On-the-Road Tales

Made it to French Polynesia but it is $16.00/hr to connect to email from here so see ya in New Zealand!

Here I am sitting in an internet cafe trying to catch up on my blog before I head to Easter Island tomorrow!! Yippee!! Since I just read it is 6$ an hour to connect from out there – you will not be getting any updates. So…until I connect again…hasta luego…

Ran some errands about town and got the airport shuttle in the afternoon. Boarded the Sky Airlines 737 for my multistop flight back north. Unfortunetly, the weather was crappy so I did not get a good aerial view of the park or glaciers outside of my specially chosen left side window seat. We set down in the town of Balmaceda, no idea where it is but very isolated and flat. Next we landed in Puerto Montt at an even smaller airport. and 5 hours after starting we got to Santiago. I took my 2$ airport shuttle and decided to walk the next few blocks to my hostal.

Residencial Londres is an enormous maze of a place. Of course, I am on the fourth florr and trudged up leaving breadcrumbs on how to get back out. I ran into a chilean later on who tols me this street with its formidable buildings was once part of Pinochets govt offices. He said some of the socialist organizations still occupied the surrounding places. I would not doubt it. When I returned to the house, the hallways and multiple staircases I had to climb were pitch black. If one believed in haunted houses, this would be a good candidate. The ceilings were cavernous, each floor had a sitting room fillwed with mirrored antiques and everything centered around a great courtyard. wild place. Of course all those windows and open space leads to problems at times which I should have recognized with the Raid bottle sitting by the shared bathroom door.

I turned on the light and little bugs scattered. Ugh. I grabbed the can, sprayed, walked away for 2 minutes and pretended I never saw anything. Ick. Again, you get waht you pay for $15 a night with breakfast and a cool house to get lost in.

My houselady was trying in tell me something, what I thought she said was a time change to put the clock an hour back. I thought, that can not be right because I just changed the clocks in Brasil 2 weeks ago. So I asked someone to translate – yep that was right. Every country changes the hour at a different time. Now, this makes sense because they are all at different positions so the light is different I was just thinking the seasons are the seasons everywhere. Yikes – as if I do not have enough trouble with the time changes in the states 2wice a year, now I have to deal with them monthly…

Off to the port where i picked up a zodiac. We donned life jackets and zoomed off into the water where about 30 minutes later we got to Isla Magdalena where the Penguin colony lives. This island has been noted on the nautical charts for centuries since it was one of the few sources of meat and eggs for seafaring vessels and antartic expeditions. The island is covered with the black and white birds, 150,000 of them to be exact. 1 for every person living in the port town. They are a bit clumsy and it is kinda funny to watch them slip and slide over rocks trying to get out of the water. The adults are molting their feathers right now in summer and will swim off to Argentina for winter but return to lay their eggs in spring.

Since the Magellan straits were such an important waterway, joining the atlantic and pacific, the chilean govt built a serious of lighthouses to assist navigation of the channel. One of the light houses, now part of the park, is on the island. I climbed to the top after negociating the 3 narrow staircases with my backpack. Next time, that stays at the bottom.

We cruised over to Isla Marta to check out the sea lions. These are incredibly adorable little guys. They had pups which were brown and black and fought and wrestled with each other. When they got board they would go over and nudge or climb on their parents sunning on the beach or in cliffs and get roared at. Some of the papas were way big, I would not want to come face to face with some of them in a dingy! On the way back we were followed by lovely black and white dolphins, frolicking and jumping beside the boat. Being a seaman in this place was certainly harsh work, The wind was bitter, and the seaspray was freezing and waves often rough and unpredictable.

I grabbed some fruit and retreated to my room to relax for the rest of the afternoon and ponder my many days adventures!

Boarded the III de Mayo boats for a tour up the water to check out some more nature. Yep, lots of transportation on this leg. The weather got progressively worse but you could see the cattle ranches where the people led and still lead, very isolated lives cut off from the rest of society by the waterways. We saw some great waterfalls and a glacier. We pulled in at Sa dock and had a short 30 minute hike along a iceberg studded lagoon to get closer to the Serrano glacier. Nothing like what I saw the day before but still a beautiful chuck of ice. The guide told us how in 1960, the glacier extended all the way to the saltwater waterway, now it was badly receded – a freshwater glacial lake in its place and shrinking all the time. I am glad I got to see it now.

