Torres del Paine - Patagonia 2014

Aussies!! On the way to our hotel in Punta Arenas from the ship, we travelled with 2 other couples who turned out to be Aussies also going to Torres del Paine and then El Calafate.  We introduced ourselves; learned one couple is from Darwin (Di & Stewart) and the other from Echuca (Maureen & Dick).  Will be good to travel with some like-minded people.

Our brief time in Punta Arenas was spent walking its streets past very beautiful historical buildings and the back blocks.  We also enjoyed a Chilean speciality… the Completo or Chilean hotdog.

view over Punta Arenas

 A Completo comprises the bun, layer of chopped tomato, sauerkraut, sausage, mashed avocado and creamy mayonnaise on top, served on a narrow plate the width of the bun and a knife.  It sounds a little weird but it actually tasted good, especially when you’re trying it in a packed Chilean ‘hamburger joint’.

Next morning we joined our new travel companions for the 7 hr. road trip to Torres del Paine National Park, including a lunch stop at a sheep ranch where we were served more tender lamb, Chilean wine and other veggies.  Other tourists joined us at our table, 2 girls and a couple from Brazil and 2 video makers from Chile.  The conversation was fascinating, despite the mixture of languages and accents.

As our road journey progressed, we were all waiting to see our first glimpse of the Paine Massif, especially the Torres del Paine, sometimes called ‘The 3 Spires’ which is what the park gets its name from. With a setting sun, we did get a first tempting but cloud surrounded view of ‘The Spires’.

clouds teasing us with views of The Torres

Our hotel, Las Torres, is beautifully located near the base of one section of the massif with tantalising glimpses of ‘The Spires’ peaking out from behind it and the massif made the hotel look very small and insignificant indeed.  The hotel was very comfortable and located on the only remaining private land within the park’s boundaries.

hotel is little white strip bottom left of massif

Our alarm went of at 7am and we peered out our window, hoping we were in luck with the weather, which has a reputation for being extremely changeable and fierce at times.  It was still very dark but we could make out that it wasn’t raining or blowing a gale, but there was some cloud in the sky.

Why were we awake at this hour, simple, we wanted to try and capture the sunrise and its impact on ‘The Spires’.  With cameras and tripod we headed out with a quick stop at Reception.  We wanted to know about pumas (mountain lion type cats) being in the area as heard about during dinner.  When asked about pumas, the guy behind the counter, shrugged his shoulders, told us he knew nothing and then simply finished with… “good luck!”.

So off we went, walking off into the darkness, every little sound catching our attention, particularly one, eyes peering into the darkness catching sight of a man on horseback that loomed out of the greying sky and passed us.  After 30 mins walking, we found a place we thought would give us the best view we could get and simply waited for the sun to join us.

The effort and wait was worth it, first because of the great sunrise we got behind us and then as the sun made its presence felt, the change in colour which appeared in front of us on two of ‘The Spires’ themselves, the third unfortunately hidden from us.  

The whole sunrise inspired colour impact lasted a mere 3-4 minutes before the magnificent massif turned its natural light grey.  We count ourselves very lucky to have seen it based on what guides constantly told us about the weather.

By the way, we also learned over breakfast from our travelling companions, that the specific noise we heard on our walk out into the darkness was from a grey fox and it is a noise they make when there are puma around.

Torres del Paine is known to the Chileans at least, as the 8^th Wonder of the World.  A few facts first, it was created in 1959, has a surface area of 227,298 hectares and averages 155,000 visitors a year.  We engaged in 2 full days of wandering throughout the majority of the park by car, boat and foot.  We got close to the granite spires of Torres del Paine, the Cuemos del Paine, a massif of uniquely contrasting (grey & black) sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and the tallest peak of Cerro Paine Grande at 3,050 metres. 

The rustic boat ride, including a zodiac transfer from shore, took us across the Grey Lake and very close across the 3 faces of Grey Glacier, which happens to have some of the deepest blue ice we have ever seen.  

Cara Cara getting stuck in

There were also numerous animals in this park, some of them eating and some being eaten.

Torres del Paine is yet another place requiring adjectives to try and describe it.  Words like primitive, raw, huge, jagged, breathtaking, demanding and panoramic come to mind because of the profound impact the massif or the numerous lakes has on you, no mater from which location within the park you are observing it.  It also seduces you with multiple and unexpected scenes of serenity.

You will notice there are quite a few panoramic photos in the link attached below because this place naturally inspires this style of photography.

