The Patagonian Desert

April 2008

We travelled for 36 hours in various buses from Puerto Natales to El Bolson, along Ruta Nacional 40, through the endlessnessness of the Patagonian desert, through forlorn towns and fading estancias, and the light was like watercolour, without water. My effort at comprehension was photographic, which can be viewed via this link, but for words, Charles Darwin sums it up again;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084003@N02/sets/72157604739425278/

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle, Conclusion

¨In calling up images of the past, I find that the plains of Patagonia frequently cross before my eyes; yet these plains are pronounced by all wretched and useless. They can be described only by negative characteristics, without habitations, without water, without trees, without mountains, they support merely a few dwarf plants. Why, then, and the case is not peculiar to myself, have these arid wastes taken so firm a hold on my memory?... I can scarcely analyze these feelings: but it must be partly owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely passable, and hence unknown: they wear the stamp of having lasted, as they are now, for ages and there appears to be no limit to their duration through future time. If, as the ancients supposed, the flat earth was surrounded by an impassable breadth of water, or by deserts heated to an intolerable excess, who would not look at these last boundaries to man´s knowledge with deep but ill-defined sensations?¨

Torres del Paine - trekking notes

Short notes from our trek around the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. Refer to the photograph of the map from our Lonely Planet trekking guide for place names and route.


Day 1 - Punta Arenas - Campamento Las Carretas - 480km by road, 8km by foot.
- Final farewells from friends at Hostales Independencia, a 9.00am bus to Puerto Natales (290km/3 hours).
- Arrive Puerto Natales, leave day packs stuffed with books at the Casa Lili guest house, and have ritualistic last hamburguesa before the trek begins.
Bus to the Park due at 2.30pm. 2.45pm no sign. Follow up phone call has the owner of the bus company arriving in his sports car, apologising that the bus has left and offering to drive us to catch up with the bus.
- 190km to Park. Speeding along the road to the Park listening to the owner´s strange taste in music. Catch up with the bus, onwards to the park. The Paine Massif appears on the horizon, the three Torres del Paine visible. Extreme excitement accompanied by singing The Doors songs.
- Pay $30US each to enter the park at Laguna Amarga. Further one hours drive through landscape of milky blue glacial lakes, and rolling brown hills, populated by guanacos, nañdu (or the rhea, a type of ostrich).
Arrive at Park Administration HQ at 6.00pm and the trek begins.
- Walk 8km / 1.45hrs. Arrive at Campamento Las Torres. Dinner of curried eggs and instant rice. First of many ´choñacs´, namely hot milo and a dash of local brandy, which was our regular nightcap throughout the trek. During the night was the first attack of the mice. Refer to ´Attack of the Super-Mice´post below.

Day 2 - Campamento Las Carretas - Campamento Italiano - 18km
- 10km to Refugio Lago Pehoe, walking under clear skies, through blonde Pampas grasslands, along the Rio Grey, flowing fast and grey from its source, the Glaciar Grey. We catch a fleeting glimpse of it on the top of one hill, before it disappears out of sight for the next 10 days. Freezing headwind blasting out of the northwest. Spot a pair of red headed Magellanic Woodpeckers, big beady eyes spotting us. Wide views of Cerro Paine Grande and Los Cuernos (the Horns) over the broad pale blue Lago Pehoe, wind whipping up waves onto its broken black rocky shores.
- 8km to Campamento Italiano. Lunch overlooking the Lago Skottsberg, wind gusting to 35 knots. Gain views of the Glaciar Frances, its fractured mass pouring off the Cerro Paine Grande. Every hour or so, the valley shakes with a booming thunder as a chunk of ice splits off the seraced crown of the Glaciar, and dashes itself below, re-forming in a secondary glacier, dark with broken rock morraine. Cross the the Rio Frances over a wire suspension bridge, bouncing over the raging torrent below.
- Arrive at Campamento Italiano, pitch the tent under tall lenga trees. The wind howls above, and sounds like crashing surf thirty feet above.

Day 3 Valle Frances - 15km/5 hours - ascent/descent 850m
- 5.5km up to Campamento Britannico - Leaving rucksacks and tent behind, we climb up the Valle Frances, along ancient morraine ridges, noting all the signs of the glacier´s previous extent. Pass above where the upper Rio Frances comes through a gap in the ridge like a gushing waterslide, to reach a bald patch and get a full view of the Glaciar Frances. Wind blowing a gale and we have to crouch to avoid being blown over. Climb further up through lovely lenga forest beside the upper Rio Frances to arrive at Campamento Britannico, a basic camp for mountaineers.
- Scramble up a steep gulley up to Mirador Britannico for 360 degree view of a huge ampitheatre of mountain peaks. Los Cuernos to the South, Fortaleza Hill and Carreo Cabeza to the North and Cerro Catedral to the West. With mountaineers cairns tempting us higher, we climbed above the tree line, through moss and peat, to the rocky rubble, between Cerro Espalda and Fortaleza up to 1450m to gain a view of the western face of the South and Central Torres del Paine, already glowing reddish from the westering sun. We wanted to press onto the ridge to see over into the Valle del Silencio on the northeastern side, but were losing light and squalls of drizzly rain were blowing over from northwest. We returned down to Campamento Britannico for a brief lunch.
- 5.5km trot back down to the valley to Campamento Italiano, to retire with very tired legs.

Day 4 - Campamento Italiano to Campamento Las Torres - 25km/10 hours
- 10am start, with Dale´s right foot really sore, and which pains her throughout the day. Clear skies walking under the awesome black tops of Los Cuernos. From up close, the geological composition of the whole Paine Massif can be seen as a granite batholithic extrusion, toppped with black shale. So the base of the big mountains is grey granite, that has been sculpted by big glaciers from previous ice ages, and the tops are softer shale shaped by the wild weathers blowing across the Hielo Sur ice sheet.
- Along the northern shore of Lago Nordenskjold, another huge glacial lake of pale blue (Pay-nee in Teuhuelche language means pale blue and is the root of the name of the Park), across black and white pebble stone beaches, scattered with driftwood. Up and down numerous valleys with rushing streams, across ridges of crumbly slate to reach a 300m high lookout above the lake for a lunch with wide views of the brown country away to the south, criss crossed by guanaco tracks and studded with blue lakes, with and a glimpse of the Seno Otway, a long fjord like arm of the sea.
That afternoon we cross a glacial stream
- Leaving the Lago Nordenskjold, and already some 18km into the day, we begin to climb into the Valle Ascensio, a slow muscle burning climb. The Rio Ascensio cuts deep into the land, and the trail clings to the gravelly southern side of the valley, while on the north side a cross section of shale strata, black and orange is exposed.
- 6.30pm we arrive at the Refugio Chileno, and resolve to push onto Campamento Las Torres. Dale´s foot is really sore, and our legs very tired, and we are repeating the mantra ¨One foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other... ¨ and cursing the Lonely Planet´s description of the trail as ´gradually rising´ as we encounter steep switchbacks and stairs.
- Arrive absolutely exhausted at 8.00pm. Set up tent, devour a five minute rice meal, and fall asleep. Wake half way in the night to the sound of scurrying and gnawing to find the mice had gnawed into Dale´s rucksack and half our food. Haul the bags inside the tent and fall back asleep. For further details refer to the Áttack of the Super-Mice´ post below.