Back on the boat we were given glacial whiskey on the rocks, the rockes being a little bit of iceberg! I am not a whiskey drinker normally but how could I pass up the oppurtunity to say “last whiskey I had was in Patagonia chilled by a glacier!” I will have to find a social opportunity to drop that line haha. My table mates were fabulous, one couple was from Portugal and the other from Honduras. We spoke mainly in spanish but occasionally we would need a word translation in portugese or english and everyone would start mixing things together – none of us could talk straight but of course it could be due in part to the whiskey! I got an invitation to come visit in Honduras so I will have to add that to the travel list. The girl from Portugal actually grew up in Macau and her mum is from Angola. Both Portuguese colonies I know but I never actually met anyone who had been there.

We stopped at a ranch for lunch and had a tasty barbq with lamb, chicken, sausage. Not a big lamb fan – Nancy would have to be here to judge the quality – but tasted good to me. Our international table conversed on world politics, commercial ventures, labor worker rights it was fabulous. I could follow along and make my point but I really need to increase my political vocabulary before I go visit my 4 new friends!

I hustled after docking to my residencial, grabbed my backpack and off the the bus for the journey back to Punta Arenas.

Well I accidentally added another country to the itinerary! In the van and across the border to Argentina to check out a super cool glacier. We piled out at the border, exited Chile and entered Argentina. The first sign in Argentina showed a map of the Maldives with a simple but poignant, They are Argentinas. It seemed a little out of place but I guees just to remind everyone, especially any brits stopping through of the little injustice they feel they suffered! We had to make a beeline to the ATM because the national park on this side only accepts Argentinan pesos for obvious reasons. So another 5$ transaction fee to get my own money. My whole life I would walk 1 mile out of the way if I had to to get to my own bank and not pay withdrawal fees, I think it is criminal to charge people for access to their own money and well on this trip I am trying to forget the 5$ each time I get money nevermind the 1%-3% charge. Ergg, makes my blood boil, but moving on. The journey was 5 hours each way. We started out on paved roads, moved onto Primary gravel roads and then secondary gravel roads! It was flat as far as you could see here in the Pampas region. You sometimes caught a glimpse of gauchos riding alongside the road on horseback rouding up their stock. There were 6 of us on the trip and fortunetly the long journey was significantly shortened with the good company. There was a couple from chile, a woman form France, 2 guys from England who spoke at least spanish and french and lived in Reston VA. From chatting we discovered, the french lady and I will overlap for a bit in Easter Island and are on the same flight to Tahiti. As my strange fate would have it, she is, yes of course, in aviaiton. A flight attendent on my baby, the 747. Bizarre.

The last 50 km the scenery began to develop into mountain and lakes. Autumn is approching so the leaves on the trees were starting to turn the mountainside into red. As we entered the park we started to get a glimpse of the glacier up ahead. This iceflow moves forward each year until it finally it touched land on the otherside, dividing the lake into 2 halves. We got on a boat to go check out the massive wall of ice up close. Words can not even describe this behemoth. The is 200 feet high and 14,760 feet across! No I did not mess up that number. Huge. Pieces would occasionally break off and it would take what seemed like forever to drop into the water below. The fresh scar left behind would shine like a blue aquamarine crystal in the sun. The glacier holds a bluish tint due to refracting the suns UV spectrum. The more dense, if I understand it right, the deeper the hue. You could stand there and stare at the thing all day, it was incredible. After the boat, we went to a mirador up above and you could see where the glacier extended far back into the mountains. We all had a hard time leaving this wonderful spectacle.

We stopped in the town of Calafate on the return. It was an uppity, yuppy tourist trap and reminded me of Vail or Jackson Hole. We set out for the journey back and reversed the political process of the morning but reentering chile once more and going through customs to make sure we were not carrying back any fruits or vegetables from the evil next door neighbor.

My van arrived 20 minutes early which translates to me still getting ready so my nice houselady invited them in for coffee while I shoved breakfast down my throat. The coffee here in Chile is awful stuff. I guess you can not have everything good wine = bad coffee. We picked up the rest of the group and headed to an enormous cave where prehistoric remains of the Milodan animal and cave people 30,000 years old were discovered. Believed to be the oldest in the americas. We drove northeast 2 hours to the park. The entrance was about 30$ which is quite steep but about what our parks run nowadays too. We got to a turquoise lake and pile out to see nothing but clouds. The good part about being unprepared and never reading your guidebook ahead of time is that you do not know what to expect so you are not so easily disappointed. Apparently, in front of us was supposed to be a panoramic view of the famous spiky rock towers but they were obscured with cloudcover. We saw foxes, eagles, gunacos (like llamas) milling about as well as flamingos. Who knew there was such a thing as cold water ones. I guess the thought of plastic flamingos stuck in front of trailer parks in Florida or thousands of them on the beaches of Bonaire has skewered my image of the birds as warm water.