For more photos of Torres del Paine just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of - Torres del Paine 2014

As a humorous aside, we did have a very funny experience one night over dinner with our new Aussie travelling friends.  A film crew from Channel Ten (Places We Go – Saturday afternoons) doing a feature on Chile and was seated at the table next to us.  We had noticed them doing filming the day before and again as we walked in for dinner.

Our dinner was progressing well along with a few local cocktails (Pisco & Calafate Sours) and we again noticed we were being filmed from a distance enjoying ourselves.  A little later when the laughter at our table had begun to increase, a waiter came up to us and asked if we would mind reducing our noise a little.  Reason, the Aussie front man was interviewing the owner of the Hotel right behind us.

Well then the fun really began and whilst we did reduce our noise, we started trying to make the cameraman laugh, gave the interviewer wind up signals out of camera shot, all of which cause our waiter to retreat to the furthest wall from us and crack up with stifled laughter.  With his interview over, the front man thanked us and told us he also found the whole thing very amusing.  Their show goes to air supposedly sometime in June this year.

Torres del Paine really is a place of striking place of raw natural beauty!

Southern Patagonia - Argentina to Chile- Sailing 2014

With the Captains greeting and safety drill briefings out of the way, the MV Stella Australis departed Ushuaia and back south down the Beagle Channel towards the Drake Passage, our destination being the famous Cape Horn.

The ship and our cabin is very comfortable, including large multiple lounge areas complimented by large sink into leather lounges and a dedicated dining room.  We will be on board for 3 nights.

The overnight journey was very smooth as was the soft voice over the intercom waking us up at 6:30am requesting us to be fully dressed, including life jackets, in the briefing room by 7am.

The plan was to land by zodiacs on Cape Horn itself!

The ship manoeuvred into a small bay about 300 mtrs from the landing spot below the 160 stairs we would need to climb in order to reach the lighthouse constantly warning all ships of the dangers of ‘The Horn’. 

The 160 steps and lost seaman memorial above them

Another briefing the night before on Cape Horn shared there is believed to be almost 10,000 sailors who have met their ends whilst trying to ‘round the Horn’ in the days of sail.  Sometimes it has taken some sailing ships due to very bad weather, almost 3 months, just to get around this spot.

Cape Horn and lighthouse

So we waited and waited and waited, all 83 passengers on board keen to actually step foot on Cape Horn and meet the Chilean family of 3 and a dog, ensuring the lighthouse is always working.

Unfortunately due to the prevailing winds and rough seas, the Captain took the decision that safe zodiac landings were not possible.  Damm!  So the ship backed away from this little bay and moved back out to sea, despondent passengers returning to their cabins to stow all their gear.

The ship had approached Cape Horn from the north side and would normally return back again into Patagonia via the same route but the Captain made another decision and one that does not usually occur as we found later.

He headed south briefly and we actually ‘rounded the Horn’!

the proof!

Fantastic… as this is an opportunity that doesn’t happen very often anymore once the Panama Canal opened.  So our first breakfast on board was enjoyed in the knowledge of what had just occurred.

Our ship was now heading back north and past Ushuaia, bound for the narrower waterways of southern Patagonia and hopefully, weather dependant, zodiac landings ashore.  The MV Australis is a very comfortable way to go sailing around these waters and the service aboard is excellent.

So during our trip over the next few days, apart from enjoying great food, Calafate Sours and multiple educational briefings, we made 3 zodiac landings at:

Wulaia Bay – here we visited a site Charles Darwin also spent time in, studying the local aborigines known as the Yaghan who were not well treated once the Europeans arrived.  We chose to climb a small mountain to get great views of the bay.  Joining us on this climb was a very sprightly 80 yr. old call Anne, quite inspirational, considering how wet and slippery the track was.

Aguila Glacier – with the ship anchored in a fairly narrow channel with small pieces of floating ice in it, surrounded by tall snow capped mountains.  Once ashore we walked the shoreline whilst light rain and mist kept us company, following an inlet to the foot of the glacier.  The glacier whilst quite small had the classic blue colour scattered within its jagged face.  Some of the plants along the shoreline also looked like an assortment miniature bonsai.

Magdalena Island – Magellanic penguin time again after a pre-sunrise landing and here there were thousands of penguins to enjoy either lining their burrows with plant matter, squabbling with each other or getting ready to head to sea whilst keep a wary eye open for the lion seals from a nearby island.  The sunrise over the island helped finish off the MV Australis experience for us.

early landing ashore

Having enjoyed a very comfortable trip and associated experiences over the last few days, our ship, with the help of 2 small tugs, moored itself for our departure in Punta Arenas, Chile.  The ship and its staff were very good, but it was now time to spend time on land again and continue our wander further north to Torres del Paine.