Day 5 - Mirador Torres el Paine - 3km- 1.5 hours
- Wake at 6.45am. In the pre-dawn gloom, set off up the hill, with headlamps, first over re-vegetating glacial rubble, and then up a steep morraine bank, rock hopping and gravel scrambling. Arrive at the top to behold Las Torres del Paine in all their phallic glory, rising above the bleak melt lake, as the first rays of sun light their very tips. We are impossibly lucky to have a clear sky and it is freezing cold. We find a suitable flat rock, unpack our double sleeping bags, a thermos of hot tea and chocolate biscuits, and snuggle into to watch the show. A lot of places are promoted as sunrise spots, but this was truly spectacular. The Towers first turn a startling red, and then desaturate through oranges, yellows and then into greys. The surface of the granite spires looks as though a painter has applied thick oils with a palette knife, and the texture is varied and layered. The granite itself seems to magnify the colours of the sunrise, and their illumination was astounding. The glacial ampitheatre which they preside over was also full of interesting features, and we were held in awe for about an hour until the warming sun was out and Dale found a flat spot for a yoga routine, and I poked around the edge of the lake. We descended down the steep rubble filled valley by which the Laguna los Torres drains, and then found our way back to camp, resolved to rest the remainder of the day. Only when we began to prepare lunch did we discover the extent of the mice devastation; three days worth of food spoiled, including all our good scroggin. We wiped out all the bags, and settled down for an early night.

Las Torres del Paine

Day 6 - Campamento Las Torres to Camping Las Torres - 8km/2 hours
- A short day, back down the Valle Ascensio in drizzling rain which cleared by the middle of the day. With our spirits somewhat sapped by the mice attacks, and feeling famished, we went to the Hosteria Las Torres restaurant to order the Tabla Criolla, a mash up of sliced chorizo, lamb chunks, boiled eggs, fresh tomato and french fries, washed down with half a litre of Austral Cerveza. Truly splendid after five days on instant food. Replenished mice destroyed supplies at the little store at outrageous prices. Camped at the paid camping ground for hot showers, and with a view of the sunset over the central and north towers whilst laying in our tent. During the night, birds perched on the poles of our tent hunting mice, which cheered us greatly.

Day 7 - Camping Las Torres to Campamento Lago Paine - 18km / 6 hours
- 9km walk under clear skies, much refreshed by two half rest days, through farmland adjacent to the national park, before descending to wide plains beside the Rio Paine through lovely grasslands to arrive at Puesto Seron for lunch and a snooze.
- With more to walk that afternoon than realised, we pushed on, first by the river, and then clmbing up 500m or so, above the beautiful horseshoe shaped Laguna Alejandra and the Lago Paine in a stiff wind. Arrived at the unofficial camp to be plagued by mosquitos, forcing us to eat dinner in the tent.

Day 8 - Campamento Lago Paine - Campamento Los Perros 17km/5.5 hours
- 8km / 2hrs to Refugio Dickson. Cloudy most of the day. Swarms of midges replaced the mosquitos in the morning, and we got moving pretty quickly for a gentle mornings walk across the river flats with progressively improving views of the Glaciar Dickson to the northwest to arrive at Refugio Dickson for morning tea. Glaciar Dickson descends directly from the Hielo Sur and is split into two by a rock outcrop (a nunatak) and is an awesome sight. The hut keeper in Spanish advises us that the previous night there was an avalanche on the track between Campamentos Paso and Lago Guardas, but that the Circuit had been reopened. Perturbed, but not discouraged, we pushed on.
- 9km / 2.5 hours. Climb high above the noisy Rio Los Perros, looking back for great views of the Glaciar Dickson, through beautiful lenga forest up a thickly wooded valley. Lunch at the Salto Los Perros, a two level waterfall, where the Rio Los Perros plunges into a chasm from an above ground and subterranean level.
- Into the upper valley, with the Glaciar Los Perros growing larger in view. We spot an enormous eagle soaring in circles above the valley. Climb the morraine wall to sight the impressive Glaciar Los Perros, which has a thick top, and a thin ice fall down into a greenish lake.
- Good camp at Campamento Los Perros, with wine bought from Refugio Dickson mulled, and a hot meal in the cosy shelter. Early night to rest our strength for loins for the assault on the pass on the morrow.

Day 9 - Campamento Los Perros - Campamento Paso - 12 km / 5.5 hours - 680m ascent, 800m descent.
- Started out in drizzling rain, accompanied by Gabe, an Alaskan back-country ranger, to take on el Paso John Gardner, which at 1241m is the highest point on the Circuit. Further up valley through really boggy sections, then a long steady climb to above the tree line, the ground first covered with thousands of tiny pink berries, then bare scree, rising above the Glaciar Condor, to reach the pass.
The first sight of Glaciar Grey in all its majesty will never be forgotten. It is a huge river of ice almost 2km wide, and over 28km long, its sheer size is belittling. Although the clouds hung low, it seemed to clear enough for a view back to the end of the glacier where it joins the Hielo Sur proper, to its snout. The wind eased enough to allow us to spend about 30 minutes on the pass (a rare privilege) before beginning the steep descent through patches of low wind blasted nirre whose leaves were a stunning red, yellow and green against the blue mass of ice. Our legs felt crumpled after the 800m descent, and we were the only people camped at Campamento Paso for a windy and rainy night, sleeping only 500m from the glacier.

Glaciar Grey
Day 10 - Campamento Paso to Refugio Lago Pehoe - 20km /6.5 hours
We began in drizzling rain, which dried up by midday, with the foreboding prospect of an avalanche on the trail ahead. We began climbing up fire scarred slopes above the glacier to reach the first ravine on this section that is being rapidly eroded by a a gushing torrent, making a very hairy crossing with the aid of a rope. We then reached the second ravine, and found it full of ice, as a result of the avalanche, which we expected to be of rock. The metal railings descending into the ravine had been twisted and buckled, and so with great care, we made our way down, and then across the ice to reach the other side safely, and the adrenalin surging. The ice was very compacted, the danger being slipping and sliding down the length of the ravine. On the other side, Dale took a chunk of broken ice, which was enjoyed with the last of our cognac, as we took in the view of the terminus of the Glaciar Grey, from which it calves huge icebergs into the lake. Though we watched and waited for half an hour, we were not treated to the sight of an icefall, so we pressed on southwards above the shores of the Lago Grey. Whilst we took lunch the clouds cleared above the high peaks of Cerro Paine Grande, showing their enigmatic heads for the first time on the trek. A last ascent high above Lago Grey, singing Mary Poppins and the rising thrill of finishing the circuit, a total of 141km so far, and then down down down to Lago Pehoe to finish the circuit with a cheer, a cold beer and a very heavy sleep.

