scott-free

Attention corporate polluters

2009-02-14T07:48:00.003Z

Use Green Force laundry powder for those tough green washing problems.

Office with a view

2008-12-05T21:31:00.003Z

The view from my desk. Looking at this sure beats staring at the screen.

An ignoble pursuit

2008-10-18T20:16:00.006Z

I can no longer bring myself to read about the current financial crisis and the various attempts to bail out banks and prop up capitalism yet again, but amongst the saturation media coverage (only seven pages in the main news section of today's paper) I came across this in today's Guardian...

"The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich."
read on

Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions

2008-09-30T17:39:00.005Z

Here's a link to a speech by the writer David Foster Wallace, who died recently, reflecting on the difficulties of daily life and 'making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head'. Up till now I have never read anything by Wallace, but having read this I plan to.

Sadly, Wallace did suicide.

But beautiful

2008-09-30T16:48:00.007Z

I’ve just finished reading Geoff Dyer’s ‘But beautiful’ and kept thinking about this amazing pic as I read.

Guy Rundle: View from the underside

2007-08-06T18:59:00.000Z

Every year, there are two stories that make an appearance in the wacky news columns of the papers. The first is of the proverbial British family, emigrating to Australia, imagining it to be some suburban-bush mix of Skippy and Neighbours. Arriving in the boiling canyons of Sydney, driving through Chinatown and decaying inner city warehouses, they take one look at the reality of their colonial vanilla dream and get on the first plane home. The other story is slightly different. It’s of the Australian couple who arrive on an early morning flight at Heathrow, engage a taxi for the day, do the Tower, Tussaud’s, Harrods, and make it back for the evening flight home. They actively didn’t want to see anything that would disturb the fantasy of ye olde Englande.

For Australians, until fairly recently, Britain could still be summed up by tea towel images. While Britons were fed both a soapy, white-bread fantasy of Oz and the no less distorting vision of professional antipodeans such as Clive James and Germaine Greer (metropolitan London intellectuals who thought that occasional visits back home could top up their 1950s and 60s memories of the place), so the Australian imagination of a crumbling old imperial city couldn’t encompass the real intensity of the furious, global, modernising capital that London has become.

Read the rest of the article.

The sites of London: no. 23

2007-04-25T22:06:00.000Z

Most evenings it's now customary to see the floor of a bus paved with one or other of London's afternoon free-sheets. I picked up over a dozen copies of thelondonpaper on the 214 last night. I doubt TfL or its contractors are bothering (able?) to recycle all the newsprint that is discarded on London's tubes, buses and streets every night.

Even the people who read them think these papers are worthless trash.

The sounds of London: no 22

2007-04-24T19:47:00.000Z

I was walking past a building site yesterday and overheard an Australian chippie trying to explain the rules of cricket to two of his Polish co-workers who didn't have a clue but were doing their best to sound interested. It used to be it was just Aussies and Kiwis who came to London to earn a few quid on building sites. Not any more.

Considering how rubbish the cricket world cup has been I could fully understand the lack of interest amongst the Poles. And the Australians are going to win again and are already gloating about it, so no-one else gives a shit anymore.

A mild winter

2007-02-08T11:32:00.000Z

The second snowfall of the winter today. There was about 3 inches (10cm in new money) overnight and it’s still coming down heavily now (at 11.30am). Until today all the talk has been about how this is the mildest winter on record - which it has been.

Getting into work this morning was a nightmare. It took me nearly 2 hours to get to work I didn’t leave home till 9, knowing that things would be mental. (It’s usually a 45-minute journey by public transport or 35 by bike).

It’s amazing how nothing works properly at the merest sniff of bad weather in this country. Schools are shut, transport has largely ground to a halt, even the tube, which is (mostly) underground, isn't working properly.

Out the back window.

New Zealand studies

2007-02-06T23:17:00.000Z

Getting the most out of your degree? If not, then perhaps this might be the thing for you.

Birkbeck College at the University of London now has a Centre for New Zealand Studies. The centre opens today, Waitangi Day (New Zealand’s national day).

Strange to think that a country of just 4 million people warrants an academic centre of its own.

Walk it

2006-11-29T23:52:00.000Z

This is great www.walkit.com
If you're in London, you enter details about where you want to walk from and to and it produces a route map and directions.

It also tells you great things like the time it will take (based on how fast you walk), the distance you will cover, the calories you will burn and the C02 emmissions you save.

Walk it.

France, October 2006

2006-11-05T22:33:00.000Z

Some pic's of our holiday to France, which included Sean and Cecile's PACsing.

Metro, Paris

Laborie - Sean and Cecile's place.

Sean and Cecile - post-PACsing

Post-PACsing

Thirty-five today

2006-10-21T19:59:00.000Z

Thirty-five. It’s one of those useless in-between ages isn’t it? No longer am I a young(-ish) man of thirty, nor am my 'middle-aged' yet (or at least I don't feel as though I am, thank the lord).

Maybe these feelings have something to do with the fact that I can feel 40 looming on the horizon. Forty is definitely one of those ‘marker’ ages.

I never attached much significance to 30 but find myself increasingly thinking about the psychological implications of 40. Particularly in light of the need to feel like I am living the kind of life I want to be living, ie in a state of reduced compromise. Which certainly isn't the case now.

Truth is always the first casualty

2006-09-12T07:31:00.000Z

Is Russell Brown the best commentator writing in the New Zealand media at the moment? He is certainly the most versatile and prolific that I have come across. He’s written an excellent piece on the Middle East today.

