We had a couple more days in BA before our flight and treated ourselves at a nice hotel near the center of town.



I had confirmed our flights online with Aerolineas Argentinas 5 days previously and finally got back a confirmation email which actually had the wrong day on it!

This is the very professional looking confirmation email. Yes, with the misaligned ASCII frames and everything!:

Estimado Cliente:
Gracias por comunicarse con nosotros.
Su vuelo ha sido reconfirmado satisfactoriamente.
Informamos los datos ACTUALIZADOS del mismo :

CÓDIGO:
PASAJERO: 1.1SARAHMS 2.1DAMIANMR

|-------+----------+----------

+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|
| | | | | | | |
| Vuelo | Fecha | Origen | Destino | Partida| Arribo | Escalas |
|-------+----------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|
| | | | | | | |
| AR1182| 9MAR | EZEIZA | SIDNEY | 02.30 | 10.30 | SIN |
| | | | | | | ESCALAS |
|-------+----------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|

For those of you without español skillz, that's the Flight number | Date | Origin | Destination | Departure | Arrival |

Appears that our flight is leaving on the 9th of march at 2.30am!

Our original flight had been leaving at 11.55pm on the 9th but had been changed by the airline months ago to 2.30am on the 10th.

I sent another confirmation request through their website from the English section with a note to please clarify if our flight had been reschedualed 24 hours early and got this reply:

Dear Customer:
Thank you for contacting us!

According to your request, we wish to explain that this booking code
was reconfirmed previously. No changes have taken place in your itinerary.

Best regards,

Call Center - Division Internet
Aerolineas Argentinas S.A.

How very not helpful!

So I had to ring them.
Conversation after I had provided booking reference etc went a bit like this:

Me: So can you tell me what day the flight is leaving?
AA rep: The 9th.
Me: Our original flight was on the 9th at 11.55pm and was changed to the 10th at 2.30am. Are you telling me it has now been moved 24 hours earlier to the 9th?
AA rep: That's right, the 10th.
Me: What?
AA rep: The flight is on the 10th.
Me: But you just told me the 9th.
AA rep: It was the 9th but it changed to the 10th.
Me: So why did I get a confirmation email telling me it was the 9th and you just told me it was the 9th?
AA rep: But it's the 10th.
Me: ARE YOU SURE?
AA rep: Yes.

Needless to say when we got to the airport at 11pm for our 2.30am departure after first being told to go away and come back at midnight for check-in, we found that Aerolineas Argentinas had not bothered to email us to let us know the flight had been delayed until 5.30am!

After all that we were once again expecting the moody service from cabin staff we recieved coming to BA the first time but suprisingly it was a lot better. They even had blankets for the passengers! Still after assessing the overall airline quality, you would have to pay me to fly again with Aerolineas Argentinas!


I did a picture of a plane. Maybe AA could use it to spruce up their website.

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Again we had an hour stopover in Auckland, then home to Sydney.


So I guess that's the end of the Travel Blog. :(
Thanks for reading.
It's been an incredible 6 months.

Bye!

Iguazu Falls

After saying goodbye to Beau who was off to Peru, Sarah and I jumped on a 17 hour bus to the north where the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet.
We were going to see the famous Iguazu Falls.
Being a very popular South American destination, only second to Matchu Pitchu, we booked accomodation in advance for only the third time in our entire trip.
Arriving at the town of Puerto Iguazu we took a taxi to the Mega Hostel we had booked. Hostel Inn was enormous with 200 or so beds and a massive swimming pool. This was great as we had been hot in BA and now we were almost back to the tropics! Only downside was that it was full of young men enthusiastically playing volley ball to impress the bikini-clad young ladies sun baking around the sides. Also we had booked this place because it had a guest kitchen which in theory was true but in reality consisted of two overfull bar fridges and a sink and a few battered pots. Not a single kitchen knife or even a wooden spoon. They did have a reasonable dinner buffet and poolside bar so obviously not in their interests for people to make their own food or buy alcohol from town.
When we checked in we were told that we would have a room for the first two nights then would have to switch rooms for the third night. I had noticed that this place had the earliest check out time I had ever seen being 9am and check in wasn't until 2pm so I asked her if the room we would be switching to would be ready for us to just move our luggage into. She ummed and ahhed and then said they had a storage room we could put our stuff in. I said that's not good enough and stood my ground and she finally changed her mind and said we wouldn't have to switch. Score! After all that, the room (matrimonial con baños privado of course) was actually quite nice.

Spent the first day just lounging poolside and discovered that happy hour cocktails were pretty good value. There was a big outdool buffet feast that night which was a weekly event and everyone had a pretty big night poolside. Coincidentally we bumped into Sylvia who had been on the boat with us in the Galapagos islands and was staying at the hostel too! The next day we also again met Tim the aussie from Torres del Paine. This hostel is obviously the one to stay at on the backpacker trail.