Day 11 - Lago Pehoe
Rest day in the common area of the refugio, with poached eggs for breakfast, mulled wine in the afternoon, with Dale acting strangely by taking a 5km jog because she felt restless! After walking 141km over the past 10 days! Three carb dinner (lentils, rice and pasta) to finish off the half packets and a sound sleep.

Day 12 - Lago Peho - Administration Centre - 18km / 5 hours
Backtracking from Day 1 & 2, arriving at the Admin Centre at 5.30pm to notch up about 160km for the full ´Q´ Circuit, and to wait for the 6.30pm bus out of the Park. At 6.30pm, a park ranger informs there will be no bus tonight, so in squalling rain, once again we pitch our tent behind the Administration Centre for the twelfth night, and forage a meal of packet soup and chocolate.

The final leg

Day 13 - Administration Centre - Puerto Natales
We wake to a miserable wet morning, find an even more miserable omelette breakfast at the Posada Serrano Hotel, and wait out for the bus at 1.00pm. 3.5 hours later, we arrive at the hostel exhausted, but exhilirated.

The Beagle Channel

We had heard rumour of a cargo boat from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas on the Saturday, so we decided to move on. We chartered a boat to take us across the Beagle Channel, and we entered Chilean territory at Puerto Navarino where an official stamped our passports with about as much interest as a bus ticket. We were transported to the naval base of Puerto Williams, which legitimately claims (over that of Ushuaia) to be the southernmost settlement in the world outside Antarctica. Like Leonard Cohen sings in ´Suzanne´, all men are sailors in this bleak little town of about 2200 souls, where long guns in the Plaza point provocatively back across the channel to Argentina. The world´s southern most yacht club is located in a naval ship scuttled near the shore where sleek round-the-world racers and salty old sloops moor alongside. Chatwin came as far as Puerto Williams to seek out the last full blooded Yaghan Indian who lived here, and his description of that meeting is so evocative that I must include it here.

¨The last of the Yaghans lived in a row of plank shanties at the far end of the base. The authorities settled them here so that they should be closer to a doctor. It was drizzling snow and smears came down to the shore. It was high summer. Behind the settlement the trees disappeared into the clouds. The water was smooth and black and across the Channel were the ribbed grey cliffs of Gable Island. The old man said I could come in. The hut was full of smoke and my eyes smarted. He sat in a pile of crab pots, baskets and boat gear. He was hardly taller than wider and his legs were bowed. He wore a greasy cap and had the leathery face of a mongol and black unmoving eyes that registered no expression or emotion. Only his hands moved. They were fine hands, agile and netted with dark grey veins. He earned a little money making toy canoes to sell to the tourists. He made them of bark and withes and sewed them with sheep sinew. In the old days, fathers made these canoes for their sons. Now there were no sons and still very few tourists. I watched him whittle a miniature harpoon shaft and bind it on to a tiny bone harpoon. ´Once I made big harpoons´ he said.¨



The last full blood Yaghan died in 1999. Today only one elderly speaker of the Yaghan language remains Cristina Calderón of Ukika Village on Isla Navarino, though their language was one of the first recorded in Tierra del Fuego, as early as 1898 by Thomas Bridges an early settler who made it his life´s work to construct a dictionary of the language. Charles Darwin, who was appalled by the Fuegians and could not believe ¨how wide was the difference between savage and civilised man; it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal...¨ derided the Yaghan language which ¨...scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttual and clicking sounds.¨ Chatwin however is more discerning;

¨the language reveals a mariner's obsession with time and space. For, although they did not count to five, they defined the cardinal points with minute distinctions and read seasonal changes as an accurate chronometer... What shall we think of a people who defined 'monotony' as 'an absence of male friends?' Or for 'depression', used the word that described the vulnerable phase in a crab's seasonal cycle, when it has sloughed off its old shell and waits for another to grow? Or who derived 'lazy' from the Jackass Penguin? Or 'adulterous' from the hobby, a small hawk that flits here and there, hovering motionless over its next victim?

Here are just a few of their synonyms:

Sleet — Fish scales
A shoal of sprats — Slimy mucus
A tangle of trees that have fallen blocking the path forward — A hiccough
Fuel — Something burned - Cancer
Mussels out of season — Shrivelled skin - Old age

Some of their linkings were beyond me:

The fur seal — The relatives of a murdered man

Others seemed obscure then came clear:

A thaw (of snow) — A scar - Teaching...

The Yaghans had a dramatic verb to capture every twitch of the muscles, every possible action of nature or man.¨

Chatwin´s fascination with indigenous languages was carried through with ´The Songlines´ 1987, an exploration of the song cycles of Australian Aboriginals - a book I am trying to hunt down, without much luck in South America.

We however, back in Puerto Williams, were had encountered our own ´hiccough´. Our berth on the cargo boat had not been confirmed and we had no idea where the office of the ferry company was located. After wandering around aimlessly for an hour or so and asking a few bewildered locals, we made enquiries in the station of the Captain of the Port, and were directed to a broken down house on the waterfront, with peeling pink paint and only a scrap of paper taped to the window advertising its location. A chainsaw rested on a pile of lemons in the hallway, and a scruffy fellow clenching a cheroot between his teeth confirmed our berth, and waved us down to the harbour to have a look at our vessel, the Fuegino departing the following morning.

At the concrete boat ramp, a crab boat had just pulled in, and the crab-men were unloading its live catch of a tonne or more of horny crabs. Men with thick arms in yellow plastic overalls heaved huge crates seething with crabs from the boat onto the ramp and then onto the back of a lorry, with little regard for the breaking of crab and claw. A few lucky dozen crabs managed to scuttle off the ramp back into the water, but others met their end under a heavy crunch of the crab-man´s boot. The Fuegino was moored nearby, a vehicle-carrier about 150ft long, with front and back loading ramps, and two long thin two decks.