The answer to his first question perhaps goes someway to explaining how the Bush administration has got away with so much:

“So if polls find that more than a third of Americans believe the 9/11 attacks to have been an inside job by their own government, and around half still believe Saddam Hussein had something to do with it, does that mean only about 15% have any idea at all?”

While his last encourages us to think about an alternative reality:

“consider this: the total financial cost of the Iraq war - taking into account the cost of servicing the debt that funded it - has been repeatedly estimated in excess of a trillion dollars.

Try and imagine the impact on hearts and minds of a trillion dollars worth of benign investment in the Middle East and the wider Islamic world: in business development, health care, education, NGOs, printing books. Might things have worked out better?”

Read the article in full.

You can take the boy out

2006-08-25T19:39:00.000Z

A good column in the Wellington Dominion-Post today by Chris Trotter (I never expected to write those words in that order), which offered more food for thought as I continue to wrestle with the idea of returning to New Zealand to live.

When you’re so far away from home and, after 10 years, still trying to work out whether or not you should go back, it’s things like this that help you to remember where you’re from and what it is about place that is important.

In day-to-day conversation it’s difficult to pinpoint the intangible characteristics of ‘home’ or what it is to be a New Zealander that really matter. Then you see or hear something and all of a sudden you’re sitting at you desk stricken by homesickness, wishing you were walking along a beach covered in ink-black iron sand, waves crashing in beside you, staring again at the conical mountain that moves you every time you see it thinking: where the bloody hell did that come from?

You can take the boy out of New Zealand but can you take New Zealand out of the boy?

Twenty-one years ago

2006-07-10T17:49:00.000Z

Twenty-one years ago today the French government blew up the Greenpeace boat the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour.

It’s interesting reading this matter of fact report published in The Guardian immediately following the incident knowing what we do about what actually happened. This was a major incident in New Zealand’s recent history but remains merely an embarrassing footnote for the French.

The Rainbow Warrior was in Auckland, New Zealand, preparing to visit Moruroa Atoll as part of a major campaign against French nuclear testing.

The first bomb exploded at 11.38pm, then there was a second explosion and Fernando Pereira, the ship's photographer, drowned.

The French wanted to stop Greenpeace’s plans for a peaceful protest against nuclear testing. They were particularly concerned about Polynesians launching outrigger canoes from the Rainbow Warrior. Polynesia is a French territory and the French feared any hint of independence.

Police later questioned a French ‘couple’, who were in fact agents Prieur and Mafart of the French secret service. Although neither of these were the bombers.

Initially, the French government denied all knowledge but it soon became obvious that they were involved. The French minister of defence resigned.

The trial itself was a surprise. It had been expected to last for weeks but 34 minutes into the preliminary hearing agents Prieur and Mafart pleaded guilty to manslaughter and wilful damage, attracting sentences of 10 and 7 years. It turns out a deal was struck before the agents entered the courtroom. A UN negotiated settlement meant that the two agents were transferred to Hao atoll, a French military base in French Polynesia to serve their time. They were each released in less than two years.

The Rainbow Warrior website has more.

Did Bush steal the 2004 US presidential election as well?

2006-06-07T09:19:00.000Z

This article questioning the validity of the 2004 election (not the 2000 election we already know was stolen) is a must read. It is astounding and incredibly disturbing.

Wipe-out

2006-05-05T23:53:00.000Z

There were local government elections in the UK on Thursday. Labour did really badly, which provoked Tony Blair to reshuffle his cabinet to distract the headline writers from the disastrous results. It might have backfired though.

The elections results show how unpopular he and his government have become. Surely he won’t last much longer.

In Camden, where we live, the Labour party got tipped out for the first time in nearly 40 years. Yesterday they held 36 of the 54 seats on the council, now they have 16.

There was a bizarre result in the Highgate ward where we live. Yesterday it was an all Labour ward, now there are two Greens and a Tory representing the area. Still it’s bizarre that two Greens were elected given the ridiculous number of gas-guzzling urban attack vehicles clogging up the streets round here. Two Green councillors is a good result in this 'hood though. Walking the streets you’d think you were traipsing through Tory heartland.

Although there has been a small Tory resurgence it looks like people haven’t been tricked by Tory leader David Cameron’s phoney environmentalism and opportunistic 'vote blue, go green' campaign. It’s better to vote for the real thing rather than those trying to hitch themselves to the bandwagon.

Now that I've got my bike back I've started riding to work again. There aren't as many cyclists on the road as there were last year in the weeks following the 7/7 bombings. Maybe these fair-weather cyclists are waiting for the summer. Drivers in London generally seem to regard cyclists as a menace. Which perhaps explains why only 2% of children in the UK ride their bikes to school. Not as many as you’d like to think, eh?

Just by chance

2006-05-03T21:15:00.000Z

Today while surfing, just by chance, I happened to come across the name Josh On, a guy I went to university with back when he had a different name. He is now an American based activist and digital artist.

It’s well worth visiting his website, particularly the award winning they rule which, among other things, has an interactive mapping system that shows the interconnections between the board members of the most powerful companies in the US.

While looking around I happened across this quote by an American socialist called Howard Zinn. He once said something like: Historians talk about history, plumbers fix the plumbing, and artist make art but who's role is it to talk politics? Surely we can't leave it up to the politicians. It's up to all of us to talk politics; everyone should be political.

It's hard to disagree with him.

How did that happen?

2006-04-28T19:18:00.000Z

It's four years today since my father died. Four years! How did that happen so fast?

