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Close To Antarctica

Tuesday, January 30th, 2007

Hey guys

I am now in Punta Arenas, right on the tip of mainland South America! Sunset isnt until almost 10pm and even then it doesnt get fully dark until way after 11pm. It is not really that cold, surprisingly, given how close we are to Antarctica but admittedly you need more than a t-shirt and fleece when you´re out and about in the evenings.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of getting down to Antarctica for a bit – I feel that I am all the way on the end of the world, I may as well keep going and see what is right at the bottom! I went to talk to the tourist office about it yesterday and the cost of the flight down is …. £1000!!! OK, OK, If I really want to do this once in a lifetime trip and face the wrath of Neil/Emma/Dave/Selina/my parents/my mortgage adviser for not being able to go visit/go to their weddings/keep borrowing money off/not be able to pay for a house then yes, I could just go. BUT what really put me off going was the lovely woman at the tourist office who cheerfully told me what was involved and how much it cost but then with a hint of sadness said, “that is like a million Chilean pesos. We can only dream about going there”. And I thought, what kind of irresponsible traveller would I be to come to Chile, flash my big gringo credit card and go to a land these people will never see in their lifetimes even though it belongs to them without giving it a second thought? So I thought no. Ill leave it for now.

Volcano climb in Pucon was the toughest thing I have ever done. Tougher than mountain climbing or hill trekking in Thailand. Tougher than running up that bloody hill for games and tougher than the annual 1500m every summer at school. The reason I chose to do it was I was too tired to climb Mount Kinabalu in Borneo by the time I got there and didnt do any glacier walks in New Zealand so I figured that climbing a snow capped volcano here would make up for that. And the boys would rub it in and tell me what I had missed out on if I didnt. And I have always been fascinated by volcanoes.

We woke up at 5am. Walking to the meeting point at 5.30am we passed loads of clubbers who hadnt even gone home yet from the night before. Our driver turned up to take us to the base drunk. I nearly refused to get in the van but some cheerful Germans who were in our group said that we would be OK. We got to base and I balked. Steep gravel hill all the way. Oh god, what was I doing? Our guide warned us that it looked as though the weather may turn and we may not make it to the top. I said we may as well try to make it as high as we could. So off we went. Ben stayed with me at the back of the group. Oh god, how hard it was, uphill, steep and not much sleep. The Germans steamed ahead and enjoyed a long rest about 1000m up waiting for us. We made our way to where the snow started and then this German guy offers to carry my backpack as well as his own! I refused to let him but he insisted. After that I felt a bit better climbing. On we went into the snow and the clouds start to descend upon us. Walking in snow was slightly easier and the guide made me walk behind him. I had to concentrate very hard as I was feeling more light-headed the higher we went and if I stopped for a minute to think about it I would fall over so I kept on, one foot in front of the other, up and up and up.

Eventually, at about 2,300m up or so (my measurements may be completely wrong but if you look at a photo of it, about halfway between where the snow starts and the crater), we become covered in cloud and we have to abandon our climb because of poor visibility. We didnt get to see lava. Poo. But we do get to slide back down in the snow so we attach special sliding mats to our bottoms and whizz back down the slopes that took us hours to climb. The need to pee got more intense the lower down we got, hehehe. What I found weird was that I did not ache physically like the boys but my lung capacity could definitely do with some improvements! Also, Volcan Villarrica means House of the Devil. Yep, thats not wrong.

In the evening after a snooze, we went to a hot thermal spring to relax and we met lots of people there. We got talking to some Germans and Israelis who ended up talking to each other about football. Ahhhh. Football, what else can unite so many different people?

By the time we left Pucon we could not walk down the main drag, O Higgins without saying hello to someone. Pucon is a great place – everyone who recommended it, you were not wrong, and I would definitely tell anyone to make a stop there.

So from Pucon down to Lake Llanquihue where I learnt to play poker very well (any guys up for a poker evening when I get back?) and down to the island of Chiloe where you can see houses on stilts and lots and lots of English backpackers. On the ferry back to the mainland we met people we stayed in the hostel with up in Valparaiso, all following the same route. Chiloe is the site of the end of the Panamerican Highway, Highway 5, which stretches all the way from Alaska, through Central America and down into Chile. Cool…

We made our way down the Carretera Austral, literally the Southern Highway, past amazing lakes, mountains, green forests. Not as scary as guide books would have you believe even though the road is unpaved and there are blind corners on every turn. Great scenery. We got halfway down (an 11 hour drive!) and caught a flight out here to Punta Arenas as the bus would have taken 18 hours to get here, cutting across the Andes and going through Argentina. Now we are on the end of Chile and going to see Penguins later and plan a trek in the mighty, mighty Torres del Paine.