For more photos of Sailing Southern Patagonia just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of - Sailing Southern Patagonia 2014

Ushuaia - Argentina 2014

As described in an earlier post, Ushuaia, the little city right down at the bottom of Sth America is also known as the ‘end of the world’.  For the geographically inclined of you, Ushuaia is further south than New Zealand.

It’s a port city handling containers and tourists like us wanting to either visit Patagonia or Antarctica with one longish main street catering for tourists wanting to shop and a seemingly disproportionate number and range of eating places.

We arrived back into Ushuaia from Antarctica to an acrid smell and barricades across numerous streets, forcing the bus back to our hotel to perform a few interesting manoeuvres to get us there. 

Public service employed locals were striking and the acrid smell was from burning of car tyres stacked at numerous locations in the middle of blockaded roads.

Cat & Cal only had one night in Ushuaia, so we said our goodbyes at a fabulous little restaurant that night before their 12 hr bus journey northwards early next morning.  It had been truly delightful to travel and share the experience with them.

We had decided to rent a car for a day to do some exploring in our own time.  It was a Sunday and all were closed except one.  Ever tried to rent a car from someone who only speaks Spanish and we only speak English.  He was as amused as we were.

We have driven on the opposite side of the road before but now we were not only confronted by every sign being in Spanish, we were also trying to dodge many of the Argentinian drivers who did seem to be able to read the same signs either.

First destination was the Tierra del Fuego National Park with its large mountains, beech forests, lichens and other ‘parasitic’ plants growing on host trees.  

It was nice to be able to take our time and go where we wanted to.  After leaving the park and navigating our way back and through Ushuaia, we headed north towards Rio Grande.

Only a few kms out of town, we started noticing the Polica and as we progressed further, more and more Policia grouped on the side of the road.  Maybe the strike from yesterday had gone sour.  A few more kms up the road provided an answer to all the Policia presence when politely signalled to stop.

Out of the bushes on one side of this main road screamed a dirt bike, crossed in front of us and disappeared into trees on the other side!  Soon afterwards came another followed by a quad bike.  The Polica standing in front of us then waved us to proceed.  Further on we were not only stopped many more time but were also confronted by hundreds of cars coming towards us, flags out of windows, emergency lights flashing, all racing to the next vantage point to watch their favourite racer go by. 

We were in the midst of a major Argentinian motor bike rally!

The further north we went, the more dense the oncoming fans, Policia and racing bikes became and the slower we travelled.  Eventually we were constantly simply crawling down the road, so we stopped at a great viewing location of not just the racers and fans but also Lake Fagamo.

Driving with the flow of fans back towards Ushuaia was even more interesting.   They were constantly trying to race ahead and get to another point to stop and watch, so double lines on roads meant nothing.  It was ‘normal’ for 3 or 4 cars to simply pull out and pass our slow moving queue and if confronted by oncoming vehicles, pull over onto the dirt verge on the opposite side of the road, still moving whilst letting the oncoming cars pass between us.  

Then some would pull back onto our side, force their way through the queue onto the right hand dirt verge, then scream off along it before sliding to a halt and all the occupants scrambling out and running to watch a bike hurtle out of a bush or up the side of a nearby mountain.

The following morning we had booked a small tour to Penguin Island, so found ourselves in a little bus with about 18 others on a windy dirt road heading for a boat.  This trip took about 90 mins with a few scenery stops and talks about the local aboriginal people of whom now number just one.

The boat  and 10 minute ride to the island departed from what was once a farm with numerous picturesque old buildings and some of the best ‘loos with a view’ that we have ever seen.  

the loos with views

We were greeted by very noisy Gentoo and Magellanic penguins along with sole remaining King penguin.  The other King penguins had already gone to sea for winter.

 

one King amongst the Gentoo penguins

On the trip back in the bus, we learned more about Argentina from an American working in Beunos Aires.  She told of the impact of an inflation rate currently running at approx. 30% on the people.  Many of them are trying to get their hands on American $’s because it holds its value better than their own currency.  If they can’t get access to $US they spend whatever they earn as soon as they get it, hence the reason a lot of people seemingly eating out.  This also explained why we could exchange $US for about 30% better than the official cash rate.

We could not leave Ushuaia without trying one of the Argentinian bbq’s so on our last night, joined by 2 fellow Antarctic travellers, we enjoyed an all you can eat buffet for about $25 pp.  Let us simply say that the meat was very succulent and there was a lot of it.