My friend M's father died suddenly last month. I still remember how it felt. And I still think about my father everyday. I hope she'll be okay.

In cyberspace, nobody can hear you scream

2006-04-25T19:05:00.000Z

So now that I’m home there’s the question about what to do with this blog? Treat it as some sort of travel journal – an intermittent record of a journey that’s now finished – and file it away. Or keep posting here even though I suspect that no one looks at it anyway.

Like many, I also have a lingering suspicion of blogs – are they anything more than a vanity project? What are they for?

But really who cares. Some of the best blogs often become much more than vanity publishing. Or maybe they’re not blogs anymore?

Whatever… I’ve found that I actually like the process; its somewhere to record whatever interests me at the time. Like a diary it’s also a place to document my internal dialogue (or should that be monologue?), which is always likely to be subject to revisionism over time. Why not keep a diary I hear you say. The answer is: I do. But this is different. A different medium always produces different results.

Back in the USSR

2006-04-20T18:30:00.000Z

Ooops, no it’s London. At Easter. There’s no-one here tho, making it feel a bit like the USSR.

It’s nice to be here, despite the predictably bad weather (another reminder of the USSR). No, really, it is great to be home. The best thing about being home was at the airport to meet me. And its true, the good thing about being away is coming home again.

Some of the other good things about being here and not there are: not having to stuff all your possessions into a backpack every day, or having to plan in detail where you’ll get your next meal, or thinking will I get the skitter if I eat this?

And being at home again is NOTHING like being on a night bus in Bolivia at 4am with all your important things secreted about your person while you keep a very firm grip on your daypack hoping against hope that you might actually get some sleep before the bus arrives.

The big thing now that I am home will be avoiding the thought that it feels like I’ve never been away. Cos I do feel like I have been away and I don’t want to lose that feeling. Especially as I had such a great time. I’ve seen and done stuff I hadn’t imagined seeing and doing, and hopefully the impact of the last 3+ months will linger for a while to come.

This may be a little more difficult than I thought tho. I’d been back in London for less than 100 hours before going back to work. At the same place. It’s still mostly the same, minus a few familiar faces. A week sitting on my arse before going back to work would have been a nice luxury. Tho not one I could afford, unfortunately.

So here I am, back at my desk worried that I may soon feel like I’ve never been away, yet relieved that I’m not currently fending off street-sellers in Cusco and that I won’t get the skitter from anything I eat in London(?). And I can’t help but think that nice as my job might be and nice as it is to have an income again, I’d much rather be having a nice time in a far off place. Sigh…

You can see the Southern Cross in Peru too: the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu

2006-04-18T12:14:00.000Z

Some thoughts on the Inca Trail…
Unfortunately I was sick on 3 of the 4 days – the usual stuff: diarrhea and vomiting –and wasn’t able to eat anything. This has maybe coloured my perceptions. Anyway…

The trail itself was not one of the world's great hikes in my opinion - too much hype and very over-rated. There was too much walking on stones and too many steps (up and down), which is hard on the legs. Also, there are 500 other people (including porters) hiking each section of the trail each day, which makes it a real procession. Also, the trail is quite dirty: lots of garbage and it smells like a toilet. Basically it’s running beyond capacity.

The presence of the porters also made for a strange hiking experience. These poor guys, often wearing sandals made of car tyres and carrying loads in excess of 25kg (tents, huge gas bottles, ridiculous amounts of food), would run along the trail trying to stay ahead of the tourists so they could put up tents and prepare food etc. It was a real first class/second class type of experience that I'm not keen to repeat.

I also had a crap load of people in my group, which also blighted the experience. And finally there was a landslide blocking the entrance to Machu Pichu from the trail, which meant on the 3rd day we had to hike 10+ hours to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to MP, where we stayed in a shitty hostel before being bussed up to MP on day 4. This meant we didn't get to see the stunning views of MP at dawn from the Sun Gate.

However, Machu Pichu itself was a magical place – a real must see. Despite the fact that I got up at 4.45am and was chundering by 5.15 before we had even left the hostel, I thought MP was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We were there by 7am and it was still completely misty, making it barely possible to see the ruins or the mountains. But by 8.30 the mist was lifting and the ruins came into view.

Our Inca Trail guide gave us a typically boring spiel about MP (he specialised in the banal) before we were left to do our own thing. Despite how I felt, I somehow climbed Wanay Pichu (the high, narrow mountain you see behind MP), which gave breath-taking views of MP just as the last of the mist cleared.

Later I wandered around the site some more before finding a spot at the top of the ruins where I could see the whole site. I sat there mesmerised by it all for two hours (maybe more< I lossed track of time). Even when it started to rain, I was happy to sit there taking it all in: the mist slowly starting to shroud the ruins; the tourists arriving in their colourful plastic ponchos, looking like hundreds and thousands scattered on a piece of bread. It was amazing. I left to return to Cusco reluctantly.

There are pic's of Machu Pichu on flickr and I will post some here when the technology allows.

Counting down

2006-04-12T11:52:00.000Z

It's been a long time since I last wrote anything here. I am currently in Arica, the northern-most city in Chile. Arica is a pleasant if unremarkable little place, renowned only as the home to a church built by Gustav Eiffel. However, it’s nice to feel the sun and be at sea-level again after 5+ weeks at altitude, and to be contemplating the fact that in two days I’ll be home. Yay!!

Now that going home is such an immediate reality I am really looking forward to leaving South America. All the little things that are part of travelling in South America (unreliable buses, Peruvian retailers, dodgy food) have started to really annoy me. It must be time to go.