Next morning we got up early to get the first bus to the falls at 7.30am. It was here that we discovered something interesting. We had noticed during our week in Buenos Aires that it didn't get dark until quite late. The sun went down about 7.30pm so it was dark by 8pm. This is normal in Summer back home so we didn't think anything of it. Getting up early to catch the bus though we were quite confused to find it was pitch black at 7am! With all those late nights (It was great to see you Beau!) and sleeping in we hadn't discovered that dawn didn't arrive until a little after 7.
The bus trip to the Falls was only short and we were second in line at the ticket office behind a young Argentinian couple who were watching graphic porn on his mobile phone while they waited.
There are a few kilometres of walking tracks aroud the park so we decided on a plan of attack to try and see as much as possible before the hoards of bus tours arrived. This worked out quite successful as we were alone for our first walk along the top of the falls and there were very few people on the walk to the bottom. We took a short boat trip and walked around the "island" surrounded by the falls. After a refreshment stop to have a drink and watch people being harrassed by a hungry badger critter we took a train ride to the start of the falls and followed a walkway out over the water to where it poured over the largest falls into the main river.

Click photo for panorama.

Another night in the mega-hostel and then luxury bus time back to BA. When we booked the bus it was only $5 more each to upgrade to the first class bus for this section of the trip so we though "why not". Fully reclining seats that fold back into beds, good food and champagne, even Wi-Fi! If only every bus trip was like this.

Day trip to Uruguay

From Buenos Aires it's an easy ferry trip to get to Uruguay. There are connections to the capital Monte Video which is about 5 hours on a fa$t boat or the much closer Colonia de Sacremento on a more affordable 4 hour trip.

Leaving BA as the morning sun lit up the skyline was a pretty spectacular sight. The old docks area has been "redeveloped" with the usual huge apartment blocks but there is a large wetland nature reserve which has been retained.

Not so spectacular was the amount of rubbish in the murky brown waters of the harbour!
The crossing of the Rio de la Plata was uneventful and a bit boring as there wasn't much to do on the ferry. An obscenely overpriced duty free shop which we thought had reasonable prices until we found out they were in USD not Pesos Argentinos and some old-school arcade games were all the entertainment on board.

Arriving in Colonia we walked through the town and visited an ancient church and the old lighthouse. It's quite a pretty town with some cobblestone streets and cute old houses.
The lighthouse had a good view out over the water and town. Colonia is one of the oldest towns in South America and Uruguay was actually created as a "buffer" state between the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of Brasil and Argentina.

We wandered around for a while trying to find a restaurant for lunch and settled in at one which had an engaging and entertaining waiter who kept changing silly hats and reminded us of the movie Office Space with the impressive amount of "flair" he was displaying on his uniform. The food wasn't anything special though and we were still charged for the "table service" even though we refused to accept the fish spread and stale bread that was presented. Also when we got the bill we found we were given a 250 peso bottle of wine instead of the 100 peso bottle we had actually ordered so we left with a bit of a sour taste in our mouths. Not impressed with places which deliberately rip off tourists because they don't need repeat business.

After lunch we browsed some shops and visited the old fortifications near the water and Beau had a Cher moment with the old cannon. (That's the smokin'-fast boat to BA in the background)
Then we were pretty much just killing time waiting for the Ferry.

Buenos Aires (BA)
Damian and I arrived one day before we met Beau, and one day before we were to check into the apartment. The reason was to take full advantage of our luxurious apartment for a full day and Beau was arriving late so we wanted to get the apartments organised. For those of you who don't know who Beau is, well he is my beautiful older brother (though I am much more mature than him so you would think that I am older when really he is). Beau did not trust my judgement in picking accomodation so he booked it and the result is two neigbouring studio apartments in the nice part of town. A bit more expensive than what I suggested but it was nice and after traveling for 6 months staying in hostels and dorms it's nice to have your own little place.
So Damian and I arrived one day early and stayed at a cheap (slightly nasty) place that had an antique industrial-strength portable floor fan as there were no windows in our room (and the ceiling fan was not functioning). So when we had the fan on it seriously sounded like a helicopter was taking off, which was a bit embarassing as everyone kept on looking in our room as they walked past. It was a old building with high ceiling which did have a lot of character.
Time for lunch, so we headed down to the docks to a place suggested by our Aussie friends that we met in Belize (Ryan and Kate). The place suggested was all-you-could-eat salad bar and meat. I know what you are thinking, it was a very dangerous place to over-eat but we did not do too bad, it was nice to eat lots of salad. After lunch we walked through some dodgy areas (its nice to get a real feel of the city), and watched some tango-ing people while we had wine and pizza for dinner.
The next day (25/2/09) we caught a cab to the apartments and arrived at 10:28am, we were meant to meet at 10:30am so we thought we were right on time. We found out later we were actually a hour late (there are 2 time zones in Argentina which we knew but no one could tell us where the boarder was but we had obviously crossed it coming east from Bariloche).

We got settled in to the apartments and went shopping at the nearby supermarket to get supplies. Nice to be able to buy groceries for a few days!
Beau arrived later in the afternoon and the next few days were spent having fun around the city, drinking and eating too much and getting drunk and disorderly. -Sarah

Bariloche and goodbye Patagonia.