We left the following morning at 0800 with a few other fellow cargo-boaters, an enormous refrigerator container full of the crab catch of the previous day, glassy water and a fine sunrise at our backs. We steamed west back past Ushuaia, and by the time the ship´s chef (in full chef´s whites and hat) had served us a hearty cazuela stew for lunch, a headwind had whipped up the waters of the Channel, and the ship made a jolting passage forward in the chop. By mid afternoon, we reached the point were the Channel splits into North and South Channels, and taking the north which is more relatively protected, we sailed under the shadow of the Cordillera Darwin, a mighty range which is the last great range of the Andes before it descends into the Atlantic Ocean. Ever since I built a large dioramic model of glacial geology in year nine science, I have been fascinated by glaciers, and this was my first view of really big glaciers. That afternoon we saw half a dozen giant glaciers descending into the sea from the thick ice cap which mantles the Darwin Range, scooping out great valleys and rounded bowls from the sides of the high mountains. The water issuing from the snout of these glaciers is milky blue, and does not mingle with main current, forming a distinct line against the deep blue of the main Channel. We stopped in a cove after lunch, and met a caretaker of Ian Kiernan´s old ´Spirit of Sydney´ which is being sailed back to Australia. What with all the excitement of glaciers, I left one of my new gloves on the beach. Jumping around like a jack in the box and very glacier-happy for the remainder of the day, until dusk settled, and we settled down for an upright night on the soft seats. The ship lunged on through the night as we slept, out of the Beagle Channel, through the Canal Ballenero (Baleen Whale Channel), past the Penisula Brecknock and the Isla Basket (former home of Fuegia Basket, a Yaghan Indian taken to England by the first Beagle voyage and returned there by the second voyage) and across an open stretch of the southern Pacific Ocean.

The next morning dawned clear, and as we turned into the Cockburn Channel, Mt. Sarmiento presented a fine view against the morning sky, a huge glacier curling round its flank like a muscled arm. Calm waters passed under us, as albatross see-sawed across the wake of the ship, sooty petrels swooped in for a closer look, and flightless steamer ducks paddled in their curious way. Seals popped up to inquire regularly, and Dale was lucky enough to sight an Austral Doplhin (as large as an orca and similar in shape) breach beside the ship. The ship straightened course for Punta Arenas as we entered the Straits of Magellan, passing Cabo Froward, the southern most point of the South American mainland, crowned by a 30m high steel cross, erected by some mad bishop. We arrived in Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, about 6pm, having completed 560km in 32 hours, at an average rate of 7.9 knots per hour, or 17.5 km per hour. And the crabs had started to smell.

Tierra del Fuego - No smoke without fire

"I crossed into Fireland. On the north shore of the First Narrows, a lighthouse, striped orange and white, stood above a beach of crystalline pebbles, purple mussels and the scarlet shells of broken crabs. At the waters edge, oystercatchers were needling for shellfish in piles of ruby coloured seaweed.

"Tierra del Fuego - the Land of Fire. The fires were the campfires of the Fuegian Indians. In one version, Magellan saw smoke and called it ´Tierra del Humo´, the land of smoke, but Charles V said there was no smoke without fire and changed the name. The Fuegians are now dead and all the fires snuffed out. Only the flare of oil rigs casts a pall over the night sky.

"Until 1619, when the Dutch fleet of Schouten and Le Maire rounded the Horn and named it, not for its shape, but after the Hoorn on the Zuyder Zee, cartographers drew Tierra del Fuego as the northern edge of the Antichton and filled it with suitable monstrosities: gorgons, mermaids and the Roc, that outsized condor, which carried elephants. Dante placed his Hill of Purgatory at the centre of the Anticthon. In Canto 26 of the Inferno, Ulysses, swept on his mad track south, sights the island mountain looming from the sea as the waves close over his ship - infin che l´mer fu sopra noi richinso - destroyed by his passion to exceed the boundaries set for man. Fireland then is Satan´s land, where flames flicker as fireflies on a summer night, and, in the narrowing circles of Hell, ice holds the shades of traitors as straws in a glass. This perhaps that is why Schouten did not land."

So Bruce Chatwin´ introduces this fabled extension of the South American continent, as excerpted from Chapter 53 of `In Patagonia´ (1977, Penguin). Though those intrepid Dutchmen did not land, we did. Descending from the sky in the modern version of a Roc carrying an elephant, we landed in a jumbo on the long narrow strip of tarmac beside the Beagle Channel in the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia. Our flight from Buenos Aires had been a 12 hour whistle stop tour of the Patagonian capitals: Comodoro Rivadavia, El Calafate, Rio Gallegos, Rio Grande and Ushuaia, and it was with some relief that we stepped onto the tarmac into the fresh blasting wind.

We set up camp at La Pista del Andino, a winter ski club high above the city on pleasant lawns surrounded with foxgloves. From our tent we had a wide view over the city, which as twilight laid a purple shroud over the wide waters and the distant mountains of Isla Navarino, would send up columns of woodsmoke and sparkle to life with a thousand lights. In this eyrie, we spent a number of idle days curled by the pot belly stove in the warmth of the Refugio, Dale set up with Isabel Allende´s ´Paula` and I with Charles Darwin´s ´Voyage of the Beagle`, the good ship of which sailed past here in 1834, well before the foundation of Ushuaia.

"Ushuaia began with a pre-fabricated mission house put up in 1869 by the Reverend W.H. Stirling, alongside the shacks of the Yaghan Indians. For sixteen years, Anglicanism, vegetable gardens and the Indians flourished. Then the Argentine Navy came and the Indians died of measles of pneumonia. The settlement graduated from navy base to convict station. The Inspector of Prisons designed a masterpiece of stone and concrete more secure than the jails of Siberia. Its blank grey walls, pierced by the narrowest of slits, lies to the east of the town. It is now used as a barracks." (Chatwin, In Patagonia, Chapter 53)

Today that barracks is a musuem and the city, founded for the virtue of its isolation at the extremities of the world as a prison, much like Port Arthur in Van Dieman´s Land, now proudly advertises itself as ´El Fin Del Mundo´ or the End of the World, as a tourist attraction in itself. Cruise ships returning from the Antarctic stop here, and the main strip is a colourful jumble of souvenir stores, hostels and restaurants. Along the waterfront, container ships feed this remote place from afar, and a monument stands reminding all that Argentina regards Ushuaia as the capital of Las Islas Malvinas, otherwise known to the Brits as the Falkland Islands.