The long gap between posts is mostly due to the amount of travelling and trekking I have been doing in the last couple of weeks. I have been trekking for 7 of the last 10 days and on buses the rest of the time.

Apologies, there are no photos in this post (ancient computers again), so please go to flickr - use the link on the right.

So what's been happening....
I left La Paz as soon as I could after the mountain biking. Which seems like a really long time ago now. La Paz really was a festering shit-hole. Just 'orrible. I could go on and on about all the reasons why I hated it: the noise, the crime (had my pocket slashed), the smell, the crowds... It's just a big ugly city; we've all seen its type before.

So I escaped to Copacabana (the one in Bolivia, not Rio), which was a relaxed (and relaxing) little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca. After La Paz, where it was impossible to find something decent to eat, the oversupply of cafes was mana from heaven.

First morning in Copa we witnessed a crazy car blessing ceremony outside the cathedral. The owners cover the vehicles in flowers, and then the priest blesses the car with holy water, and the owners spray beer all over their vehicles. A few firecrackers round the whole thing off. Hopefully this won’t take of anywhere else. Worryingly the drivers here seem to have more faith in the mystical powers of this ceremony than they do in the road rules or concentrating on the road while they’re driving. Don’t rent a car if you ever go to Bolivia, stick with the buses; they’re the biggest thing on the road.

The main reason for visiting Copacabana was to see Isla del Sol, one of the small islands that dot the lake. The Inca's believed the sun and earth separated there. The island has several Inca and Tiawanaku (pre-Inca) ruins. It’s possible to walk the length of the island in an afternoon along an old Inca road.

From Copa I crossed into Peru and headed for Cusco, on yet another night bus. This one managed to break down less than five minutes after we left the bus terminal.

Cusco is a likeable but touristy place; although it must be murder in the high season when it’s full of elderly, over-weight Americans. A word of warning though. The retailers and street-sellers in Cusco (and the rest of Peru) are some of the most aggressive and annoying people you are ever likely to encounter. Everywhere there are hawkers and touts trying to flog everything from postcards to traditional handcrafts (the old women selling the handcrafts were the worst). The moment you pass a shop, a restaurant or a travel agency (you don’t have to walk in) there’s someone shouting at you, a sales tactic that encouraged homicidal urges and not an intention to buy. Great cafes in Cusco though. I had a fantastic four-course lunch of soup, kingfish, cheesecake and a drink for $3.50.

In Cusco I managed to make a booking to trek the Inca Trail. Before I arrived in South America I’d been looking forward to going to Machu Pichu but had lingering doubts about doing the trek. Mostly these related to hang-ups about doing an organised trek where there are 500 people walking along the track at same time as me. The cost was also a factor: on the internet trek costs from US$300 up (way up!). So I figured if I could get a cheap booking in Cusco I would do the trek. As luck would have it, there was space available only on the weekend that I wanted to go (the trek is limited to 500 people, including porters, per day). The rest of April and May were already fully booked. The trek cost me US$220 (some people I met paid $170, but got what they paid for). More on the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu in a later post.

From Cusco I also did a tour of the sacred valley, the river valley between Cusco and Machu Pichu. It was an amazing trip, particularly the ruins at Ollantaytambo (halfway between Cusco and MP), which was a major Inca site. There is a vast network of terraces and buildings built on adjoining hills, all in complete harmony with Inca spiritual beliefs, scientific and cosmological knowledge and the environment. The architecture is stunning, and the stonework absolutely beautiful. The stones at Ollantaytambo, which are enormous (the largest is 6m by 1.8m), were sourced from a quarry at 5000m, and some how rolled down to the valley floor some 3000m below and then up 1000m to the site. Each stone was then individually carved so that it fitted into position - no mortar is used in the temples and other important buildings.

The buildings survived for hundreds of years in an earthquake zone and are now ruins only as a result of the destruction wrought by the Spanish. The Spaniards commonly (in Cusco, Ollantaytambo, Chinchero and other places in the area) would destroy Inca temples and buildings and then build catholic churches on top of the ruins to demonstrate Spanish and catholic superiority.

Next stop the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu.

The world´s most dangerous road

2006-03-25T14:22:00.000Z

The mountain bike ride ride from La Cumbre (4,700) to Coroico (1,750) - a drop of 3,000m - down 'the world's most dangerous road' (about 35 vehicles go over the edge every year, apparently) was some of the most fun I've ever had - 65km's of sheer adrenaline.

While not the most demanding riding I've done, the 400m+ drop-offs kept us on edge.
Amazing scenery too as we went from the high altiplano down to the hot and humid foothills of the Yungas.

Here we go... We started at 4,700m and it was freezing - I was wearing all the warm clothes I have.

Screaming towards the bottom. The previous night there had been a massive landslide that had completely blocked the road (we had to carry our bikes across the rubble). On the plus side, this meant there was no traffic to dodge or stop for on the (very narrow) road, meaning we could scream down as fast as we could without worrying about coming face-to-face with a truck on a blind corner.

Bienvinidos a Bolivia

2006-03-23T17:11:00.000Z

Uyuni was my first experience of Bolivia and for the first time I felt something approaching culture shock. Travelling in Chile and Argentina I felt like I was in a western country, but not in Bolivia. This really feels like somewhere different.

In Uyuni the streets were filthy and barely paved (as municipal services had ceased to exist) . And for the first time the people looked different too - most of Bolivia's population is indigenous.