After a few days in El Bolson we took a bus a couple of hours north to Bariloche which is a small city on the shore of a beautiful lake.
It was nice to spend a few days relaxing and walking around shops having empanadas for lunch and drinking coffee frappes at cafes. Stayed at a nice hostel with a crazy woman on the front desk. You could hear her mad laugh two flights up in our room!
Sarah wasn't in the mood for walking so she stayed at the hostel one day while I walked to the top of Cerro Otto, a hill a few kilometres from town with a fantastic view over the lake. Our 10 day hike must have had an effect on me as I didn't think twice about walking almost 20km to the top of the ridge and back to town. Only took me 4 hours.

You might have noticed that the blog updates have tailed off a bit. Possibly the marathon one for Torres Del Paine wore me out but also a likely reason is we have been a little disapointed with Argentinian Patagonia.
Patagonia is the whole of the bottom pointy bit of South America, Chile and Argentina. Apart from the Western edge around the Andes mountain range it is pretty much all flat featureless barren plains. Very windy and dusty. The trip from Puerto Natales down to Ushuaia was 12 hours of mostly featureless boring scenery. Even the fabled Tierra Del Fuego, apart from the southern edge, was almost desert with only an occasional oil pump or refinery to look at from the bus window.
Getting out of Ushuaia was a repeat of the journey there, followed by another 24 hour dull trip to El Bolson. There we found some vegetation and mountains at least and after a few days in Bariloche we headed straight to Buenos Aires which was another pretty featureless trip of 21 hours.
Also adding to our malaise about Argentina is the people. We have dealt with plenty of unfriendly and unhelpful 'service' staff on our travels but the locals here seem to have stepped it up a notch. And there are a couple of nasty habits that are quite prevalent as well.
Smoking. Almost everybody smokes. It's like Australia in the '80s when there were no health concerns and people were free to smoke wherever they wanted like in dining rooms and hospitals. A couple of the hostels we stayed at had smoking downstairs in the dining area and the whole place was full of smoke. You are trying to cook or eat and people are chain-smoking next to you. Nice....
The other unpleasant habit is an obsession with Mate. This is a tea made with a plant called yerba. (Not Coca leaves like in Bolivia.) The unpleasant aspects of it is the unhygenic paraphanalia and addictive behaviour that accompanies it. They drink it out of little gourd mugs with a metal straw with a sieve on the end. The mug has leaves put in and gets topped up with hot water from a thermos that they carry everywhere.
I will admit that I have a mild caffeine addiction. I like coffee and usually have one most mornings and may get a headache if I go a whole day without. But I don't drink coffee continuously for the entire day every day! That's what these yerba drinkers do! On long bus trips at every stop a legion of thermos weilding Argentinias run around trying to find somewhere to fill up their thermos with hot water. Most service stations actually have a coin-operated hot water bowser outside for this purpose! At the bus stations they just rudely push to the front of the line of people queuing for coffee (me) to get their thermos filled. And where do you think they empty their mugs of used yerba leaves? Wherever they feel like of course!

Updated the blog with a Torres Del Paine entry. See a couple of posts back.

We are currently in El Bolson which is a "hippy" town towards the top of Patagonia. Actually it's not far from Puerto Montt, just across the border and Andes range.
After a couple of nights in Ushuaia we took a 12 hour bus trip to Rio Gallegos, followed the next day by a 23 hour bus to El Bolson. Scenery didn't change much over those 35 hours until we got back to the Andes!

There are a lot of things here that remind me of Mullumbimby and the Byron area in Northern NSW; people driving rusty old bombs of cars, the handycraft markets in the centre of town with aging hippies selling arty crap, dirty little kids running wild in the streets.... etc
Pretty relaxed vibe around the place.
There is a large mountain ridge (2300m) above the town and we woke on the first morning to see the top dusted in snow which was pretty. The hostel we are staying in has a nice view from the bedroom window.

The End of the world.

Well we made it to the self proclaimed Fin Del Mundo/End of the World at Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in Tierra del Fuego.
After camping we just spent one night in Puerto Natales and jumped straight on a 12 hour bus yesterday through to Ushuaia. The trip was OK with a choppy ferry crossing of the Magellan Strait to break the journey. We are now in Argentina but will have to cross through part of Chile again to get back to Buenos Aires.

Spent today resting as we felt like a break after the 10 days walking in the park. (Lots of photos, will get back to doing a blog entry on it. Very spectacular!)
The city is pretty touristy where we are staying. It is the starting point for most boat trips to Antarctica (which the remains of our travel budget will no longer stretch to cover) and has a National Park close by and some Penguin Colonies across the Beagle channel to be seen.
We have two weeks left until we need to be in Buenos Aires to meet with Sarah's brother Beau so will start heading back north shortly.

Torres del Paine

When we were on the ferry enroute to Puerto Natales we probably embarrassed ourselves a little by having never heard of “Torres Del Paine” National Park which apparently the entire boatload of people apart from us were coming to visit and probably hike something called “The W”. We did have vague plans to go hiking in Patagonia as it was recommended by Ryan when we were in Belize like 4 months ago but hey, we’d only just arrived in Patagonia and had done fine without any forward planning so far in the trip.

So three days later after a couple of nights in Puerto Natales we are being picked up at 7.30am for a bus trip to the park to do the “Q” circuit which should take us 9 days of walking carrying tent, sleeping bags and all our food!

