* Chinnoble Adventures #5
Friday, 28 May, 2004
Howdy
The promised next installment is finally here. When
we left you last we were in Punta Arenas at our friend
Roberto´s enjoying the luxury of a warm house and a
king size bed. It was a shock to the system when
Roberto dropped us on the side of the road at 8am in
the pitch black and freezing cold to start hitching
north. At the police checkpoint our refusal to
succumb to the warm office and hot coffee by the
friendly policeman paid off as we soon got a ride with
2 english speaking oil engineers who take us all the
way to the boarder. There we get stamped out of Chile
and walk 500m through ´no mans land´ before getting
stamped into Argentina. It is overcast and freezing
with a cold wind blowing across the barren pampas. We
are wearing every stitch of clothing we have and still
have to jump up and down to stay warm. Finally a
Buenos Aires couple pick us up and take us to Rio
Gallegos.
There its positively hot there with 18 degrees and a
NW wind blowing complete with NW arch clouds just like
canterbury. We evewn bump into our old friends in the
combie we spent a few days with in Tierra del Fuego.
An evening bus gets us to El Calafate by midnight
where we ignore the ´closed´ signs and camp for free
in the towns municipal campground. El Calafate is
about the same size as Wanaka with loads of tourist
shops, restaurants and accommodation. Its nestled on
the edge of the pampas with poplar trees beside a big
lake. Clear blue skies greet us the next morning but
we sleep in so miss all the buses to the Moreno
Glacier. We instead book a bus for the next day and
have a day cruising around Calafate enjoying the
scenery and shops. The next day however we wake to
rain. On the bus on the way to the glacier the rain
gets harder. Our overpriced bus drives for an hour
through the mud past spectacular lakes and mountains
(apparently...). We did get to see the snout of the
spectacular Perito Moreno Glacier through - a 50m high
wall of crumbling ice over 2km wide that extends out
across a lake almost to the other side. We stand
watching the glacier, shivering, looking like drowned
rats with a handful of other hardy souls before
bailing back to a hostel in Calafate to thaw out and
dry out. Murphys law strikes again cause the very
next day its crystal clear, windless and blue skies.
Oh well.
Onto another bus for a bone jarring 5 hour trip to El
Chalten. You bounce your way along the most
corrigated road in the history while looking at
massive views across the pampa planes to the Andes
while travelling next to a brand new dead straight
highway being built that is not quite ready to be
driven on.
El Chalten is a classic little country town that is
having its classic charm corrupted by the tourist
dollar with hostels and internet cafes popping up al
over the place. It was pretty much dead while we were
there though - well and truly out of the tourist
season. The towns attractions are the towering rock
massive of Monte Fitzroy and Cerro Torre (3000m rock
towers similar to Torres del Paine) that loom above
the town. We have 4 great days tramping around the
park complete with a howling westerly wind that
creates amazing lenticular cloud formations but
doesn't quite manage to blow the bad weather over the
50km wide southern Patagonian ice cap. We then have 2
perfect weather days where we climb Mt Madsen (1850m)
for a great view of Fitzroy and the surrounding
glaciers. After lugging unused ice axe and crampons
all over Patagonia we leave them at camp for this
climb and end up wanting them on the decent which was
made very slow by having to stay on rock.
There is a little used newly developed route
connecting El Chalten with the bottom of the Carratera
Austral (main road south in Chile) that involves
taking a boat to the end of a lake in the north of the
park, walking across the boarder then taking a Chilean
army boat across Lago O´Higgins to Villa O´Higgins -
ie into Chile. This route was our proposed route
north but after much hand waving and pointing at maps
with the very tolerant boarder guard, we discover that
the last boat ride was 7 days earlier and the boarder
was now closed for the winter. Bugger... With this
option unavailable and no off season buses running up
the main inland roads in Argentina, our only option is
to back track south 500km before we are able to go
north again. So back to El Calafate, back to Rio
Gallegos and then finally up to Comodoro Rivadavia
(which is totally incomprehensible when a local says
it fast). Then another bus inland to Perito Moreno
(the town this time not the glacier) where we arrive
in the middle of the night after 26 hours on buses
over 2.5 days.
As the saying goes ´shit happens´ and it sure did that
night. As we pitched our tent in the local campground
not only did we both manage to stand in dog shit and
walk it all over the place, we ended up pitching the
tent on a big pile of the stuff (mental note: make
sure you have fresh batteries in head torch when
picking a tent site). Next day we get up early and
discover there is no economic way to get to the local
cave paintings which was our whole reason for stopping
in this town. So we pack up and walk to the bus
station (aka petrol station) just as the last bus for
the boarder leaves. Bugger.... We now have to wait
till 10pm for the next one. There is where our
routine of unsuccessful hitching, and missing buses
begins. We decide to hitch out of Perito Moreno
instead of waiting till 10pm. There seems to be a few
cars passing by. 7 hours later we are till standing
on the side of the road. Finally on dusk a local
stops and takes us to the boarder at Los Antiguous
40km away. There we manage to catch one of the last
collectivos (taxi - shuttle buses) over the boarder to
Chile Chico. We are 3 hours too late for the 5pm boat
we need to catch across the lake to continue north.