The bus ride from Uyuni to Potosi was on an unpaved road in a crappy, over-ful bus - no more luxury sleeper buses ala Chile and Argentina.

Potosi is the highest city in the world (4,070m), and home to Cerro Ricca, a cooperative mine dug into the huge hill overlooking the city. For 2 or 3 hours we crawled through the mine's dusty narrow tunnels suffocating on the fumes and the dust. Miners still eke out a living (of sorts) scratching around for lead, tin and zinc. The conditions were worse than I had imagined - it was hot, difficult to breathe and the smell stayed on my clothes and skin for days after the visit. For the miners it's a matter of lif and death. A frighteningly high proportion die of silicocis and/or other respiratory diseases within 10 years of entering the mine.

From Potosi I headed to Sucre, formely Bolivia's capital, and home to a fantastic collection of Spanish colonial architecture around the main plaza. Sucre was an excellent place to hang out for a few days and take some Spanish lessons (for a staggering US$5/hour!!).

I arrived in La Paz this morning after a hellish 13 hr ride from Sucre. En-route I was nearly robbed in Potosi. When the bus stopped I headed for the toilet. A bloke pointed the way so I followed. It was dark and we went behind the back of a building. He then pointed to a gate and said the toilet was through there. The fact that he wasn't leading the way anymore made me slightly suspicious. As did the realsiation that I was suddenly alone in a very dark alley. Predictably, it was the start of a scam.

Another guy came round the corner wearing a (false) police badge (but no uniform). He asked to see our passports and cash (to supposedly check we weren't carrying counterfeit currency). My companion (his accomplice) all to readily complied. I told the 'policeman' that all my stuff was on the bus, and twigged what was happening once he started lifting my shirt to see if I was wearing a money belt. Freaking out, I hit him as hard as I could, which cleared an exit, and made a run for it. Back by the bus I never saw the 'policeman' again. I was lucky to: 1) know about this scam and, 2) to get away. A French guy I met in Sucre lost 500 Bolivianos to the same scam in Potosi (he had told me the story the day before).

Now La Paz, which is as crazy as you'd expect. First impressions of the city remind me of Kathmandu - loads of people in a very big, very poor city surrounded by mountains. The more time I spend in large cities the more I realise how much they do my head in. I won' be staying here long.

They push harder when you put them in a well

2006-03-21T17:17:00.000Z

Q: What do you get when you put a New Zealander, an Irishman and an Australian/Canadian in a 4WD for three days?
A: Jokes about sheep (and llamas).

The trip from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, to Uyuni across the Bolivian altiplano and the Salaar de Uyuni has undoubtedly been the highlight of my trip so far (despite being stuck inside a 4WD with 6 other people for three days).The operators that run this infamous trip have a very poor reputation, so even making a booking was problematic. The guidebook was full of warnings about the shysters who run these trips: over-sold tours, terrible food, dodgy vehicles and drunk drivers falling asleep at the wheel. The complaints book at the Tourist Office in San Pedro confirmed all of the above.

This was complicated by the fact that only one operator was actually running a tour across the Salaar (salt plain), the obvious highlight of the tour. All the others claimed there was too much water on the salaar. Anyways, I made my booking with Expediciones Estrella del Sur (US$80, initially it was going to $90) and was off. (Anyone reading this who is planning to do this trip, I unreservedly recommend this company. They were fantastic.)

As you'd expect we set off later than planned - usual practice round here, and the tour was oversold (by one, which made no difference in the end). After a typically forensic inspection of our passports at the Chilean border we drove 45 minutes, climbing 800m to the Bolivian boarder, which is in the middle of nowhere at an altitude of 4,400m.

Looking through my photos of the first day I am still astounded by the landscape - the barren emptiness and the colours of the desert, mountains and lakes we saw. The lakes are vivid - Laguna verde a luminescent green, Laguna Colorado a rich, oxide brown. While the desert and mountain landscapes were out of this world - high on the altiplano I felt like we had left the earth behind and traveled to another planet. Despite the beauty, this is one of the harshest, most unforgiving places on earth. No one lives there, or could live there.

By mid-arvo on the first day we were chewing coca leaves like crazy, our cheeks bulging Bolivian style, as we approached 5000m. The highest I have ever been (I think?). I always thought I'd be standing on a mountain the first time I reached 5000m, not sitting in a vehicle!

By the time we arrived at the refugio where we spent the first night, the searing heat of the day had been replaced by rain and a cold wind. Later at Laguna Colorado a violent lightening storm forced us all to run for the 4WD. Even the flamingoes standing on the lake huddled in close to each other as the lightening hit the lake, turning blue and lighting up the whole valley.

Day 2, like day 1, began with a steep ascent and our guide/driver Simon stuffing handfuls of coca leaves into his mouth. In contrast with day one we were driving through a snow storm within minutes of setting off. By now the routine had become familiar, nothing was more than 30 minutes away: amazing desert, lakes with mountains in the background... 30 minute units became a convenient way to break up the journey.

Just before lunch we had our first flat tire. After lunch we had another three. We drove for more than 12 hours on the second day, an heroic effort by Simon who had to navigate some of most demanding terrain (there are no roads) and repair four flat tires bicycle-style, taking the tire of the room and actually repairing the tube. In the middle of the desert this is not as easy as it sounds.

The second night we stayed at the salt hotel, an amazing building where everything (beds, chairs, tables etc etc) is made of salt. Having seen my first ever llama during the day you can guess what we had for dinner that night. It tasted a bit like pork.

