Last Hope Sound

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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