No problem, we think, we´ll boat tomorrow. Its
raining so we take the soft option and stay in a
hospedaje for the night. They are nice people but its
a cold grotty wee place with not an ounce of hot
water. Of course, the next day is the only day of the
week that has no boat sailing. Bugger... After 3
hours trying to hitch in the rain on a road around the
lake we give up and relocate to a real nice hostel for
only a little more $$. $8000 Chile pesos (NZ$20) gets
us our own big room with nice ensuite (complete with
one of those boot cleaning bidet thingys) and a nice
common lounge with free tea, coffee, satellite TV and
best of all a big log fire. Finally the following day
we catch the boat and shuttle bus 100km north to
Coyhaique - the only major town in central Chilean
Patagonia. We arrive late at night, trapse to the
edge of town and camp. Next day we miss that days bus
north - it departed at 8am and getting up in the dark,
in the rain was just too hard. Bugger.... We use the
day up using the free internet that all Chilean public
libraries provide (courtesy of a Bill Gates charity)
and take a return bus ride out to the nearby port
towns of Puerto Aisen and Puerto Chucabuco which lets
us view the lush rain forrest very similar to NZ´s
west coast. That evening we go to book the following
days bus north, but guess what, its full! Bugger....
(and this is supposed to be the off season). The day
after that only has a bus half way to Chaiten (our
destination). Bugger again.... After another night in
the rain we pack up and start hitching. Everyone
tells us that hitching up the carratera austral is
impossible. ´no cars, no people´. We have nothing to
loose. An hour later a local puts us right, we start
hitching on the correct road and shortly get a lift
that gets us all the way to La Junta (300km of single
lane gravel road north from coyhaique).
In La Junta we see a crapped out bus beside the local
´gomeria´(mechanics garage). It has ´Chaiten´ in the
window (this is where we want to go). We both joke
that even if it was going north, it wouldn't make it,
and was probably being fixed. We were also told in
Coyhaique ´there is no bus the next day, so we walk
out of town to camp and sleep in the next day. As we
are packing up the tent at 8am we see the crappy old
bus drive north out of town half full of locals. Yes,
this bus was going to Chaiten and we just missed it.
Bugger... After a full day on the side of the road
trying to hitch with no luck, we camp another night
and eventually get ourselves on a bus to north. Its
late when we arrive. Nothing is open. So we stay in
a hospedaje and get up real early the next morning (we
arn't going to miss another morning bus). But its a
friday, the town is totally dead and for some reason
the daily bus to Futaleufu on the boarder is
cancelled. Bugger... Oh well, at least by now we are
getting used to every small trip taking at least two
days. Eventually we find out its all due to a public
holiday (some navy battle against Peru and Bolivia
apparently). We learn all this from a local hippy guy
who grew up in north america and speaks good english.
With a beautiful fine day to kill we take him up on
his offer of a tour to the nearby private national
park ´Parque Pumalin´ where we see some 2000 year old
Alerce trees, waterfalls and dolphins off shore.
The next days afternoon bus drops us off at Futaleufu
(white water capital of South America and a real
tourist town in summer). But for us the town is dead
an of course no bus for two days. We get up early and
start walking the 21km along the gravel road through
the boarder. After 1 hour our luck changes and we get
a lift all the way into the Argentine town of Trevelin
where buses connect nicely taking us all the way to El
Bolson. Here we chill out for a day and check out 32
wood scupltures up the hill carved from trees killed
in a fire. We also check out the local craft markets
before busing to Bariloche for 2 full days of relaxing
- the Bariloche Binge. Good food, a shower every day
and 3 nights in a hostel on the 10th floor of a
building that overlooks the city surrounded by
georgous mountains and lakes. Priding itself as a
´swiss´town there are St Bernard dogs and choclate
shops galore all at Argentina prices. Yeah!!!
And now, we're going bush for a while.
Till next time, byeee
Andrew and Nic
[Bariloche Birthday Binge]
Thursday, 27 May, 2004
Hi
(regarding the travel plans...)