After a heavy night on the turps a 5am start to see the sunrise on the salaar was hard going. We were on the salaar by 5.30am as the sky changed from purple, through various shades of red and orange to blue as the sun began to rise. This is what we had all been waiting for. It's extremely difficult to convey just how gob-smackingly amazing a sight it was. The salaar is a vast (12,000 sq km) salt plain and is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Standing outside the vehicle the silence, beauty and sheer size of this stark, inhospitable environment was almost suffocating. Everything then turned a ghostly blue as we drove on.

It was a complete surprise to come to the Isla de la Pescadores a few hours later, following yet another flat tire. Here was an island in the middle of the salaar covered in cactuses, some over 1,000 years old.

From here it was another couple of hours across the salaar, past the salt mines, to Uyuni, which marked the end of an incredibly memorable trip.

(Unfortunately I haven't been able to include any pics with this post, due to some unexplained technical hitch.The links go to pic's I have posted on flickr.)

Valle de la Luna, San Pedro de Atacama

2006-03-15T01:13:00.000Z

Near the entrance to Death Valley, a strange place for a memorial to Pope John Paul II.

Devils Canyon, some of the best mountain biking in Chile.

The grand dune at sunset, Valle de la Luna.

The great silence

2006-03-13T19:29:00.000Z

Nobody in Chile talks about the dictatorship, it's as if people just want to forget the atrocities of the past and move on without ackowleding the scar the period has left. When I've tried to talk to young people they claim they are too young to remember, while older people just won't go there. Ex-pats I've met (some of whom have lived here for years) say the same thing; you just can't talk about Pinochet.

A few people have said that although Pinochet did some terrible things the country would be in ruins economically were it not for him. They point to the 'failures' of Allende's reforms: the lack of coordination in land reform (which became land grabs in some places) and the negative impact of nationalization, as justification.

Chile has had a 'Socialist' government for most of the last decade - although it has as much in common with socialism as Tony Blair's New Labour. The government has made no real attempt to launch any investigation into the period or hold a South African-style Truth and Reconcilation Commission. However, Pinochet is no longer a Senator for life - all such positions have been abolished - making it possible to prosecute him through the courts.

The military still appears to be very strong here. New President Michelle Bachelet's first act was to increase military spending. (To keep them on side?).

Although Chile loves it's 'big men of history' (almost all the streets are named after independence heroes (O'Higgins, San Martin), former presidents or military figures), I have yet to see a Calle Pinochet. However, to my total surprise the main street of some dusty little desert town I passed through on a 24 hour bus ride from Santiago to San Pedro was called Calle Salvador Allende.

Volcan Villarrica, Pucon

2006-03-10T23:52:00.000Z

Volcan Villarrica (2,840m) reminded me of home.
Like Taranaki, Villarrica is only 25km's from town and dominates the skyline. And it just had to be climbed because, in the words of Sir Ed Hillary, 'it was there'.

Volcan Villarrica from Pucon.

It was less than 3 hours to the summit. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to see any lava as the smoke and choking fumes made it impossible to stand close to the crater edge for more than a few seconds. All the gear might look over the top but it came in handy on the trip down. We slid on our arses from 2,600m down to 1,800m. The fastest, most enjoyable descent I've ever done.

Ferry trip - Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt

2006-03-07T21:31:00.000Z

I´ve just spent three days/four nights on Navimag´s Puerto Eden ferry travelling from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. An expensive trip by budget travel standards (US$355), but well worth it despite the dodgy weather. The scenery in the Patagonian channels was amazing.

I met some great people on board and even managed to win the bingo competition on the last night(!). The liquidity of the winnings helped make for an enjoyable evening.

The boat trip was supposed to be about stunning scenery. On the first day it was so cloudy it was difficult to see very much at all.

Glacier Brujo, Bernado O´Higgins National Park. We detoured down a channel to see the glacier and the sun came out at last.

The open sea was quite a bit rougher than in the fjords. Of the 130-odd passengers only about 25 of us made it to dinner on the second night. There was a distinct aroma of vomit around the boat too.

Yes, they are whales. Look closely in the bottom left corner and on the right. Not the easiest thing in the world to photograph in high-velocity winds.

The weather finally cleared on the last night and we saw a sunset.

I have uploaded more images to flickr (when you get there, click to enlarge the images).

Torres del Paine

2006-03-03T15:05:00.000Z

I'll let the pictures tell the story.

The Grey Glacier from Campamento Las Guardas. Its not often you get to have dinner with a view like this.

The front of Glacier Grey. Ice falls from the glacier and is pushed along the lake by the strong Patagonian winds.

Look - it's Sarah John's wooly hat on the bridge over the Rio del Frances at the entrance to Campamento Italiano.

Cerro Principal (2,600m) and Cerro Norte (2,400m) loom directly above Camp Italiano. The rock face on the mountain on the left is completely sheer.

The Torres del Paine at dawn.

The Torres del Paine trek was fantastic, probably the best hiking I’ve done anywhere. The walk for the most part was not too arduous, the weather generally good (except for a snow storm at the top of the Valle del Frances), and the scenery absolutely stunning.

Some of the highlights:
The Grey Glacier. The lookout at Campamento Las Guardas is diredctly in line with the face of the glacier. I sat on rocks overlooking the glacier and cooked my dinner and drunk the wine I had lugged for the previous four hours in an already heavy pack. I was entranced by the glacier's blue-white purity and sheer size. It was an amazing place to be on your own. Unlike the Perito Moreno glacier there weren’t thousands of tourists there to spoil the moment. It was just me.
Seeing my first ever avalanche (and then my second and third etc etc) and hearing scores more while camping at Camp Italiano.
Seeing condors (the largest bird of prey, wing-span 2 - 3m) – dozens of them – as we hiked on day 4. They would float high in the sky around the mountain tops then circle in lower in lower until they were just above us, as if they were waiting for us to expire.
The Torres!