Thanks for all your emails, will reply soon!!

Farrah xxxxx

Posted in Chile, South America, Travel | 1 Comment »

From The Surf To The Snow

Saturday, January 20th, 2007

Hey everyone

Hope you´re all well. We finally managed to acclimatise and get over our jet lag and get to sleep at night in the heat. We stayed in Santiago for a couple of nights and then headed straight to the coast.

Santiago is quite pretty for a city. It has pretty parks and old buildings and isnt any different to most modern cities. We did discover what are known as ´cafe on legs´. They are a bit like strip joints but they are just coffee places (they dont sell any alcohol) where men are served by women in really short skirts! We just saw a couple of tamer ones but apparently you can get girls in bikinis serving men their cappuccinos behind dark windows… sounds a bit dodge to me and dont think you´ll see your local barista in Starbucks strip down to her undies just yet..

Leaving Santiago was a bit of a ´mare and all the Spanish Ben and I thought (note the word ´thought) we had learnt just did not help us. Just trying to buy a bus ticket to Valparaiso, our next stop, was a lengthy task. In SE Asia, even if you dont speak the lingo, you can get what you want just by saying where you are going. In Chile, though, and we have found it outside of Santiago too, ticket sellers really want you to give them a detailed breakdown of where you are going, what type of ticket you want, where you want to sit and so on! So we thought we had our tickets sussed but then the seller quotes us a price that sounds a bit more than what other people told us it should cost so we tried to ask her if she weas charging us for a return instead of a single… but damned if we knew the word for óne-way´and no amount of miming could make her see what we wanted. We lost our place in the queue and an Argentinian who had seen us struggle came and asked in English if we needed help. We asked him the Spanish for one way and he told us. We bought our ticket and got on the bus. SOLO IDA kids, solo ida. Remember this, it could help you one day.

Buses are really comfy coach style with plush seats and very cheap too. To the coast, a 90 minute journey cost us 4.50.

Valparaiso was a really cool port town with cobbled streets high in the hills. Mauritians amongst you, it was exactly like Port Louis with the square and government buildings as you come in. We stayed in a hostel up in the hills (accessible by funiculares – oh joy) owned by the author of the Footprints guide. More people who want to know about this experience can ask… The area is quite bohemian and the houses are all painted brightly. There are a lot of stray dogs and I did get chased by one when it saw my backpack. As soon as I turned around to look at it. It stopped barking. Make of that what you will…

After Valpo, we wanted to catch some sun so we went to the very resorty Vina del Mar, just 15 minutes up the road. We took a train and this too was a nightmare as we couldnt understand that we needed to buy a metro card before we could buy tickets and it was this that was pushing up the price of our tickets unexpectedly…gawd…. Vina lived up to its reputation as the place where Santiaguins go on holiday. Very expensive and a bit tacky… but the beach was nice! This was also where we were meeting our friend, Ray.

We met Ray and headed down the coast to a very little known surfers hangout called Pichilemu. We stayed in a very comfy, very cool place full of stoners and grumpy senoritas (the only place I think where our little knowledge of Spanish has not been tolerated). It did get to a point where one of the women would shake her head at Ben whenever she saw him (he had tried to have a conversation with her about buses and got nowhere) and he thinks that she said something to him about it being terrible that someone can come to Chile without being able to speak Spanish… oh well… I dont know if any of the Yankee or Aussie surfers could speak Spanish, but there you go, we are the gringos.

From Pichilemu we have headed down south to Pucon, which is a bit like Queenstown in NZ – its the adventure capital of Chile. Ben and Ray have gone mountain biking and we are all going to climb a volcano tomorrrow! Its very eerie, Volcan Villarica. We arrived this morning after an 11-hour ride on a night bus (we did stop and have dinner in a small town called San Fernando) and seeing this conical, snow-capped mountain billowing smoke in the distance did give me the heebie jeebies but hey, volcanoes and earthquakes are my thing, so I have come to the right place. I cant complain now….