We went to a talk at one of the hostels yesterday about hiking in the park and had been thinking of doing the 4-5 day “W” walk (called that because it goes up and down a couple of valleys and is the shape of the letter.) but after the talk Sarah was all enthusiastic to do the whole Circuit which is the “W” plus a loop around the back of the mountains. So we spent yesterday afternoon hiring camping gear and buying food in town and have reduced our packs to the bare minimum of clothes to make room for the large sleeping bags and a tent.


Day 1 started early at 5am or so when we woke to finish packing our bags and had a quick breakfast before the bus arrived. It was about 2.5 hours (would have been less if not for an obligatory stop at an overpriced tourist trap on the way) to the park entrance where we all had to pay 15000 Pesos Chileanos ($45AUD, not bad for 9 days, bit of a rort if you were only doing a day trip!) entry. From here we got our first look at Los Torres, the towers of granite the park is named after.




The centrepiece of Torres Del Paine national park is a striking small range of snow topped mountains of jagged granite peaks up to 3000m high. Geologically it is quite interesting as they are separate from the nearby Andes range and were formed by a magma upwelling under the surface igneous rock. Over time as the land has pushed upward and been eroded by mainly glacial action, the granite has formed the peaks.
Between these mountains and the Andes is Glacier Grey, part of the largest Glacier field outside Antarctica.

From the park entrance it was still a couple more hours to the Administration centre at the southern end of the park where we arrived at noon. As it was the first day we took it easy and only walked 3 hours to Campemento Las Carretas along a fairly featureless windswept plain. The free “Camp” was a pit toilet and shed sheltered by a small hill close to the bank of a large fast flowing river. After setting up camp and cooking pasta for dinner on our portable gas cooker in the shed we went to bed fairly early. Sun was still up of course as this far south it isn’t setting until some time after 10pm.

Day 1: 3 hours, 11.5km

Day 2
Woke up and packed up the tent and after a breakfast of cup-a-soup and sandwiches we headed on our way. The route followed the river for a while before crossing the ridge with a fantastic view of the mountains and then skirting a large lake. After 3 hours walking we arrived at Refugio Paine Grande which is quite large as it is serviced by boat from the bus route and is where most people start or finish the “W”. We weren’t staying there until the end of the circuit so we just stopped for a lunch break and a beer and pushed on another 2 hours to Campemento Italiano, another free camp site in a pine forest on the bank of yet another raging torrent of a river. This one was so cold it was painful to collect water from it as your fingers almost froze. We found out the next day that this is because it had been a glacier just a couple of kilometres upstream!




Day 2: 5 hours, 17.6km
Total: 8 hours, 29.1km

Day 3
Left camp travelling light as we were heading up the valley and left the tent set up with our packs inside. It was a steady climb up Valle Del Frances for 3 hours past the large glacier Del Frances which was pouring itself in stages down from the very top of the range formed between three peaks the highest being 3050m. We kept stopping when we heard the crack or roar to watch little avalanches of snow crashing down the cliffs.
Near the top of the valley we reached a lookout and stopped for a break with a truly spectacular view back down the valley before retracing our steps another 3 hours back to Italiano where we reluctantly struck camp and walked a further 2.5 hours to Refugio Los Cuernos. Being a Refugio rather than a Campemento meant that they offered accommodation and meals and charged for camping. We were able to take advantage of hot showers though which was well worth the 8000 peso fee.



Day 3: 8.5hrs, 20.5km
Total: 16.5 hours, 49.6km

Day 4
Left camp for an undulating 6 hour walk between part of the range and a couple of lakes. We turned up the steep Valle Ascencio (Ascent Valley) and passed the rather unpleasant Campemento Chileno (cramped small campsite with stinky horses pitched right next to the tents.) to go another 1.5 hours to Campemento Torres which was the nicest campsite of the trip. On a heavily wooded slope with a lovely little stream running right next to the tent. This would be our base camp for an early morning assault on the famed “Los Torres del Paine“! The Towers of Pain! (Actually it’s “The Blue Towers” due to the blue/grey granite but “the towers of pain” sounds kinda cool..)

Day 4: 7.5hrs, 20.9km
Total: 24 hours, 70.5km

Day 5
Woke horribly early in order to climb the hour to Los Torres to hopefully see them lit with the dawn’s first light. Apparently they are so often shrouded in clouds, rain, snow etc that this is an unlikely scenario but the weather had been good to us so far. We took one pack with our sleeping bags, mats and cooker and after an hour climbing a rocky slope we came to the lookout and found a nice flat rock and settled in nice and warm and snug with a hot coffee to wait for the sunrise. Dawn finally came and lit the escarpment briefly with warm pink and orange light before going behind a cloud. The sight was quite beautiful and the photographs don’t quite do the colours justice.