My route
I hiked the 'W' independently, staying only at free camp sites (no facilities). It is possible to stay in fully equipped refugios or at campsites with running water etc, though the refugios are expensive (US$40/night + dinner).

Day 1
Bus from Puerto Natales to Lake Pehoe. Catamaran to Refugio Pehoe.
Trek from Ref Pehoe to Campamento Las Guardas (14km, 4 hours).

Day 2
Trek from Campamento Los Guardas to Ref Pehoe and then on to Campamento Italiano (22km, 6 hours).

Day 3
Day hike up the Valle del Frances: Campamento Italiano to a lookout above Campamento Britanico (11km, 3 ¾ hours).
The views at the top of the valley are supposed to be one of the highlights of the trek, unfortunately minutes after I arrived at the lookout the weather closed in and soon after it was snowing heavily. I waited as long as I could for the weather to clear but had to leave after 15 minutes or I would have frozen to death.

Day 4
Trek Campamento Italiano to Campamento Torres (22km approx, 7¾ hours). A long day.

Day 5
Trek from Camp Torres to Mirador Las Torres (40 min’s each way)
We were up at 6.15am to trek to the lookout to see the sunrise on the Torres – red light is supposedly cast on to the Torres at dawn. Unfortunately thick cloud made it impossible to even tell where the sun was rising, so we didn’t get to see the effect. Despite the cloud and the cold we sat on the rocks to cook breakfast and wait for the cloud to lift so we could see the Torres. Eventually the cloud did lift just enough for us to briefly see 2 ½ of the 3 towers.

Last Hope Sound

2006-02-23T21:39:00.000Z

I think Last Hope Sound (Fiordo Ultima Esperanza, pictured on the right) is my favourite place name. Anywhere. Just what was it that encouraged someone to give this place such a name? Yesterday I was thinking that place names generally sound so much better in Spanish. Rio Grande (Big River), for example. Last Hope Sound may be the exception to the rule.

I arrived in Puerto Natales yesterday, having survived my first really long bus journey. I left Ushuaia at 6am and didn't get here till after 10pm, two buses and a minibus later.

It was an amazing journey. The Beagle Channel was perfectly still and the Fuegian Andes at dawn were beautiful.

The border was a weird place. Crossing from Argentina we enetered a no-man’s land where the road suddenly became unsealed as we travelled through the frontier, a typically expansive Patagonian landscape, for about 5km’s before entering Chilean Tierra del Fuego. More strangley I noticed a sign warning 'Do not enter minefield' on the north coast of Tierra del Fuego. Perhaps a relic of border disputes with Argentina?

From there it was the wide open spaces of Patagonia, before Punta Arenas and another bus change. I watched the Chelsea v Barcelona game in a bar here, a strange reminder of London.

Later, as we approaced Puerto Natales the sun was setting behind the Andes, which were silhouetted against a luminous yellow sky for just a few priceless minutes. There are some things you just can't photograph.

I start trekking in Torres del Paine on Saturday, can't wait.

Frontier country, you are now leaving Argentina.

The northern coast of Tierra del Fuego. There is a minefield right behind this sign.

Ushuaia - fin del mundo

2006-02-20T15:56:00.000Z

It's not quite the end of the world, but it feels pretty close.

Ushuaia is the the first placed where I have stepped out of the bus station/airport and gone: Wow! The landscape is in complete contrast to the vastness of southern Patagonia. The size and proximity of the Fuegian Andes looming directly above the city is breathtaking. The steep-streeted city is perched uncomfortably between the mountains and the Beagle Channel. For those who know New Zealand, imagine Lyttelton with mountains rather than hills.

Yesterday I splashed out on boat trip up the Beagle Channel to see the local wildlife. The trip took us past colonies of cormorants, sea-lions and seals living tenuusly on small slands in the channel. As we headed further along the channel, the Andes of Argentina and Chile on either side, albatrosses began to glide alongside the boat, swooping and diving for food. The first time I have ever seen an albatross up close.

A couple of hours later we reached a penguin colony, home to some 4000 Magellen penguins. Most were malting, covering the beach in fluff. Bizarrely the boa beached itself on the isand to allow us gawping tourists a closer look.

Beagle Channel. Argentina is on the left, Chile on the right.

Pingunera, Islas Martillo, Beagle Channel

PS - My feet are finally on the mend and I can wear shoes again. No need for the German look any more!

Heading south

2006-02-18T16:38:00.000Z

It's ridiculously windy here, again, today.

I finally managed to get a booking on the Navimag ferry from Puerto Natales - the booking system was been down for 2 weeks. I sail on 3 March. If Navimag hadn't got their act together it might have taken me weeks to make my way out of Patagonia.

But now that it's sorted I have a couple of extra days to play with. So this afternoon I am making an unplaned detour to Ushuaia, Tiera del Fuego, (the southernmost city in the world).

I finished my book a few days ago and haven't been able to swap it. With no book to read I am going slightly mad. The only books available in English here are airport novels. Authors such as Belva Plain, Danielle Steel, Stephen King, John Gresham et al predominate. Most disappointing is that I haven't been able to find any books in Inglesa by South American writers (Pablo Neruda, Julio Cortazar, Ernesto Sabato, Isabel Allende etc). They must be out there somewhere?

