Fin del Mundo (the end of the world?)

You will probably have detected a pattern with our travel methods by now, so not to disappoint you we embarked on yet another marathon bus journey. A 3am start from El Calafate for a 4 hour drive to Rio Gallegos was interrupted by the arrest of one of our fellow passengers at a routine police checkpoint. We then set out for Ushuaia, the world´s most southerly city. This involved leaving Argentina and crossing back into Chile, a ferry across the Magellan straight and then back into Argentina – 4 sets of immigration and customs. Again the scenery in Tierra del Fuego was stunning with very few populated areas for hundreds of kilometres.

We stayed at a B&B for a change and we were treated to dinner one night with the family. In Argentina they eat late – it was 11.30pm before we ate anything and the kids had school the next day!

Ushuaia was originally intended as a penal colony and is home to a fantastic museum about the prison, Antarctica, local wildlife and the indigenous Yamanas (who were wiped out within 100 years of the Spanish arriving) and is housed in the old prison buildings.

We managed a chilly boat trip out to the various islands in the Beagle Channel where we saw cormorants, penguins, seals and sea lions.

Male sea lions can weigh up to 300kg and live in harems with 5 to 9 females who weigh half as much. The big boy in the pictures was trying desperately to get up to his ladies but had chosen a bit of rock that was just to steep for him. He kept on climbing up and then sliding back down and eventually jumped back in the water to find an easier way up for a spot of canoodling. It was very amusing.

Before our flight out (it was the choice of a 3 and a half our flight or 3 days on a bus - you decide) we headed to the local glacier for a cheeky snowball fight and some lunch before heading north to Buenos Aires.

Bienvenidos a Patagonia

Before we begin Jenny would like to explain why we didn't go the Welshy part of Patagonia. For those of you who don´t know, a load of Taffy coal and slate miners legged it across the Atlantic in search of a new life in the 19^th century. As a result, Patagonia is the only place outside of Wales where the Welsh language is actively spoken. As some of you will know, Jenny is a Welsh speaker and she´s been there before, although I was quite keen to have some Welsh cakes!

After a bit of confusion over our hostel reservation in Bariloche, we found ourselves in a fantastic hostel run by a young Irish couple with stunning views of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Micro breweries are a bit of a Patagonian trend at the minute and our hostel sold three different types of local beer – Kolsch, a bit like lager, Rubia, a hoppy English type bitter and Negro, a stout. Whilst we were always expecting to find good wine, the chance to try some good local beers was a nice surprise.
After such a long bus journey feeding ourselves on crisps and biscuits we were looking forward to some dead cow. We however ended up having a Mexican, which was one of the best we´ve ever had. It was fantastic.

Bariloche is about 20km from Cerro Catedral, the largest ski resort in the Southern hemisphere so we thought it would be rude if we didn´t grace the slopes with our presence. A quick change of rental clothes later and we were ready to go. Jenny hadn´t skied for 9 years so we had a play on the lower slopes just to get back into it. We left the serious stuff to the pros (including a number of hardcore skiers and boarders in our hostel) who indulge in off piste stuff, avalanche beacons included. We discovers that there are a lot of people spend 6 months in Europe and 6 months in South America in order to be able to ski all year.

Our next marathon journey to El Calafate began at 3pm and ended 34 hours later. The scenery was stunning though as we drove through the foothills of the Andes and into the Patagonian Steppe. We passed llamas, vicunas (llama family) and the scenery changed from grass to snow to grass again for miles and miles of barrenness. We stopped at a petrol station and there was no other sign of civilisation anywhere.

We arrived in El Calafate at 1am to be picked up by our hostel which was fab. The underfloor heating was amazing and a welcome reprieve from the chilly weather. The hostel is probably the best we have stayed in so far with stunning views of the Andes, helpful and friendly staff and a cracking BBQ night.



We managed a bit of a walk on the frozen lake without falling in but the main purpose of going to El Calafate was to visit the Perito Moreno Glacier which is one of the world´s largest advancing glaciers (most are receding). We were picked up at 9am, treated to the sight of condors and eagles and icebergs in the lake, to then be driven back to our hostel. The National Park which contains the glacier was closed for the first time in 4 years. The irony was that freezing rain the day before had caused so much ice to form on the tracks in the park that we couldn´t get to the big bit of ice.

As we were leaving that night (at 3am) it was our only chance to see the glacier and to say that we´re gutted is an understatement. It does however give us an excellent excuse to come back.

The plus point of the day however is that we met a South African couple, Mike and Suzi who have also just left Dubai for the same reasons as us after 5 years there. They had travelled down through Central America and were able to provide us with lots of tips for our trip up.

Sleepless in Santiago

After a fabulous flight with LAN Chile (who we would highly recommend) we arrived at our hostel in Santiago around 9pm. We dumped our bags and headed straight out for some dinner and after a cheeky pizza and some local cerveza we headed back to the hostel to a massive party which was taking place next to our room = no sleep.