It still stands that our next flight is from quito to
santiago sometime september way. the date will
change, but I doubt the destination will. Our plans
from bariloche are as follows... here for 2 more days,
then a 3-5 day trek near the city. then head north
probably in argentina to the boarder to climb a
volcano (like ngarahoe) called volcan lanin. then
into chile and down towards puerto montt again to
explore some of the lakes for a week then up to
santiago by june 15th. Then north to the desert in
northern chile for a couple of weeks and we plan to be
in bolivia by 1 July. after that its through bolivia
to peru, then through peru to ecuador and eventually
to Quito in Ecuador for our flight back to santiago.
we are in bariloche now having our long awaited
BARILOCHE BIRTHDAY BINGE. Lots of yummy food, some
wine, a meal out tonight, staying in a hostel with hot
water for showers, and even payed a laundry to do our
washing (this is a real splurge). We have even had
two showers in two days which is total luxury. Its
great also to finally be somewhere that has cheap
reliable internet at last (80c NZ an hour).
Bariloche is a nice city. We didn't get a great
first impression with the bus driving through endless
suburbs of slums and shacks, and I thought the whole
city was going to be rather dirty and poor, but its
not. we are staying in a great hostel on the top
floor (10th floor) of the tallest building in the
city. we have a double room to ourselves for $30
pesos total, about $17NZD. we get to watch the
sunrise from bed and get million dollar views out
across the lake and the surrounding mountains. we can
also spread out all of our stuff for a few days.
we stayed in el bolson for two nights in hospedajes
(didn't camp cause we couldn't find a camp site).
went to the market on tuesday (no where near as big as
on saturdays) but it was still interesting. lots of
really nice, cheap wooden carved things. spoons,
chopping boards, platters, childrens toys, mobiles you
name it. I loved some of the chopping boards. really
interesting different woods, but too big and heavy to
post home. so cheap too! oh, and these cool wee
carved boxes and containers to put on your dresser and
put stuff in (trinket holders..). Really nice. lots
of local jams, sauces and liquers too. The area the
town is in is full of vinyards and orchids so has good
quality cheap jams. bought some raspberry jam and a
few other small nicknacks. El Bolson is a kind of
hippy town, very laid back and relaxing. its a nice
place to stay for a while. Also at the market was
lots of tacky jewellery and some leather products.
Found yummy deep fried food, mad dogs and crazy
dreadlocked locals. We paid for a tour (it cost $25
NZ total for half a day) for a local guy who spoke a
little english to drive us 1000m up a hill and then a
30 minute walk up a path to some amazing wood carvings
that are in the middle of a lenga forrest. it was too
hard to organise ourselves to get up there, no public
transport etc. the lenga tree (like the nz beech tree
but looses its leaves in winter) is protected, but a
long time ago a fire distroyed the area and there were
slips and all the trees fell over. new trees have
grown around it but where all the old dead ones lye on
the ground, they have been carved into amazing
sculptures. got lots of photos, the best ones were a
puma, an elf climbing out of a tree and a pair of
hands about 4 metres long! Really good day out and
the weather was glorious so we got an amazing view
over the town and the whole valley surrounding it.
well worth it.
we intend tramping for a few days soon but are still
deciding where to go. the weather is fantastic, so
here's hoping it holds. bariloche is a great
happening city with a million tourist and artesian
shops. They are right into their arts here its great.
Lots of shops selling wooden crafts, hand made
musical instruments (flutes, pipes, drums etc) hand
made woollen goods (I bought a new hat and some hand
knitted thick bed socks). Lots of small ceramic
creatures (elves, knomes etc) in all sort of postures
with themes. some of the shops have so much stuff
crammed into them, you feel like you are going to
knock stuff off the shelves at every step. lots of
stuff haning from the ceilings too that you keep
walking into. I am very tall compared to most south
american woman, and even some men so andrew and I keep
knocking our heads on things. particularly in the
shops. They sell lots of mates here too - don't know
if I have told you about the argentine mate yet. but
if not, let me know and I´ll elaborate. Anyway they
sell lots of the mate (maatay) holders and straws. so
many different designs, colours etc. Anything you
could imagine. Every third shop in the street here is
a leather shop, but the biggest and most amazing thing
about bariloche is the chocolate. I think this is the
argentine capital for chocolate. We went into a large
chocolate shop that makes it all on the premises.
thay sold hundreds of different types of chocolate.
they have a cafe on the side and also sell ice creams.
we thought this one was amazing, and we passed about
6 more in the main street similar sizes, then we found
the ´mother of all chocolate shops´. It is literally
the size of countdown on colombo street near your
house. And its all chocolates (a little ice cream and
cakes and a cafe - dessert area). There are shelves
and shelves of every flavour you can imagine, white,
dark, milk, bitter, all types of chocolate with all
different types of nuts, fruits, caramal, alcohol
flavoured chocolate (rum etc), and lots of wee
figures, big eggs, coconut bits, rice covered bits,
biscuits covered in chocolate, about 40 different
types of truffles. you get the picture. we walked in
and couldn't scrape our jaws off the floor from
amazment. Not to mention drooling the entire time we
were there. will have to go back to get photos. Most
of it is priced by the kg and is $30 pesos per kg
which is about $16.50NZ per kg. its like nothing I
have ever seen before. might go there for dessert
tonight.