I'm also regretting the fact that I didn't bring some music with me - especially for the long distance trips. I've started lingering in cafes and shops just to hear music. This morning I stood around in a shop listening to Coldplay (ugh!!).

More pics

2006-02-17T19:08:00.000Z

Before I post the CD home, here are a few more pictures.

The extremely elaborate (and ridiculously large) monument to General Belgrano in Rosario.

Full moon on the Patagonian plains, Ruta 40.

Cerro FitzRoy.

Laguna los tres. The infamous Patagonian wind was so strong here I could barely stand up. Cerro FitzRoy is hiding in the clouds above the glacier behind me.

Islas Malvinas (Falklands) war memorial in Rosario (Che´s hometown). Translated it reads: 'Malvinas, Argentina's forever!'

A few pictures

2006-02-17T18:15:00.000Z

Finally, some pictures.

I have uploaded images to my flickr site (when you get there, click to enlarge the images), although in the space of 5 minutes I have somehow hit this month's 'upload limit' already?!? So here are some others... I will continue to post to flickr in the future.

Recoleta cemetary, Buenos Aires

Recoleta cemetary

La Boca, Buenos Aires

Cafe, La Boca, Buenos Aires

Cafe in La Boca

Glacier Perito Moreno and El Chalten

2006-02-16T22:52:00.000Z

I’ve spent the last few days trekking around Cerro Fitzroy and in El Chalten – well out of range of a computer.

What’s been happening...
On Saturday I went out to the Perito Moreno Glacier – one of the reasons I had wanted to come to Patagonia. And it was amazing! We had plenty of time to wonder around the various lookouts to see both faces of the glacier. The highlight was sitting in front of the glacier in the afternoon sun drinking a small bottle of vino tinto listening to the glacier creek and groan – an unbelievable sound, which often seemed to come from deep within. And when the glacier calves (huge chunks of ice breaking off and sliding into the lake below) the noise fills the valley.

The glacier is enormous – from my vantage point it seemed impossible to judge the height of the main face (a staggering 50m apparently).

I took loads of pics but none of them really do it justice. It was far too big and impressive to photograph adequately.

That evening I travelled up to El Chalten. For much of the journey the bus juddered along a bumpy unpaved road that felt like a river bed running up the middle of a broad valley surrounded by sweeping hills. As the sun set the night-sky turned from water-colour yellow to purple. When the bus stopped I managed to get a couple of pics.

From El Chalten I spent three days trekking in the national park. We had plenty of wine and great views of Cerro Fitzroy (3045m) from our campsite.

Unfortunately the hiking was blighted by blisters – the worst I’ve ever had. One is the size of a 50p piece, the other a 10p piece. The rest of my hiking was done in sandals.

Year zero, day one.

2006-02-10T18:50:00.000Z

I'm not sure how this whole blog thing is gonna work. I've kept a diary off-and-on for years but would never consider posting it on the web - I can't think of anything worse.So it might take me a while to figure out what I put here and what goes into emails. Part of the attraction of a blog is that it might also minimise the amount of time I spend sitting in front of a computer... Or not?

I also want to post pictures as I go too, but due to inevitable technical issues - most of the computers I've come across are encased (like this one) making it impossible to plug in a USB cable. They are also far too old and shitty to have a USB on the front. So pictures to follow.

El Calafate, Patagonia
I arrived here yesterday yesterday after a sad farewell with Clancy at Buenos Aires airport. She is now back in a freezing cold London (a long story).

The flight from Buenos Aires was just over 3 hours (covering about only half the length of the country, it's a big place). Unfortunately it was cloudy and I didn't get to see the Andes. Flying into Patagonia I was blown away by the sheer size of everything, as if it is all somehow on a much bigger scale to anything else I've seen. The hills and the lakes seem impossibly big; the landscape is dry and barren, covered only by rocks and scrub, and seems to go into the distance forever; while the water in Lago Argentina is such a vivid aqua-marine that it almost looks as though it has been contaminated.

El Calafate is a curious little town, totally reliant on the ermerging tourism industry for its survival. Its kind of how I imagine Queenstown in NZ about 20+ years ago. All the shops are either restaurants, travel agencies or gift shops. New buildings are going up all over town, many of them in a faux Swiss-chalet style, unfortunately. Amongst the visitors there is so much Goretex on display it probably makes the town a fire risk (assuming Goretex is flamable). Tomorrow I'm gonna check out Glaciar Perito Moreno, the area's main attraction, and then head to El Chalten for some trekking - a 2 dayer and a 3 dayer.

This morning, thinking ahead - I need to work out how I am going to get out of Patagonia (all the flights are full and ridiculously expensive) - I went to make a booking for the Navimag ferry from Puerto Natales to Perto Montt in Chile. At the ofice I learnt that it has broken down and no one knows when it will sail again. They are not even taking bookings at the moment. There is a particularly helpful message on the Navimag website. Amongst travellers here there are all sorts of rumours about what's happened to the ferry: it crashed, the engines caught fire etc etc.

One other thing...
I've developed a small fascination with the Falklands since I've been here. I've noticed on all the Argentine maps I've seen, including those in the Aerolineas in-flight magazine, that the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands) have the annotation: (Arg.), rather than (U.K.). A pretty big claim considering the events of 1982.

Hasta luego

We all have to start somewhere...

2005-11-27T12:47:00.000Z

In case you're wondering, the lyric (at the top of the page) comes from James's 'Getting away with it...'.