Finally we decided we had to leave and emerging into the cold morning air from our snug sleeping bags we climbed back down to camp to dismantle the tent.
The walk down the valley passed quickly with lots of people passing us heading up to the towers. This section of the trek is the busiest as many people come from Punto Arenas (large city where Cruise Liners stop about 300km south) for day trips and are dropped off by bus at the bottom of the valley and told they can hike up to see the towers. Now it would take a fit person about 4.5 hours to walk there making it almost 9 hours return being a bit quicker downhill. No way the typical Cruise passenger would be able to do it in the time they have. So along with sweaty determined looking people rudely pushing past carrying nought but a water bottle (and sometimes not even that.) we also had Horse Riders. Now some people like to ride horses, that’s fine with me. I just object to having to walk in horse shit and be pushed off narrow paths by inconsiderate people who are too lazy to walk. Thankfully this was a particularly bad stretch of path and the rest was mostly horse-free.
We arrived at Hosteria Los Torres at noon and set up camp. It was another paid campsite with showers and toilet block and shop nearby. Also the only camp of the trip that allowed wood fires so we had a relaxing afternoon and evening eating and playing cards beside the fire and drinking probably a little bit too much red wine.




Day 5: 5 hours, 15.9km
Total: 29 hours, 86.4km

Day 6
Set off from camp along what was now going to be a far less travelled path as we had now finished the “W”. We walked 4 hours over a ridge and through some woods and a river flat to Campemento Seron. This was one option for staying the night but would leave us with the need to do 10 hours waking the next day due to the spacing of the camps or two short days with an extra unnecessary night camping. It was 6 hours to the next camp, another 4 to the one after that, 6 to the next etc. Lucky for us a fellow camper Tim (odd Aussie fellow who wore shorts even when it was freezing cold) had mentioned an old campsite which was midway between Seron and the next camp Dixon! We even spotted it marked on an old map on a Hostel wall at the last camp and had an idea of where it was located. This would give us 7 hours walking with 7 the next day, much better than 10 in one day. Also Campemento Seron was pretty uninspiring. Just an open windy field with bored unhelpful staff at the shop. So we set off again after lunch (treated ourselves to some eggs at the shop and boiled them.) not quite knowing where we were going to sleep the night but confident we would find somewhere flat to pitch the tent.
We passed a couple of young guys as we left camp who I guess were debating whether to push on 6 hours to Dixon as it was 3pm by now or stay at Seron. They confidently strode past us a few minutes later obviously not phased at having to set up camp at 9pm. Suckers!

The next three hours were very scenic along the river passing a pretty waterfall before climbing to a horseshoe shaped perched lake and then over a high ridge to an impressive sight of the large Lago Paine, (Lake Pain! Sorry, Blue Lake) framed by large mountains with glaciers running down to it. We thought the camp was at the other end of the lake so continued on along the lake still quite high up the hillside.
We stopped at the first creek past the lake as I thought that would be a likely spot for a camp and a bit of exploration found quite a number of flat campsites along the creek. We picked one and set up camp while being devoured by millions of mosquitos. Covering all skin and a liberal application of Bushmans repellent kept them at bay for a little while but I still ended up cooking dinner mostly from inside the tent. Before dark another three tents were set up nearby so I figure the old camp is a well known secret.

Day 6: 7 hours, 18.5 km
Total: 36 hours, 104.9km

Day 7
Left the campsite early as we couldn’t really spend any time outside the tent without the mossies attacking (maybe that’s why they closed the camp?) and headed along the valley. There are two rivers running into Lago Paine with an impressive delta and wetland and after a couple of creek crossings (darn, wet foot!) the path took us through a stretch of very boggy marsh. The first 100m were traversed on an impressively wide boardwalk which then ceased to have planks but still a frame to walk on and then nothing. Seemed fairly aged too as if the people sent to build it had given up after a couple of weeks and nobody had been sent to finish the job. Bit of a shame as the rest of the walk through squidgy mud was on multiple paths formed by people walking on the vegetation to try and avoid getting wet feet. You would think for the $15000+ USD a day income the park gets from visitors they could maintain the trail a bit better to avoid people creating new paths. I’m quite happy to cross creeks walking on rocks but it saddens me to see the vegetation destroyed in wet marshy areas like that when a simple wooden boardwalk could be built across it.
We reached Dixon after three hours walk but didn’t waste any time there as the place was full of horses and horsy people (BTW, I’m not a total horse hater, Sarah is highly allergic to them.) so continued the 4 hours on to Campemento Los Perros.
This section of the hike was a steady climb up from the valley floor through forest following a river toward Glacier Los Perros which looked quite scenic on the map, forming a lake next to the campsite. The following day we would be climbing over a high mountain pass as well so we spent some time on the walk trying to identify where we would be walking the next day.
The glacier was quite small but rewarded us with a little avalanche as we arrive at the lake and the camp was not far past it. Camp site was nice with lots of trees and a clean toilet block.

Day 7: 7 hours, 18.5km
Total: 43 hours, 123.4km

Day 8
Started out up the steep valley up to John Gardner pass. It soon started raining which hadn’t bothered us with the brief showers previously experienced as we quickly dried out and you don’t get cold while you are walking, but this was a bit heavier and as we got higher and reached the snowline, turned to sleet and then pretty much a blizzard. It was very cold and windy and we knew we just had to keep moving or there was a good chance of getting hypothermia. Sarah complained her head was very cold and I pointed out her hair was covered in snow and she should put her hat on! We kept slogging on past another glacier and patches of snow and eventually reached the top of the ridge where the snow stopped and it was surprisingly less windy. From here we had our first view of the massive Glacier Grey stretching off into the distance and continued down the slope alongside the glacier through forest until we reached Campemento Paso. This camp was in thick wood, high on the ridge with white glimpses of Glacier Grey through the trees. Small creek running alongside. We arrived about 3pm and got a good private tent site but lots of people arrived late in the evening and it got pretty crowded. Toilet block was the most disgusting squat toilet I have ever seen!