From Ushuaia as our base, we set off on two walks in the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego:

Our first jaunt was an enchanting day walk along the Beagle Channel to Lapataia to where the 3063 km Ruta Nacional 3 ends in a wet meadow. The littoral zone of the Beagle Channel is a beautiful strata of blue water meeting the slate grey rocks, where the shore is striped with purple mussels, the coppery kelp, lichens brightly yellow and red, ending where the deep forest begins. The lenga and nirre trees (species of southern beech, of the genus Nothofagus) that grow by the channel are cast in bonsai by the wild weathers, and make a magical world in miniature . It was here that we experienced our first delights at how the nirre splay their delicate branches in tiers of tiny serrated leaves, that being semi-deciduous, colour green, gold and red and make a beautiful carpet as they fall to the damp earth. Deeper into the forest, the lenga grow taller and more watchful, growing long beards of grey moss and knobbly lumps like goitres in their twisting trunks twist, and send writhing brown roots across the path to snatch at those who dare to pass beneath the forest´s eaves. The landscape was right out of Tolkien´s Middle Earth, and walking slowly through the magical atmosphere of glade after glen, it took us almost four hours to complete the 6.5km Sendera Costera. The trail then left the coast and joined the road, which wound through broad meadows, the grasses grazed close by an army of hares that would pop out at every corner and go bounding away.



Our second outing was our first multi-day trek, up the Valle del Andorra, which lies to the east of Ushuaia and connects at the Paso del Oveja (800m) with another valley running down to the Beagle Channel west of Ushuaia. The hike, the first commended by our trusty Lonely Planet ´Trekking in Patagonia´ guide, commenced with us stomping along a muddied horse track in the rain, through thick decaying forests, by broad red moors that felt like live sponges beneath the foot, under enigmatic mountains that would occasionally loom from the clouds to show their glacier crowned heads. It had the intrepid trekkers first setting camp in drizzling rain at a damp site on the confluence of two streams amid dead trees heaped with moss, a gloomy camp indeed. In the night, we thought we heard, above the dripping rain and the gurgling stream, the voice of young girl singing, which spooked us severely and even now sends shivers down the spine. The following day though was brighter and had us climbing to above the tree line, where the forest peters out in wind whipped nirres, to alpine meadows full of flowers and up to a jewel of lake, the Laguna del Caminante. From here we climbed higher and higher through a desolate valley of broken shingle to reach the top of the pass, marked by a chest high cairn, where the wind blew the whiskers out of my chin. Leaning into the gale, we descended into the Cañadon del Oveja, a steep sided valley where small neves nestled under the mountain tops send waterfalls of long silvery threads down over 500m into the valley. In the loose scree above the tortured talus of the tree line, we missed the turn off to the first camp and pressed on to find ourselves in a horse paddock at the edge of the National Park, which served a fine camp, but for the minefield of dung all about. That night, the wind howled out of the valley like a ´woman wailing for her demon-lover´ as horses snuffled around our tent. The following morning, a light snow fell as we walked tired miles back to camp.

Charles Darwin, when passing by in 1834 as the man of science aboard the HMS Beagle, and as the gentleman companion of the Captain Fitzroy on its second voyage, went a-walking in a forested valley of Tierra del Fuego on its southern coast and describes the experience in Chapter X of his journal, which is so resonant with our walk that it is worth here excerpting:-

¨The next day I attempted to penetrate some way into the country. Tierra del Fuego may be described as a mountainous land, partly submerged into the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the place where valleys should exist. The mountains´ edges, except on the exposed western coast, are covered from the water´s edge upwards by one great forest. The trees reach an elevation of between 1000 and 1500 feet, and are succeeded by a band of peat, with minute alpine plants; and this again is succeeded by the line of perpetual snow, which, according to Captain King, in the Strait of Magellan descends to between 3000 and 4000 feet. To find an acre of level land in any part of this country is most rare. I recollect only one little flat piece near Port Famine, and another of rather larger extent near Goeree Road. In both places, and everywhere else, the surface is covered by a thick bed of swampy peat. Even within the forest, the ground is concealed by a mass of slowly putrefying vegetable matter, which, from being soaked with water, yields nearly to the foot.


¨Finding it nearly hopeless to push my way through the wood, I followed the course of a mountain torrent. At first, from the waterfalls and number of dead trees, I could hardly crawl along, but the bed of the stream soon became a little more open, from the floods having swept the sides. I continued to slowly advance for an hour along the broken and rocky banks, and was amply repaid by the grandeur of the scene. The gloomy depth of the ravine well accorded with the universal signs of violence. On every side, were lying irregular masses of rock and torn-up trees; other trees, though still erect, were decayed to the heart and ready to fall. The entangled mass of the thriving and the fallen reminded me of the forests within the tropics - yet there was a difference; for in these solitudes, Death, instead of Life, seemed the predominant spirit.



¨I followed the water course till I came to a spot where a great slip had cleared a straight space down the mountain side. By this road, I ascended to a considerable elevation, and obtained a good view of the surrounding woods. The trees all belong to one kind, the Fagus Betuloides. This beech keeps its leaves throughout the year, but its foliage is of a peculiar brownish-green colour, with a tinge of yello. As the whole landscape is thus coloured, it has a sombre, dull appearance; nor is it often enlivened by the rays of the sun.¨

...Darwin then retreats, and returns the following day...

¨We followed the same water-course as on the previous day, till it dwindled away, and we were compelled to crawl blindly among the trees. These, from the effects of the elevation and of the impetuous winds, were low, thick and crooked. At length we reached that which from a distance appeared like a carpet of fine green turf, but which to our vexation, turned out to be a compact mass of little beech-trees about four or five feet high. They were as thick together as a box in the border of a garden, and we were obliged to struggle over the flat but treacherous surface. After a little more trouble we gained the peat, and then the bare slate rock...
We obtained a wide view over the surrounding country: to the north a swampy moorland extended, but to the south we had a scene of savage magnificence well becoming Tierra del Fuego. There was a degree of mysterious grandeur in mountain behind mountain, with the deep intervening valleys, all covered by one thick dusky mass of forest. The atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet seems blacker than anywhere else. In the Strait of Magellan looking due southward from Port Famine, the distant channels between the mountains appeared from their gloominess to lead beyond the confines of this world."

So from the confines of the Antichthon, we planned to leave by those same distant channels. Time to move on, we had a boat to catch...

"Attack of the Super-Mice and other short stories"- installments 1 & 2

"Attack of the Super-Mice and other short stories" is a compilation drawn from the experiences of fellow ´walk hards´(thanks Chen) Christopher Butler and Dale Maxwell-Smith over the last month or so and believe it or not the events, people and places detailed below are based on the truth ( give or take a little exaggeration) and any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely due to the boundless talent of myself, the author.

1. Extreme Sports Calendar Model

Travelling though the Patagonian Andes provides more options for extreme sports than you may at first realise. Of course there are the obvious and dare I say ... boring ´traditional´sports involving skiing, snow boarding, jumping out of, or off high things, white water rafting etc etc, but what you may not have realised is that there is a whole world of diverse and interesting extreme sports out there just waiting to be discovered. The first of these sports I wish to share with you is commonly referred to as YAK-ING!!! and was first invented in China. Whilst originally requiring a Yak sighting in order to begin, it can now be played in the vicinity of Glaciers, Guanacos and generally anything that can be yelled in an amusing way. First decide on a call (eg ´Glaciers´ is called in a psuedo soprano voice aimed at breaking a piece of ice off) then venture into an area where you will see numerous examples of the chosen object/animal and upon sighting... let your call ring out, as loud as possible, to warn the person standing next to you! In the case of animals, the sighting of a product/s made from the animal can also be included.