The old Italian woman beside me was fascinating. A big traveler she especially is interested in natural phenomenon and tries to coincide her trips with them – a woman after my own heart, she went to Maccu Pichhu on June 21 solstice etc. She flew all the way from Italy to Antigua a few years back for a full solar eclipse. She said you could see the stars and constellations in the dark band across the sky. Wow – I never pondered this – if you shut the sun off in the middle of the day – will you see stars? yes, apparently, that is so cool. must find me one of those to watch. Anyway the woman detoured all the way down here from her northern Chile trip to see these spikes and I thought she would start weeping when they were covered.

We proceeded to a waterfall and as we were walking the clouds started to lift a bit to reveal the 2 mountain horns, as they are called, hidden underneath. As we approched, there was a suddenly a tremendous noise that stopped everyone dead in their tracks. I recognized the word terremoto in spanish and was not pleased at the prospect of an earthquake, to me it sounded like thunder. Turns out, we were told, it was a cascade of ice breaking off the glacier and hurdling down the mountain. One more reason not to trek. By the time we reached the perfect teal waterfall – the clouds parted for an amazing view of the range ahead. It was truly an incredible sight and to think we almost missed it by a few hours.

We proceeded to lunch at a nearby refugio where I dined with an Israeli couple and chowed on on some tough, Chilean meat. Not my thing. In speaking with some of the other tour members, turns out one of the guys from Brasil is a Aeronautical Engineer as well and a CFD professor! what are the chances in a group of 11. I am not sure why I keep running into aviation people, I just find the entounters a little higher than normal probability would predict. We moved on to Glacier Grey and took a 30 minute walk to the beach. Wow, the long beach surrounded by forest, the mountain range, the clear water, with bits of icebergs floating below the rocks was spellbinding. This was one of those moments when you realize just how tiny and insignificant you are in the shadow of natures immensity. To think this all might melt and be destroyed in the next decades in the name of ¨progress¨ halfway around the world is terrible. (yep, i will send in my greenpeace ck first thing when i get back haha).

I boarded a bus and went 3 hours north to Puerto Natales. The mountains loomed as we neared the town and I think I found where they took that photograph up top that I use as my border! I settled into my hostal and went off to downtown. This is the gateway to Torres Del Paine National Park. Home of infamous treks, camping, iceclimbing routes that attract outdoor enthusiasts from all over the world. I felt like I walked onto an REI photoshoot. Each person was dripping in North face, Columbia, Patagonia gear, goretexed to the hilt all with backpacks, nalgene bottles, trekking poles you name it. If they suddenly outlawed microfleece, this town would be naked. It was great. While most of the world wears this gear as a fashion statement – here it means survival. During the summer, now, the region can encounter winds in excess of 100 mph and snow is not uncommon. The weather changes rapidly and bitterly. When standing in the sun, it feels like there is a magnifying glass above your head intensifying the rays into your skin. In the next seconds, when the clouds roll in, you are getting beat with hailing ice pellets. The sun issue is due to a pesky little hole in the ozone layer – the UV is killer here and sunglasses are a must. This is the environment the clothes were designed for, hence named after, and people here test them to the limits. They are pretty hardcore, I love camping but one day in that park and hearing some stories of ice weighing down the tents, I thought twice about someday returning to trek. I broke out the fleece that has been occupying so much space in my bag, purchased a goofy earflappy knit hat at the market and was glad every minute for them. The cold water tap in the bathrooms must be siphoned right off some nearby glacier. It is so cold you have to yank back your hands at times and hope they are dry before you walk out the door.

I explored the town, stopped in at mass. My schedule is so screwed up I never know when it is Sunday or for that matter Friday and hence when I am not supposed to eat meat during Lent! I watched the sunset from a waterfront restaurant and tested out the local Salmon. I am a bit discriminating since the fresh atlantic Salmon in Donegal is hard to beat but it was not bad, a bit tougher like a tuna almost but tasty. Headed back to the Residencial to rest up for the next few days touring. My houselady warned me to take a shower the night before since stepping out into the morning with wet hair puts you at risk to it freezing! Lovely – I have to say, in all my days in the region, I was lucky to avoid the winds and had only one day of rain. The infamous windstorms are something I am okay missing out on.