It was so bad, the next day even I got up before Bryan which is unheard of. We then wandered sleepily around the centre of the city, followed by lunch at the central market which was imported piece by piece from Birmingham and is a copy of Smithfield market in London.

The following day we took a day trip to the UNESCO world heritage city of Valparaiso, also listed as one of the top 5 cities in South America by our Lonely Planet guide book. We were unfortunately however not that impressed (and neither were most of the other people we´ve spoken to about it). It does however have some wonderful architecture and a groovy elevator system installed in the 19th century for getting up and down all the hills.

2 nights of ear plugs later we headed to the bus station in anticipation of a fantastic bus trip across the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina for a spot of wine tasting. Events however conspired against us. We arrived at 9.30am to discover that the pass across the Andes was closed due to heavy snowfall and was unlikely to open again for some days. Ironically this happened to Jenny the last time she tried to make the trip (but in the opposite direction) when she got stuck in Mendoza for 8 days.

We did not have the time to hang around so decided to head for the destination after Mendoza immediately, namely Bariloche in Patagonia. This then involved an 11 hour wait at Santiago bus station for a night bus down to Osorno (further south in Chile) which would connect with a bus to Bariloche early the next day. Because it was a bank holiday and everything was shut we didn´t have the chance to go and be culture vultures, visiting museums etc which you would normally do on a rainy day to pass the time. We therefore spent the day looking at the rain and playing on the internet and eating crap food.

Eventually we ended up on a bus and the whole trip took about 30 hours. We must commend the bus networks here though for their convenience and comfort. They are so much better than anything in the UK, primarily because they are the main form of long distance travel for Argentinians and Chileans. You get blankets, pillows, food, tidy toilets and DVDs, free drinks etc for a bargain price and the seats are like a business class seat on a plane.

Sorry no pics of Santiago and the Andes - too much bloody smog!!!

Heed Land *

Easter Island was always going to be one of the highlights of our trip and somewhere both of us really wanted to go and it didn´t disappoint one bit.

The Island is the most remote inhabited place in the World. Although it actually belongs to Chile, it´s part of Polynesia. Rumours abound as to how the island became populated with people from Fiji and Tonga (the earliest settled parts of Polynesia), who in turn originated from Taiwan and the Philippines.

The Polynesian name for the island is Rapa Nui which is also the native language of the island´s 4500 human inhabitants, although they are out numbered by the 5000+ horses!!

The largest population on the island was believed to have been around 12000 in the past, although this fell (and was recorded by missionaries) to just over 100 people following the introduction of ´western´diseases.

The island is most famous for one thing - its stone Moai (statues) of which there are over 1000. They were built by local clans as a link between the past (afterlife) and the present. By the late 1800´s all completed statues were toppled.

Various theories exist as to why this happened, none of which have been proven, but included inter clan warfare, the emergence of a ´birdman cult´ and maybe even the sighting of a ship. The birdman cult developed a written petroglyph language which is the only known recorded Polynesian language of its era and it has never been deciphered.

Fortunately a number of sites have been restored to their original state, the eldest dates from 1100 AD. We were lucky enough to visit many of these sites with Alex our excellent guide who is the daughter of a prominent local archaeologist. Some of the sites we visited have different stories and tales surrounding them. One of them Ahu Tongariki which consists of 15 Moai was renovated thanks to TADANO the Japanese crane company. The reason behind this - a staff member dropped a note in a suggestion box at his factory in Japan suggesting that to improve their PR, TADANO should sponsor the renovation of the statues. US$ 20 million later the statues stood proudly again, backs to the sea.

Ahu Akivi is a unique site in that the statues are placed much further inland than the others and also because they face the sea - the only site of this type on the island. It isn´t known why the Moai were placed in this way.

The most fascinating site was the quarry where most of the Moai were carved from volcanic basalt rock- now affectionately known as ´the nursery´. The statues in the quarry were not destroyed even though some of them were in an almost finished state and ready to be transported to their Ahu (a stone platform) somewhere on the island. The biggest statue of all, at a huge 22m and 500 tonnes is still attached to the basalt in a horizontal position.

We also visited Orongo, a village used for ceremonies on the rim of an extinct volcano.

Our hostel was not great, suffering from damp, bed bugs, a lack of TLC and a miserable owner. However, it would have taken a lot more than that to spoil our time on such a magical island.

The capital of Rapa Nui is Hanga Roa, it´s a bit of a one horse town, with lots of dogs and horses. We tried out the local food, empanadas with either beef or tuna, a completo, which is a hotdog with advocado, fresh tomato and mayo - it´s a national institution in Chile!

The fact that mass tourism has not yet arrived here was a major plus and made our time on Easter Island very special. The remoteness of the island helps, so thankfully the plague of international commercialism still seems a long way off.

* For those of you who don´t know, HEED is Geordie and Scottish slang for HEAD.