Another extreme sport which is a little more demanding and also requires more in the way of equipment and natural conditions is ´Last Defence Insomnia Tent Whacking.´ The aim of this sport is to put oneself in a position of extreme vulnerability to wild animals, we suggest in the middle of nowhere in a tent with several days food inside as a good place to start. A popular trekking campsite at the end of the season ensures you will get hungry animals used to the kind of food you are carrying and practiced at getting it (see Attack of the Super-Mice for more info). Lay down in the tent with your eyes closed and listen for the animals converging upon you with slavering jaws, wait for the exact moment that the animal makes contact with the tent and then.... Whack!!! You may whack with any part of the body and for the famous, though hard to execute, double front move zip yourself into a sleeping bag with another player and wait for a 2 fronted attack then both lash out with all limbs. Both players must make contact with the tent without accidently killing the other. A dangerous alternative is to allow the animal to gain some height on the tent before whacking so as to increase the effect of the hit. Be warned a pre-condition of this sport is that you are awake all night, this is a high stakes game and failure is known to have reduced men to ghosts of themselves.

My favourite sport however, perhaps because whilst boys can play at its most basic level, its really one for the girls, is ´Extreme Sports Urination´. This sport may sound simple but there are many subtleties which can take a lifetime to master. The main premise for this sport is to pee successfully in an extreme situation. Degrees of extremity are dictated by the position required, current environmental and weather conditions, clothing and amount being carried and of course.... the most important; how good is the view? Participants may find themselves negotiating full piece swimsuits (dont ask) beneath full goretex trekking gear and a 16kg pack on a practically vertical alpine meadow in high wind conditions with a view over snow covered mountains and glacial lakes (a scenario which may or may not have actually taken place). Basically when trekking to all these awe inspiring places fueled on TANG (cordial -with vitamins-in powder form which can be put in ones hydration pack and comes in exciting flavours like pink grapefruit; conspiciously absent from Australian supermarket shelves, there have been whisperings of a Cottees conspiracy) you will need to go (often) so why not make an adventure out of it (chances are you wont have much choice).

There are many other extreme sports to be had.... In some places just about anything you do can be described as extreme even washing up (read glacial water so cold that frost bite is actually a possibility and making whooping noices a neccessity). Othertimes there are people who can make almost anything extreme such as drinking milo on a bus travelling up the infamous ruta 40 (read Chris incapable of holding a cup of boiling liquid in a moving vehicle without dissolving into hysterics because of something to do with Guanacos).

The point is, there are just so many new and exciting extreme sports in Patagonia that everyone can take part....

Yes you! Extreme Sports Calendar Model!

2. Attack of the Super-Mice
Aka `Rodents of Darkness´

Our intrepid militia members have battled the elements to bring disturbing secret intelligence to the attention of all and sundry. Intelligence which is whispered about between trekkers in the south but to date has not been heard outside of that distant land.

`Mice´previously classed: enemy; threat minimal; disgusting dirty rodents which chew holes in things and carry diseases. should be reclassed as...
`Super-Mice´: enemy; threat high; disgusting dirty rodents which chew holes in things, carry diseases and have hereto underestimated capacities for a ´total war´situation capable of destroying not only the property and resources but also the sanity of militia who venture their territories.

UPON DETECTION: WHACK WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE!

London Street Militia; Mobile Unit; South America; Patagonia
Armed against all possible weather conditions, injury, sickness, hunger, thirst, all the sorts of things one expects to encounter in the mountains, the mobile unit set out on their mission to walk in a big `Q´.

Base location: on the little sqiggly part of the `Q´.
Personnel status: passed out.
Some time in the middle of the first Torres del Paine night the `Super-Mice´ attacked, forcing the unit to withdraw packs and enter lock-down mode, only to face the fact that their base, although a lovely shade of blue with cute awning bits, was little barrier to the practiced nashy nashy bitey tactics of the hardened special operatives outside. Brigadier Butler quickly developed the counter offence refered to by some extreme sports nuts as ´Last Defence Insomnia Tent Whacking´, but it was found to be less offensive (and rather less defensive) than was initially hoped and only temporarily prevented a breach of the base wall whilst taking a considerable toll on the militia member´s nerves. Mice were whacked from not only the sides of the base but also, on occasion, sent flying from the top. The battle raged on until dawn when the enemy retreated, and a thorough inventory of damages could be completed. To their despair it was found that there was a hole in the base and that a heavy duty plastic bag liner had been substantially ingested (The unit was forced to confront the total war attack strategy and possible insanity of their foe; not only did the bag not contain food, it was neither near, nor had ever been in contact with anything more appetising than dirty boots.And these mice climb tents!)
Over porridge it was discovered that other combatants in the region had faired even worse and that militia pride could remain intact, a situation that would repeat itself over the next few weeks as the full extent of the evil Super-Mice´s plans for world domination became apparent.

Enemy Operations are heard the following 2 nights but defences are improved and no casualities sustained.

Base location: beneath the pointy rocks.
Personnell Status: passed out
After walking an exhausting 22km our militia came face to face, or rather foot to foot with an LP `gradual ascent´ which, aside from containing some descents designed to snap kneecaps, could put toned thighs on a tooth pick. (Dear Lonely Planet, *%*#! your`gradual ascents´!!!!
Yours sincerely, Wing Commander Maxwell-Smith) Sensing weakness, the Super-Mice launch a full scale attack on the weary unit who only just manage (or so they think) to keep the enemy combatants from storming the base.
... A pre-dawn start to see the pointy rocks change colour means that the unit returns to base at 2pm hungry for green spiral pasta and scheduled R&R, only to find that the Super-Mice inflicted more damage than originally realised. In fact, pumped up on some kind of Super-Mouse adrenalin, the enemy has employed a `Saturation Biting´technique aimed at causing massive collateral damage including biting through a pack and ripping open as many bags as possible taking only a small bite from each. Initial plans to salvage the 3-4 days food affected are abandoned on the discovery that, although unlikley, these crazed mice could have developed bio-weapons known as Hantavirus. All possibly contaminated food is discarded and a fullscale cleanup program begun.

From this point on skirmishes are an almost nightly occurance but the militia have become a tough, experienced unit, skilled in the arts of mouse whacking and although purple shadows are visible under their eyes, there is the shine of victory as well. Stories of those less fortunate (and less alert) are heard. Mice in tents, mice on tents, mice destroying food in tents, mice destroying food in tents hung from trees, mice ripping through bags & tents & sanity)

Needless to say, the militia unit survives and although battle weary, returns safely to civilisation.