Ushuaia was founded mainly on a convict and maritime past, the worse Argentinian convicts being sent to Ushuaia in a similar fashion as Port Arthur in Tasmania.  The conditions were very harsh from what we saw in their museums.

We found the people of Ushuaia to be very reserved and almost dour initially, but once we invested the time and some humour with them, they soon loosened up releasing their own form of humour and warmth.

For more photos of Ushuaia just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of - Ushuaia 2014

Antarctica 2014

Antarctica

We arrived in Ushuaia, regarded as the most southern city in the world, spent a night and then boarded our ship, the MV Expedition.  With life vest and boat drills out of the way, we departed port gliding our way down a very smooth Beagle Channel bound for the infamous Drake Passage. 

Ours is the red one 

As we sailed south, we all had stories from people who had just arrived back from Antarctica on the same ship, of 8+ mtr seas across the Drake and many days unable to use the zodiacs due to very bad weather.  We all wondered what our turn was going to be like.

Well our 2 day crossing of the Drake Passage was not too bad, 4-5 mtr seas and the occasional larger wave to keep everyone on their toes trying to balance.  The seas however were not coming from one direction, rather it felt like we were in a top loading washing machine and this meant few people in the dining room for meals.  Rob with the help of drugs, handled it really well.

So how do we describe what happened and what we saw from the first time we saw the sun rising over the Antarctic Peninsula until our floating home turned north to take us back across the Drake?

First Antarctic Peninsula sunrise

Let’s try with amazing, vast, alive, astounding, staggering, serene, stunning, breathtaking, exciting, violent, demanding, changing, towering, surprising, seductive… and it can simply could go on and on and on!

We were blessed with very kind weather including some clear blue skies, wonderful sunrises & sunsets.  There were some days when snow fell lightly and a day of a snow blizzard, but it did not deter us from any activity.

Cat & Cal renewed their vows on the mainland of Antarctica at Neko Harbour with Rob as celebrant and penguins as their guests, before sliding down the side of a hill, their Nepalese pray flags held high.

But the rest of that story is for them to tell.

So every day many of us climbed into zodiacs to go exploring, whilst others kayaked in amongst the ice, leopard seals and humpback or minke whales.  Half the ship decided to go camping on the ice overnight, with a colony of very inquisitive penguins keeping them company.

Every day was different and we were kept very active.  We got up close with different species of penguins, seals and whales.  We cruised around icebergs, walked on sea ice and slid down hills covered with fresh snow.  Visited on old British but closed research hut, and enjoyed the hospitality of an active Ukrainian research facility including their home made hooch… very warming!

enjoying hooch at Vernandsky Station

We even managed to visit and explore an island that no expedition ship has ever visited before (Mist Island) and this made everyone, including the ships’ Captain very excited because it was simply stunning.

We achieved and then enthusiastically celebrated our crossing of the Antarctic Circle, and for many of us when we stepped onto the mainland of Antarctica, was to achieve our ‘7 Continents’ goal.

well can you find us...

The landscape also changed every day from towering mountains covered by snow and ice, to sailing the ship into the caldera of a still active volcano called Deception Island. 

It was here that we were surrounded by landscape which looks black & white and it was here that some of us took the ‘polar plunge’ in 0 deg C water during a snow blizzard, then warmed our hands in the volcanic warmed water a few centimetres below surface of the beach near the freezing waters edge.  Having taken the plunge, I am in no hurry to do it again but the neat rums on the ship sure helped!

well here goes nothing

the grimace - the plunge and horizontal snow coming straight for the face

They say ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, so with this in mind, we hope our pictures can describe in their own way what we experienced and felt during our time down in Antarctica and crossing the Drake.

There are multiple categories to choose from, so just pick and click on a link you are interested in and a new webpage will open up for you then just click 'Slideshow' and hopefully it will all work.

1 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Ice in Antarctica 2014

2- CLICK HERE for more photos of Penguins in Antarctica 2014

3 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Seals in Antarctica 2014

4- CLICK HERE for more photos of Birds in Antarctica 2014

5 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Whales in Antarctica 2014

6 - CLICK HERE for more photos of Scenery in Antarctica 2014

We were a ship of 130 people of all ages including an 82 yr old, everyone keen to experience something truly amazing and for the 12 days we were travelling together we were one large happy ‘family’, thanks to what Antarctica immersed us all in.

Would like to close with giving all due credit to G Adventures for a truly stunning experience…  our sincere thanks.