Well, we are slowly getting together another news
email which will probably repeat some of this. will
get that away tomorrow perhaps.
Lots of love
nicola
[Esquel]
Sunday, 23 May, 2004
Gidday
Thanks for the birthday wishes... yes, I eventually
did manage to briefly check my messages today - my
birthday. but what a mission. we logged on in a wee
town called trevelin this morning, but only had half
an hour before out bus, an in that time with the
superfast connections they have here, I only managed
to log on and log off again.... so we got the bus to
esquel where we are now, and guess what, internet in
the whole town is down. of all days..... a real
bummer cause i've been unable to get onto the internet
for nearly a week. anyway cruised down to the bus
station to book our bus to el bolson for tonight, and
found a wee internet place that is working so here I
am. Andrew is still sitting in the shell service
station keeping warm minding the packs till our bus in
an hour.
...we've just had a really trying
time painstakingly making our way up the carratera
austral from coyhaique to chaiten missing buses,
unsuccessfully hitching and sitting in small towns
that are all shut up cause its off season. the buses
are erratic at this time of year and no one seems to
know what is going on. we also had bad luck missing
one bus that left early one morning, and spent whole
10 hours one day trying to hitch but no takers. so
have been spending all our time in these wee towns
that have quite a lot of character, but not much else.
there has been a lot of shivering on the side of the
road, twiddling our thumbs, dreaming about places that
are a little brighter and not going anywhere. Chaiten
was ok, we splashed out and got a hospedaje for the
night so got a shower - the first for ages. we both
stink and I can't wait to get to bariloche where we
will be based for a few days so we can get washing
done. we were planning to be in baralochie by now,
but got stuck in chile. got to chaiten and tried to
book a bus to futaleufu - near the boarder, and all
the signs said buses go every day. but nowhere was
open, and all the locals we asked said 'no possible'
when we asked about buses. hitching was out of the
question, and eventually we found some random hippy
english speaking guy who runs a travel place and he
shed a little light on the whole situation. it was a
chilean public holiday celebrating some war ages ago
so nothing was open and no services were operating.
makes sense, but its frustrating when you have no idea
and the town is totally deserted on a friday and you
have no idea why. the weather was good though, and we
had a trip to parque pumalin where we saw some 2000
year old alerce trees and also saw some wee waterfalls
etc. then had a relaxing morning sitting on the
waterfront eating ice cream and red wine (nice
combo....). An early birthday celebration (we
anticipated to be in the middle of nowhere for my
birthday). it was a beautiful sunny clear day with no
wind and we even had our jackets and hats off for most
of it. a real breakthrough.
eventually got a bus to futaleufu in the mountains
(beautiful wee place famous for white water rafting
and kayaking - in summer though). we spent one night
in the tent next to the river - and of course there
was no onward bus (seems to be the theme for our trip)
so after waiting for the local panaderia (bakery) to
open we start walking to the boarder. its only 10km
to the frontier and we figure we can at least walk
there by nightfall. this is how my birthday began.
weather was freezing and there was cloud, fog and mist
covering everything so no view. a few cars passed us,
and after an hour one finally stopped. they took us
30km or so to trevelin, then we bused to here -
esquel. so a successful day I guess. we actually got
somewhere (this is a first for quite some time). we
had been planning on the boarder crossing to take at
least two days given our previous rate of progress
along these back country roads.
I have missed the El Bolson saturday market that the
place is famous for which was really annoying. but I
think there might be one there tomorrow, so that is
where we are headed. andrew wanted to ride on some
120 year old steam train from here north, but its too
expensive for our tight budget $100 argentine pesos
per person compared to the bus which is $8. so we are
busing! After El Bolson we will bus to Bariloche
where we will book into a hotel or hostel room and
relax for a few days. We might even go out for a
meal. A belated birthday celebration. Oh, but we did
find a bakery this morning and had pastries and yummy
sweets for lunch so it isn't all good. and I had my
first can of coke in weeks today and it only cost NZ
35 cents! crazy prices. Its really great to be back
in cheap Argentina again where there are buses that
seem to run a little more frequently and the locals
speak slower (and a more tollerant of dumb stinky
backpackers who can't speak a word of spanish).
Well, time is ticking. I will write more when we get
to bariloche. in the meantime, take care
lots of love
nic
Back Next