Am very safe here. Things are not as crazy as I though they would be and the gringo trail is well trodden, not as much as in SE Asia but lets say that I dont think I will have to hitch-hike while I am here. The men dont give you any hassle either. Food is cheap and very good. We just had a 3 course lunch for 1.50 and we get fresh fruit juices everywhere too. Downside is bread. Most things are bread-based and breakfast is very bready. We were expecting fruit and cereals but you´re more likely to get offered cake than you are a banana here. I was very naughty and ate nothing but bread my first couple of days here as there was not anything else and I suffered for it but we have now worked out what sort of places to eat at and how to say a few foodie things in Spanish so its all Ok. We have tried some odd things like Rico Mote which is dried peaches boiled in sweet water with barley kernels and I had to try a pisco sour, pisco is the local drink here made of fermented grapes. It tastes like sweet tequila (not that I would know of course…!) and even though ham is added to a lot of things even though it doesnt say on the menu (I asked for eggs with prawns and mushrooms and got a good sprinkling of bacon with it…grrrrr!), there are a lot of beef and fishy things to keep you going and complete vegetarians are OK too.

Right, going to go cos this internet place is boiling and I would like to get some water. Gonna stay in Pucon a while and next we will head further south into the lake district….

Lots of love
Farrah xxxx

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Hola de Santiago de Chile!

Saturday, January 13th, 2007

Well, here I am! In South America! Its 30 degrees in Santiago with blue skies but I am exhausted after my 24hr journey and I fell asleep in a church earlier!

Ben and I left Gatwick 1pm yesterday on a flight to Atlanta, Georgia. The flight was pretty empty and we got chatting to this crazy guy who worked on lighting stadiums (and got ordained as a priest even though he was Jewish..??) who was off to Nashville for a business meeting. He was telling us that his brother used to drum for Morrissey (and told us a few secrets about him) and that he hated flying so he just gets very drunk during flights. At one point he woke me up from a quick nap because he had bought me a glass of champagne to have with him. Which was very nice of him. Well, couldnt really turn him down… and that alone was a 9 hour flight so we landed in the US at 10pm (5pm local time).

As everyone knows, you shouldnt joke around with US immigration officials… so what does Farrah do? Starts asking the Official stupid questions. I wrote on my landing card that I was just in transit and he saw that and scribbled ´Chile´next to it. So I asked him how he knew. “I know everything about you” he says without smiling. “I have known everything about you since you got here”. So I just look at him. And he says “Why are you going to Chile?” “For some fun”. “Why?” “Because I think it will be exciting”. Then he takes my picture and I pull a stupid face. And then he fires a quick round of random questions at me, stamps my passport and off I go. Hmmmn. we had to wait til 3am (10pm there) to catch our connecting flight to Chile.

We just dossed about in departures really and then on the flight we probably only got about 4 or 5 hours sleep and confusingly Chile is further west than Georgia yet the time difference with the UK returns to just 3 hours behind instead of 5… anyway arrived at Arturo Merino airport and just pretended we knew where we were going and jumped in a mini van with 2 American backpackers to our hostel in Barrio Bellavista. They were returning from going around the south and recommended it but said it can get really windy but they had gone trekking across the Andes and into Argentina which all sounds exciting… Bellavista Hostel is apparenly one of the top 10 best places to stay in the world, hostel-wise so, Sue and anyone else venturing here you might want to look it up. Its in a really cool neighbourhood with loads of bars and restaurants around and there´s loads of facilities here (email being one 🙂 ) and a cool roof terrace and its just round the corner from Parque Metropolitano. Once Ben and I got round to getting washed up and we weren´t feeling so spaced (we are in a dorm with an English guy called Martin who disappeared to go wine-tasting) we caught the funicular up to the top of the hill (and I dont mind telling you that its 48 degree angle did worry me a bit) and you can see the whole of the city spawling out towards the Andes. We wandered around for a bit and then I sat in a chapel atop the hill and it was cool and pleasant so I had a quick nap, hehehe! And thats it so far for today. First impressions of Chileans are that they are lovely, they speak English really well (although we have been attempting to speak Spanish first) and Chilean children are all beautiful (but DO NOT make me broody). Oh and pesos are awkward to deal with in that 1000 pesos is equal to a quid which is fine but it all gets confusing when you start dealing in big bucks and you need to double check you are getting the right change and so on.. Farrah needs a good night sleep….

Heading for the coast in a coupla days and gonna meet up with our Canadian buddy Ray when he flies in also in a coupla days. All OK here. Hope everyones cool, thanks for all the tips and well wishes and stuff, love to you all!

F xx

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