Day 8: 6 hours, 12 km
Total: 48 hours, 135.4km


Day 9
Walked 5 hours along the slope beside the Glacier to Refugio Grey where we had planned to stay the night. Arriving at 3 pm we were quite unimpressed with the campsite though. It was a small area on a sandy and rocky beach beside the lake and was quite cramped already even though by our calculations the 12.30pm boatload arriving at Paine Grande wouldn’t have got there yet. There was a massive tent set up near the shelter shed for people doing boat trips and ice walks on the Glacier. Probably noisy party central at night! Also we had thought to stay there for the facilities however there was only a single shower for the whole campsite and this had a large queue already. We asked a staff member if we could pitch our tent anywhere as there were some open spaces along the lake but he was quite rude and unhelpful so we decided to continue the 3.5 hours to Paine Grande. As we were leaving we found a little cove on the lake on the north side of camp which had a few tents set up but was much more private than the other end of camp. Unpacking our tent we started to pitch it until another staff member from the refugio came to say that this area was only for refugio staff and we couldn’t camp there! So we packed up the tent and hit the road again for another 3.5 hours to Paine Grande. This section of train was quite steep as we had to pass over a large ridge and was very windy towards the end. It was quite a relief to finally get to camp after about 8.5 hours walking and 21 km for the day.
Paine Grande has the largest campsite of them all and we found a nice spot to set up in the bushes and after a long hot shower we felt a lot better. Having walked so far today meant we would have a very lazy morning tomorrow needing to only pack up camp and walk 100m to the jetty by 12.30pm.
Had some dinner, played cards and drank red wine while watching a very strange cloud formation across the camp.

Day 9: 8.5hours, 21 km

Total walking time: 56.5 hours, Total distance walked: 156.4km

Day 10
Slept in late and woke up to intermittent rain. Packed up the tent and found shelter in the provided kitchen/dining area until it was time to go catch the boat across the lake to connect with the bus to Puerto Natales.
Arrived back in Puerto Natales about 5pm and dropped our hired gear off before staggering back to the hostel where the rest of our gear was being held. Surprise, surprise! they hadn’t held our reservation (common occurrence in Sth America we have found) so we booked into another hostel a couple of streets away and after another trip to the supermarket for supplies, made dinner and went to bed!

Photo Album

Boat trip, Glaciers and the National Park of Paine!

The boat trip was fun. 3 days of not doing much watching the scenery go by. Detoured to the face of Pio XI the largest glacier in South America and watched as some silly staff from the boat took the rubber-ducky out to collect a small iceberg for drinks ice!

Stayed two nights in Puerto Natales and we are leaving first thing in the morning to go to the Torres del Paine national park to do a 9 day trek while camping! Should be freezing cold and raining for much of it but there's an incredible glacier field and spectacular mountains.

Be back in about 10 days!

Chile photos

Off to Patagonia....

We are currently having a Coffee in a Cafe overlooking the harbour where a huge cruise ship is waiting to take it's passengers south in luxury. Not us unfortunately! We will be going in a converted container ship. Still we are excited and it looks like it will be a fun trip with georgeous scenery of snow-capped mountains, fjords and glaciers.
http://www.navimag.com/en/canales/sur/ruta_sur.asp

We bumped into Idka and Jamie, (a honeymooning couple we met in Cuenca back in Ecuador) while we were checking our bags in for the cruise. They will be on the boat as well so that will be fun. Wonder if they splashed out on a private room or are staying in one of the 26 bunk cabins!

So don't fret if there are no updates for the next few days! Probably not much internet access among the Fjords....

Hasta Luego.

Well we are off again! Currently it's midnight and we are getting up early to catch a 6.10am bus to Puerto Montt, 14 hours to the south.
We had a productive day, leaving the hostel to catch the metro to the office for a cruise company to book a 4 day boat trip for monday from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas way down south. (I've marked the trip already on the map at the top of the page) Then to the bus station to book the bus. Tried doing that bit online but was just too difficult. The Spanish I could managed but not the info they needed to register with the website to book it as I don't have the required national ID number?!
We were aprehensive taking the metro system after our previous Mexico city experience but it was actually quite easy and not very crowded. Much cleaner than Sydney's train network and the trains were very frequent. As we arrived at one platform we just missed a train and the next one pulled in a minute later. The NSW government could take some notes if the Sydney North-West Metro ever gets built!
Santiago seems like quite a pleasant city. Lots of pedestrian malls around the Plaza Del Armas which is full of palm trees, statues and people including children splashing in the centre fountain. Very clean and people are friendly, haven't been hassled in the streets. Shame we aren't staying longer to see a bit more of the area.

A pleasant 24 hour bus trip!