Base location: under an erratic (look it up)
Personnel status: drinking
Mice are spotted near base in Argentina. They display the insane qualities of the `Super-Mouse´obviously incapable of fear, not moving away from either people or lights. The base is locked down and with the help of a light dusting of snow, successfully defended.

Base location: in the snow
Personnel status: cold
High level `Super-Mouse´activity heard. Smelly foxes and snow combine with practiced defence techniques to help keep base. Evidence of large scale operations found in the snow.

Base location: in the snow with a million dollar view of pointy rocks
Personnel status: cooking
They were toying with us! Unit comes under fire earlier than usual with the `Super-Mice´ launching kamakazi style attacks in an attempt to get behind the lines which are defended ferociously by the militia with a fluoro orange poo-trowel. Although efforts to chop one in half fail, the weapon proves useful for scooping and throwing. For any normal mouse surely being picked up and dashed against rocks and snow would be enough to deter them at least until the big person with the orange trowel had gone to sleep; not so for `Super-Mice´who continued to launch themselves at the front entrance to the base. Militia took shifts to maintain an alert defence, but the enemy foiled plans for sleep with a second front and a new technique of tunneling under the base, at times literally beneath pillows. Despite valient efforts they refused to be deterred and were able to breach the bases defences to get a small amount of misplaced milo. Militia rose at dawn with the haunted eyes of the war damaged. They wearily pulled on their frozen boots for the last time, determined to escape back to town and mumbling incoherently with Kurtz like lack of reason "Exterminate all the brutes!"

Before leaving they stop to chat with 2 french men and discover that weary as they may be, their hardened alertness and semi effective anti nashy nashy bitey whacks have protected them from the worst that the `Super-Mice´can inflict. One man had spent the night with mice free-falling in on him through holes they had biten in the top of his tent and had at one point been (wildly and mostly in vain) grabbing at 5 or 6 running round inside pack and sleeping bag.

The horror! The horror!

Last drinks in Buenos Aires

We woke up in Buenos Aires in a botanical garden full of stray cats and fabulous sculptures.

Upon arrival from Bahia Blanca by overnight bus, we found no hotel who would take us before noon, and so we found ourselves rubbing our sleep-crusted eyes in the Jardin Botanica de Carlos Thays. This delightful garden is home to hundreds of stray cats who are very much possessed of the place. They stalk through the garden beds, and preen themselves on the benches, and languidly regard the strangers who wander through their domain. At the centre of the gardens stands a grand house with four turreted corners alongside a gothic greenhouse in black wrought iron, and roundabout is set fabulous statuary. We set to photographing all the most picturesque statues, which can be found in butleresq´s Flickr photo gallery at http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084003@N02/sets/72157604009466584/

By now,we had determined to conclude our explorations of Buenos Aires so we could fly south to Patagonia and on our northward return journey not feel the compulsion to return to a city left unexplored. So we set to identifying and investigating the most curious and iconic elements of the city:

We wandered with wonder through the gallery of Xul Solar, one of the avant garde of Buenos Aires in the early 20c, who amongst other accomplishments, invented several Pan languages, a piano played by coloured keys set in three tiers, and a body of hundreds of ethereal paintings integrating elements of zodiac and astral philosophy and surreal landscapes and architectures, the images of which have lingered long after on the brain.

We took in the contemporary arts found in MALBA (the Museo de Artes Latinoamericano Buenos Aires) where Dale was rapt to see Frida Kahlo in the original for the first time, an art exhibition called Autopsia, featuring artists presenting jewellery of Mexican victims of drive-by shootings and botanical arrangements of the bones of murdered Colombians, and further in the Palais de Glace, formerly an ice rink, now exhibiting an installation of a black walled maze and numerous black&white paintings

Under a grey swollen sky, we wandered through the Recoleta Cemetry, where the Argentine elite are entombed in a lavish labyrinth of elaborate graves, amidst ornamentations of the Argentine ego after death, all watched over by ranks of marble angels and long dead presidents and generals. In the rain, the angels look like they are crying. Many tombs are in disrepair, and coffins have fallen from their places. Evita Peron´s tomb however is daily set with fresh gladioli and the black marble flashes from hundreds of photographing tourists. At 5.30pm, a largebell chimes, tourists are ushered out and the cemetry closes and we passed under the marble arch enscribed ´REQUISCANT IN PACE´. Such a place confirms my wish for my ashes to be scattered in the sea.

We wined and dined in Palermo Soho, where the young and the beautiful mince about in designer sunglasses late into the night, and which was very reminscent of Paddington, Sydney. We walked and talked through La Boca, the port district where the houses are brightly painted and tourists gawp and gaggle at the staged tango displays and the souvenir markets.

We drank wine from penguin shaped carafes and gorged ourselves on beef parilla style with James Hoare and Evan Williams from Sydney, and arrived back at our hotel well past midnight to find half our laundry had not arrived as ordered, and with us due at the airport for our flight to Ushuaia at 5.30am that morning, we abandoned our underwear and flew to the end of the world.

Bahia Blanca

It was some 600km from Villa Gesell to Bahia Blanca, across an immense flatness;

where the black cattle graze
in the empty haze
of the pampas plain
hours upon hours
of drooping sunflowers
and wheat shorn short
and dams awaiting rain.

We passed through dusty bus terminals, where grandmothers awaited grandchildren, lovers took long last kisses, and families fawned over the farewelled: Argentines part so ardently.

We arrived in Bahia Blanca as the sun was setting into the pall of pollution handing over the city, which made for a beautiful sky. The bus terminal was a crumbling old building, and a new concrete bus terminal was in construction beside it.

The settlement of the "White Bay" (so called for the salt flats which encrust the estuary of the Naposta) dates from 1828, when, according to Charles Darwin who visited it in 1834, "the government of Buenos Ayres unjustly occupied it by force, instead of following the wise example of the Spanish Viceroys, who purchased the land near the older settlement of the Rio Negro, from the Indians. Hence the need for the fortifications." (Chapter IV, Voyage of the Beagle). It later was used as a base for the infamous gaucho general, Juan Man Rosas, in his genocidal campaigns agains the Mapuche Indians of the southern pampas. A fearsome and cruel caudillo of the early Argentine Republic, Rosas died in exile as a milk farmer in Southhampton, UK in 1877. His grave in the south of England was bombed during WWII and when the bones were repatriated to Argentina with much fanfare in the late 1980´s, they were found to include the bones of bomb-blasted cows!

Today, Bahia Blanca is a city of some 350,000 people, with a laidback feel of a provincial capital. It is centred upon a large plaza with a memorial to with many trees and surrounded by French neo-classical buildings.