The first thing I realize about Chileans – I can not understand a word they are saying. Just after finally after picking up on some of the portuguese verbs, wham I am back into spanish. Did I forget all my spanish already, is that what is going on? No when I speak they understand me, I just can not catch the rapid fire response they give me. After they repeat everything 3 times I can usually make out enough of it. With exhaustion kicking in, my other major obstacle is the money. There are 535 pesos for 1 dollar. First of all taking out hundreds of thousands of pesos form the ATM was wierd enough but then I was having extreme issues dealing with this conversion. Instead of $1.50, I gave the Naval museum attendant 15 cents and the internet lady 15$. Thankfully they were honest people and pointed out my errors. I explored town and figured out what to see in the next few days.

I went to La Luna for a bite. I ordered a big tasty Iceberg lettuce salad. Yum. You really miss salad when you can not have it. I could feel all the restaurant patrons staring at me as the waiter delivered my beverage. Was this chick crazy? Did she really just order a beer? Does she not realize we are in arguably the finest wine producing country on the planet and it is dead cheap? Yes, yes, I know but I always like to test out the local microbrews and I am a sucker for dark beer so I had to try it. Besides I had to banish from memory the taste of that brasilian syrupy oscuro and the Austral negra was not bad at all. These people take their wine very seriously. They even have a drink with wine and icecream, wine float? ewww. The supermarket is stocked with aisles of the stuff, 2-3$ a bottle. They also claim to have invented the Pisco Sour but I think I will leave that one to Peru.

Patagonia considers itself somewhat seperate since it is so far removed from the rest of Chile particularly the capital – it selfproclaims to be the Independent Republic of Magellenes due to its proximity to the Magellan strait. They have their own flag and all. The indeginous Indian population was wiped out to extinction after settlers arrived from slavery and disease. The English and Germans settled in the area 2 centuries ago to breed sheep. I was told there are so many lambs in the region that if you want one, you can take it you just must leave the wool behind. I thought this was a bit far fetched until a pickup rolled up with 5 or so de-skinned lambs legs up. No doubt off to the nearest 5 star for lamb roast.

Wrapped up mystay in Brasil with some errands, writing postcards at the 11th hour as usual and burning CDs of photos since I am already 1800 pictures in, my 7.5G of compact flash cards are not going to cut it. Marcelo dropped me down at the airport and I said goodbye to one of the few people in the world who probably knows me better than myself at times. My feelings were summed in a the movie the night before – Che`s thoughts about crossing borders. I am paraphrasing here but…There is a sadness in leaving a country behind but a gleeful anticipation in what lies ahead in the next country. So I boarded the plane at midnight, which stopped in Rio before heading to Santiago. I hate sleeping on planes because I am always afraid I am going to miss something. You know a lightening strike, a decent movie, a UFO outside. If I fall asleep I will never know what I missed! Unfortunetly. this always leaves me bleary eyed and miserable stumbling around the next day but maybe I will learn. So I watched the snowy Andean ridgeline below reflect back moonlight and practically glow in the dark.

We landed in Santiago at o dark thirty and after waiting with everyone else in line for immigration I was informed Americans had to pay a 100$ reciprocity fee. Fabulous – I trotted all the way back across the airport and then returned to find absolutely no one at the 10 or so booths that had just been occupied. I could have sailed right into Chile without anyone knowing I was there. I reckoned that would cause me problems later on so I started searching for a live being. Apparently the entire immigration staff was glued to a laptop watching some utube video. The guy who finally dragged himself away was not impressed I disturbed him. Santiago airport looks like it is brand new. I went upstairs, checked in for my next flight and in an hour was in the air watching the sunrise out the window. The view on the 3 hour flight down below was captivating. A serious of hills, volcanos, lakes, ice fields and pampas. Chile is incredibly long and has just about every type of region and climate across its length.

As we approached Punta Arenas, I was pretty disappointed. Almost the end of the world, 11000 miles or so south of DC, I was expected to have to sidestep icebergs to get to my hostal. I did not expect this windswept, flat, barren brown desolation of a place. The only color on the somewhat curved horizon was the red-orange of a burning refinary flame. The shuttle ride was no better, bleak sort of place but I would learn its treasures are there just a little spread out. I did not have a place to stay so I jumped out of the van at the first stop where someone else had a reservation. Hey – if he did not enough research to find somewhere and he had a backpack, good enough for me. Turned out to be an old mansion and decent enough for 15$ a night. The shared bathroom was a little rough, everytime you lifted a wet foot, the cracked floor tiles would come with it. It was like a jigsaw puzzle trying to get them back in again. All part of the fun.

At this point I probably should have slept but there was a whole new town to explore, so off I went.