A couple of nights in San Pedro was enough (nice enough town but also dry, hot and dusty) and we hopped on a bus bound for Santiago. Left San Pedro at 2.30pm and arived in Santiago at 1pm this afteroon. The bus trip was pretty reasonable on a big double deck bus with comfortable "semi reclining" seats. I stayed awake until 3am (playing games on the laptop. They had a 110volt inverter within reach of my seat!) and then actually managed to get 6 hours sleep!
The scenery changed as we went south with the barren landforms of the desert at San Pedro becoming less arid with Cactus and then shrubs, trees and even Eucalyptus plantations as we got closer to Santiago.
Arriving at the bus station we took a Taxi the few kilometres to the "Plaza de Armas" and got a room in a hostel on the 6th floor of a building overlooking the square.
Seems like a nice city although the Taxi driver warned us about pick-pockets around the Plaza.

Will stay here a couple of nights then take another bus south.

We made it to Chile and are staying a couple of nights in San Pedro de Atacama which is a small town "Oasis" in the Atacama desert. It actually rained for a couple of hours yesterday which only happens two or three times a year!













Working on the blog updates so will get more up in the next couple of days but here's some photos from the trip across Salar de Uyuni salt flat and the desert to Chile.

Bolivia Album II

La Paz to Chile via Salar de Uyuni salt flats and the Atacama desert.

Jan 16th.
We had a day of killing time (checked out of the Hotel at 10am, bus not leaving until 9pm) so had a long coffee drinking session at one Café and read books over lunch. We even went to the Coca Museum which had been recommended but was actually quite dull and depressing. Very mixed message about how great Coca is, the Inca and pre Inca people have been using it as a stimulant for 4500 years. They chew the leaves and drink Coca tea a lot and it reduces fatigue and is supposedly not addictive unlike the derivative Cocaine. Not addictive but the display proudly gave statistics that 86% of Bolivian women and 94% of the men chew it. The Coca industry was able to be controlled by the invading Spanish to subjugate the people and chewing Coca was a necessity in the hellish Silver Mines at Potosi where 8 million of the poorest Bolivians and imported slaves have died! Then it followed with the Cocaine industry which there is not much demand for in Bolivia itself, but the majority of the USA’s Cocaine comes from Bolivia. This makes Bolivia a problem for the USA with the DEA trying to stop farmers growing Coca while at the same time Coca-Cola is still buying thousands of tons of Bolivian Coca leaves to flavour Coke.
Article on current diplomatic state of Bolivia and USA.

We got to the Bus Station early and boarded the bus on time at 9pm only to be served a meal on board before the bus left as it would be “too bumpy” later! So 9.30 the bus pulled out and after half an hour of driving through the suburbs a movie was put on. The bus had two TVs and the one half way down the bus was broken so a middle aged French woman stomped up to the front of the bus and yelled at the bus attendant because she couldn’t watch the movie. She returned to her seat and then decided that she wanted to sleep and went back to demand the sound be switched off (so now no-one could watch the movie!) Then she decided she wanted to open her window and discovered it was taped shut. (All the windows were sealed as it was an air-conditioned bus and the tape was probably sealing a small gap to keep wind and dust out rather than the window shut.) After peeling off one large piece of tape she flipped out and had another rant to the attendant about how she was paying for a luxury bus and the TV doesn’t work and there is tape on the window blah blah blah and how she wants a luxury bus. There was some kind of attempt to appease her but she wasn’t having any of it. I think she was pushing for a free bus trip. The bus rep was offering a refund if she got off the bus. She threatened to call the police (because she had paid for a luxury bus and there was sticky tape on the window) and the bus rep and the other 35 people on the bus were getting pretty fed up with her so the bus stopped and a policeman came on and they tried to get the woman to get off. She refused as if she was getting a refund on her ticket she also wanted them to pay for a taxi and a hotel and a refund on the three day salt flat tour she was doing in Uyuni. Things started to get a bit nasty at this stage with the other passengers as it was now close to 11pm and we hadn’t even got out of La Paz and pretty much everyone on the bus was doing salt flat tours leaving shortly after we were due to arrive in Uyuni and this bitch was going to make us all late. There was quite a bit of “What’s your problem!” and “Just get off the f’ing bus” from some of the less reserved passengers. (Yes, they were Australians.) Eventually the bus rep got her to sign an agreement to shut the hell up and she could stay on the bus. I think in the end she might have got a partial refund on the trip because she was making a big deal of how we all paid too much when we got to Uyuni. (After complaining to the bus rep that we had arrived on schedual and not two hours late after they managed to make up the time she had delayed us!)
The bus trip was about 10 hours and the last 180km was on poor dirt roads and very bumpy and got pretty dusty inside the bus towards the end.

17th
We purchased our salt flat tour in La Paz and had been told that we would be met at the bus in Uyuni so when we arrived we walked a couple of blocks to the agency not at all surprised that no-one was waiting. There was a couple of hours until the tour was due to leave so we had a little walk around town. (Dusty desert frontier town) and waited until a battered 26 year old Landcruiser pulled up and we had our backpacks loaded on top wrapped in a Tarp so all 6 passengers could fit inside. Apart from the driver there was a Bolivian mother and daughter, a Japanese guy, a Brazillian guy and us.
The driver didn’t introduce himself or anything, just indicated for us to board and we headed off out of town.