We spent two days walking around the town.

On Sunday, the main park was populated by friends sipping mate, young guys in hotted-up Morris Minors, busts of dead dictators and excessive pairs of policeman in bright orange vest on the beat, presumably keeping the peace.

On Monday we found the Museo de Bella Artes y Contemporaneo Artes closed, but upon knocking, were welcomed in for a private tour by one of the gallery staff, Claudio Rodolfo. Claudio is as manic as Roberto Benigni on ten cups of espresso, and with rapid Spanish and wild gesticulations, we learnt of his profession to abstract painting and of the long suffering public art galleries of Argentina.

We lodged three nights in the Bahia Blanca Hostel, whose foyer included an installation of wire ants crawling from a sackcloth anthill over the reception desk, and a strange tableau of old sepia photos of the hotel façade arranged around a colour photograph of a young girl seated naked on a toilet.

One the second afternoon we drunk red wine and wrote letters and short stories, and then decided to return to Buenos Aires rather than hike in the Sierra Ventana. Our sleeper bus screamed across the Pampas through the night like its passage was a national emergency and by morning, we found ourselves in the vast terminus of Retiro, Buenos Aires.

¡Egg!

Fresh from Empañadas carne (think left over bolognase jaffles) and tartes limon merenge I resolved to write humourous and insightful paragraphs detailing sights, sounds, adventures and mishaps... It has taken me the first hour to work out how to sign in to this 'alien blog creature' (who would know I have a degree in media arts , although to be fair the instructions keep coming up in español) and now that I have finally gotten this far my mind has gone blank, rather like it keeps doing when after greeting someone with a friendly ¡Hola! they reply with a simple question such as ¿Como Estas? (How are you?) Either, I suffer instantaneous mental parallasis or on occasion, worse, when I utter the first Spanish word to come into my head.... gracias (thankyou; not so bad, confused and slightly stupid tourist), mañana(morning or tomorrow depending on the context but more likely tomorrow; boardering on the moronic) or worst of all something completely at random such as huevo (egg; insane, whereupon I hope my victims tend to assume that it must have another meaing in my language to spare them the indignity of being greeted ¡Egg! when they were only trying to be polite).
Indeed the fact of moving through place where locals and tourists alike speak another language has something of a disorientating effect on the mental capacities, when that language is so close to your own that you feel if you just concentrate long enough the clouds will clear, a rainbow will appear, the sun will shine down illuminating the elusive meaning and you will understand, it is positively maddening. This is not to say I dont understand anything, we have managed reasonably well despite a few misunderstandings which were more in keeping with the usual travellors mistakes (NB an Empañada with cheese and onion can in some circles be construed as an entire block of cheese, and im talking 380g here, melted, mixed with some slices of onion, wrapped in dough and fried. This is despite the english on the menu describing it as a type of meat pie with cheese and onion. Fried melted block of cheese more like! All sorts of Boosh-isms spring to mind) But yes we seem to get our point across fairly well most of the time and have managed bus tickets, partial refund for said bus tickets upon missing bus and new bus tickets as well as ordering food we want to eat, food we probably shouldnt have eaten and even communicated about more complicated scenarios like deposits for furniture, returns of empty bottles and the comparitive qualities of various compasses. So rest easier in your beds.... as long as I dont scare everyone off with shouts of ¡Pan! (bread!) or ¡martes! (Tuesday!) when they say hello, we should be fine.

The Atlantic

For the first time, I have now set eyes upon the Atlantic Ocean, where the vast grasslands of the Pampas (the beef-bowl of Argentina) recede into the sea by long stretches of undulating dunes and wide brown beaches of gritty shell and sand, alternately fringed by woodlands and the uneven concrete-centric development of tacky tourist towns. We have found ourselves a little bower of windblasted trees nestled behind the dunes in the former of these two landscapes, south of Villa Gesell, camping in our little blue tunnel beneath the whistling winds blowing fresh off the endlessness of the Atlantic. The beach stretches into an inscrutable haze, which offers little mystery to the beachcomber as to the landscape of the further reaches of the coast. Long walks on the beach certainly, but rather monotonous ones. The Argentine ego seems however to enjoy the additional space which these vast beaches offer, and one is eyed suspiciously if a towel is laid too close to their god-given place in the sun. Such an observation however would be confounded by Mar del Plata, further south, which Lonely Planet describes as one of the most densely packed beaches of the world, where private bathing sections with full amenities occupy premium beach space. As appealing as this spectacle may be, we intend to pass this by, heading further round Argentina´s eastward bulge into the Atlantic in search of some ´Nature for our Godholes´. To this end, we will pass through Bahia Blanca and Sierra del Ventana to find some hiking in Parque Provinciale Ernesto Tornquist, to summit the 1136m Cerro Ventana and walk through the Garganta del Diablo (´the Devil´s Throat Gorge´) in the next couple of days. All in preparation and anticipation of the Patagonia expedition, which looms large in our imaginations and intinerary as we fly to Ushuaia on the 7th. Then the real adventure will begin.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24084003@N02/sets/72157603975386483/

We are indeed on the otherside of the world. It is 4am, and I have just woken up, and in the pre-dawn delirium, I can only think about coffee and newsprint. Fortunately both are ubiquitous here in Buenos Aires, a city which depends upon both as a fuel for its seemingly inexhaustible urban ego. Despite the hour, I can hear from the dim confines of this internet cafe, musicians expounding the tango to the thick night, irregardless of the hour. We are so desperately disorientated by jetlag and the bizarre behaviours of this city that we have been sleeping til the late afternoon and condemning the stolen hours of the morning in the bitter abberations of our broken body clocks. I fell asleep in a cafe early this afternoon, only to be woken by an accordinista sitting down next to me in the old style wooden bar and wheezing out a plea for coins. With this rude shock I found myself wanting to break the espresso cup upon his bald pate, but the easy charm of this characteristic event soon subsumed such violence into the normal spirit of this, le Ciudad la Buenos Aires. Such temporal dislocation was only magnified by us locating our initial digs in San Telmo (in a gorgeous high ceiling room, wooden floors, in an old 19C house with views of the Plaza Dorrego and the classic façades of the oldtown- andfor $6AUD p.n.) opposite the trendiest and most noisome club in this ancient quarter of the city, with hip porteños in ripped CK jeans queueing for the unique blend of latin mixups of western pop (we even heard B52´s Love Shack at about 3am) and raging amidst the architectural noise til sun-up, inducing the kind of insomnia which could only inspire Lewis Carrol´s poetry. We are also the proud new owners of pharmaceutical grade orange silicone earplugs which may be jammed in aural canals for silencio. For all this noise however, irrepressible spirits will not be repressed, and nor will we. More to follow. - CHB

The Blog has begun.