more penguins who have the right of way….

It's really sad to go through the mudroom for the last time; everyone feels a little deflated, knowing the trip is coming to an end.

The notorious Drake Shake turns out to be a tranquil Drake lake as we head north to the mainland. We make such good time we're able to head via Cape Horn, so calm now, no hint of all it's ship wreck secrets…