A few minutes later we stopped at the Cemetario de Trenes “Train graveyard” beside the railway line. Dozens of rusting train engines and carriages dumped in the desert. Next we drove back through town and north towards the salt lake. As we left town I noticed the driver crossed himself and said a little prayer, perhaps for a safe journey for us I thought as he almost ran off the road putting his cap back on.
We stopped for a few minutes at a small village on the shore of the lake which was a drab adobe (mud brick) village where people who collected salt from the lake lived. There was a couple of tacky ’hotels’ built out of salt bricks and the street through town was lined with stalls selling things like dice and candle holders carved from salt.
A few minutes from the town we reached the salt lake Salar de Uyuni and left land driving over the flat white expanse with only puddles of water and occasional mounds of collected salt breaking the featureless landscape. Oh, and about 50 other Landcruisers.
We stopped and took a few pictures and continued on for about 30km before stopping at a “Salt Hotel” in the middle of nowhere. It was a one story structure built with salt bricks and inside the tables and chairs in the dining area were also made of salt bricks. We picked up a 7th passenger, another Japanese guy who had stayed the night and headed off across the lake again to Isla de la Pescado, Fish Island which apparently looks like the shape of a fish.
The Island was our stop for lunch and we had half an hour to go for a walk. The island was pretty amazing. Apart from some ground vegetation the only plants were huge cactus which grew up to 12 metres tall and lived for up to 1200 years.
After lunch we turned south and left the salt lake travelling across dusty plains for a few hours until we reached a small adobe village where we would stay the night. The hotel was mud brick and pretty basic but we were lucky to get a “matrimonial” room with double bed and bathroom. And for just 10 Bolivianos ($2) they switch on the gas water heater and we had hot showers!
The village was in a flat valley which had a large herd of Llamas and it looked much like I imagine the Mongolian Steppes would look like.(Except I suppose they would be Yaks there.) I had a walk around town and took some pictures of the Llamas and even found a mud-brick chook pen.


18th
Next morning we left pretty early and travelled across the plains with snow-capped mountains and a volcano now dominating the horizon. Stopped at a rocky outcrop for some pictures of said mountains and at one point in the journey the driver stopped and made us get out to walk up a steep hill that must have been too challenging for the 4wd with 8 people on board.

We had lunch beside a salt lagoon with lots of Flamingos and the dodgiest self claimed “eco-hostel” I have ever seen on the shoreline. I had a walk inside and admired the wood fired heaters and uninsulated corrugated iron ceilings. I suspect they pump their sewage straight into the lake as well!

Leaving the lake we went over a ridgeline and down to another lake with more Flamingos before crossing the windiest (and coldest!) plain I have ever seen and stopping at some rock outcrops including the “Tree of Stone” presumably carved by the relentless wind.
Another couple of hours drive and after an unscheduled stop which we though was a breakdown but was just a refueling stop involving a jerry can on the roof and a hose, we arrived at our destination for the night. The “Coloured Lagoon” was another salt lagoon and is meant to be quite beautiful with white salt and different coloured water due to algae but we didn’t get to see much of it because it was blowing a gale and it was painfully cold to go outside. The accommodation was pretty awful. A room with 6 single beds so one of the group had to sleep next door and the communal bathroom had 2 centimetres of water on the floor. There was a dining room with tables and chairs though so we bought a cheap bottle of Bolivian wine and played cards and celebrated Sarah’s Birthday.



19th
The next morning we were told to be ready at 4.30am to depart. It was sooo cold when we left the hostel and quickly got colder on the way to our first stop at dawn. A Geyser field! There was snow on the ground and we were freezing cold. I found out later that we were at 5000m asl which is a good reason to be cold! We tried warming our hands in the hot steam from a geyser which was quite nice and warm but being steam our hands got very wet and the rotten-egg stench of sulfur wasn’t pleasant! A short drive away we stopped again at some fumeroles which were hot water pools bubbling away in the snow.



Next we stopped beside another salt lagoon but this one had hot volcanic springs running into it. If our guide had bothered to tell us we were visiting we could have had towels and swimmers ready for a dip like many others. As it was we warmed our feet in a pool of hot water and watched the sun rise over the Flamingos and seagulls in the beautiful lake.
Last stop before the Chile border was at the “Green Lake” which was definitely more blue than green. Height was about 5050m asl with the nearby Volcano close to 6000m.
At the Bolivia/Chile border we paid an unexpected exit fee of 21Bs for an exit stamp and hopped on a mini bus to take us to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Across the border the first thing we noticed was there were roads! Still dirt but actually bulldozed at some stage and with road signs and stuff! After only a couple of kilometres we reached a paved road which we followed for an hour descending a gradual decline to arrive at San Pedro de Atacama. After stopping at the border control building to have our dirty underwear rummaged through by customs staff looking for contraband we were dropped off in town and found a hostel.
This was a bit of a shock as we had asked an Aussie on the bus what the exchange rate was and were told it was 600 Chillian Pesos to the dollar. We were thinking this was AUD for the first day and commenting that it was more expensive than Bolivia until we looked up the actual exchange rate and found it was 410 Peso to the AUD! That made our accommodation about $60AUD a night and that was the cheapest place we found!