Buenos Aires - Argentina 2014

Buenos Aires

So after about 26+ hrs of travelling we found ourselves at 6pm in our Hotel A&B, very centrally located in this large city of 20+ M people.  With check in out of the way, was time for a stroll and stretch legs before crashing.  Our little walk was more like a game of dodgeball, in part due to our condition plus the frenetic nature and volume of pedestrians and traffic.  The Argentineans are a little like Aussies with their jay walking by the way.

The city certainly has a European feel to it, with many wide tree lined streets, narrow streets with older style apartment buildings crammed side by side and mixes of old and art nouveau architecture everywhere.  There are also modern sections to this the city, but we spent most of our time in the older parts of town.

The city is not a clean one with plenty of paper rubbish to be seen as well as numerous footpaths with large chunks missing from leaving potholes and chunks of concrete to avoid.

So the city has the feel of one that evolved and grew through a long period of prosperity, then through recent decades in decline but is now seems to be going through a period of restoration and renewal.

The people are very friendly and warm both in how they greet each other with very European kisses on both cheeks, including a policewoman on her beat when seeing familiar locals. 

They are also helpful people as we discovered whilst walking to see the balcony Eva Peron stood on, when they assisted us in the removal of ‘mierda’ (practicing our Spanish) after we presume a pigeon had deposited a seriously large amounts of its mierda on both of us.

When we say ‘seriously’… well it felt like we were extras in a remake of The Exorcist… it was splattered on various parts of us and we’re still finding small remnants!

A few locals appeared with tissues and bottles of water, even helping to wipe some of the foul smelling mierda off us.  We did not know that so much mierda could be fired from a relatively small bird.

Parts of the city like La Boca, where many buildings are made out of corrugated iron, the locals have painted them in multiple bright colours, conveying the sense of pride and energy the people have of their city.  La Boca has a great sense of fun and enterprise with very sensuous looking couples dancing the Tango with passion whilst being watched by people,  including us, enjoying the local beer.

This sense of pride was also observed in the many monuments and statues throughout the city but we also observed this pride when walking back to our hotel one night after a day of exploring the city via the hop on/off bus.

We were almost blocked by a small crowed of people on the footpath watching someone beautifully singing ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’.  This was a crowd of locals on their way home, some with shopping or suitcases in their hands, halted on their way en-masse by their song.

Buenos Aires is a city that requires time to be explored as we learned, when finding little cafes in the most interesting little lanes but unfortunately we had run out of time to do this city enough justice.

Plan for Antarctica 2014

Time to head south...

Well very early tomorrow its time to head south thanks to our son and daughter in law (Cat & Cal) who, having just got married, are planning to have '7 Weddings in 7 Continents' over the next 6 months... gotta love Gen Ys don't you.

Two of those continents are Antarctica and South America, so when they were sharing their Antarctica travel plans we asked if they would mind us joining them on this leg of their trip as it was also on our bucket list.  An enthusiastic "yes" simply left us all searching for a tour to get us there.

Part of the challenge in making our plans were 2 key factors:

1. Cat & Cal had to complete their African adventure first which meant they would not get to Buenos Aires until early March and...
2. We all wanted to try and cross the Antarctic Circle.

We found a company who could meet both key dates and our quest for the Antarctic Circle so now the plan has us meeting Cat & Cal in Buenos Aires on 8th March and next day flying down to the most southern town in the world... Ushuaia.

We're having a few extra days in Buenos Aires before Cat & Cal arrive to enjoy what this city has to offer including the tango and their love of meat!

We board our ship, M/S Expedition on 9th March and head down on a 2 day or 640 Km crossing of Drakes Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula and 8-9 days of exploring and absorbing that which is Antarctica.

After returning back to Ushuaia we leave Cat & Cal and head off throughout Patagonia for almost 2 weeks before briefly meeting them again to collect an extra bag to bring back to Australia for them.

They will head off to other parts of Sth America and we will have 3 days in Santiago (Chile) before heading back to Australia.

So roughly, our destinations during this trip looks something like...

As we wander around, we will be using a GPS logger thingy, which, if we can work it properly, will log exactly where we and the ships, buses or whatever are every 5-10 seconds.  The location log data can be imported and displayed using Google Earth, so we will attempt in future posts to update where we have been.  Well we will try to anyway.

Concerning photos, yes we will be taking a lot i suspect but we will be including only a few in each post but should, dependant on access to the internet, include links to another site so you can see a few more from each prime location.

Well that's about it for now... off we go and we both hope the crossing of Drakes Passage to Antarctica is uneventful and not like this one!

You Tube - Crossing the Drake Passage