Still AWOL

Am back in Puerto Natales for the day and tonight, to book my flight home and do a few bits and pieces. Have had a brilliant few days so far at the estancia. It´s not as remote as where I stayed in Argentina, but is still a good thirty to forty minutes from a road, and down a very muddy track, hence the jeep getting stuck. The puesto we´re staying in is far cosier than the ones we visited on Argentina, which were literally little huts made of sticks. This is more like a little house, with woodburning stove to cook on, and it heats up really easily so is actually quite cosy. The land is fantastic for riding - it really is horsey heaven - we´re in a lovely flat valley full of knee-high golden grass and little pockets of beech trees that at this time of year are red, yellow and cinnamon. All this is surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and yesterday we spent a day moving 200 or so sheep from one pasture to another, with stunning views of the Torres del Paine. Our destination was Javier´s puesto, where the sheep will be separated into those that are pure Merino and those that aren´t. We stopped for a quick meal and then rode the 7 or 8 km home all at a trot or canter to get back before dark - great practice for the endurance race. It´s so rare that you find somewhere where you can canter for a full five minutes without having to go through a gate, but the pastures here are huge.

Most of Monday was spent shoeing the horses that will be used in the race. The one that had been ear-marked for me was a four year old ´semi-tame´ Arab, which I said without even seeing would be to much for me to handle. I´d last about 2 minutes, if that. James rode her the other day and, whilst he didn´t ride nervously, was clearly very wary of her, and didn´t dare to get off to do any of the gates for fear of not managing to get back on again. It meant I had to do them all, which was good practice for me, but I was so slow and made a complete pig´s ear of most of them. Instead, I´ve been given another four-year old, so still only a baby, but with a completely different temperament, very gentle and calm. In general you have to be extremely careful around these horses - they are completely different from the horses at the previous estancia. They kick out at each other and are rough with each other as a herd. The shoeing was horrible to watch, as some had to be put in a pen in order to have their hind feet done. A leg would then be tied to a horizontal wooden post, but one horse in particular put up such a fight it ended up breaking out of the pen, snapping one of the poles, and by the time it had shoes on it´s hind legs were cut from where it had been kicking out, and it had worked itself into a real sweat. At home, it would probably have been given a sedative injection before shoeing, which I can now definitely see the advantage of.

Tuesday was beautiful weather, so we went up the valley to Hosteria Tres Pasos and the lake beyond. Was a really lovely ride of about 20km, lots of trotting and cantering, and pretty tiring. Was great to have sunshine though, and it was warm enough to fall asleep for 20 minutes while we stopped to rest the horses. Wednesday we had a knock on the door whilst munching porridge - it was the blacksmith who had got his van stuck in the mud the previous night, and had ended up walking back to the estancia in the dark for four hours. I offered to lend a hand, and was all decked out in wellies and waterproof trousers, but was surplus to requirements. Worked out quite well though, as it meant I spent a morning cooking - am loving cooking on the woodburner - it´s like an Aga, you can do slow cooking best.

So today is Friday, and James dropped me off in Natales this morning whilst he will stay in Punta Arenas tonight, and then pick up Ingallil, a Swedish lady who is joining us to train for the race. I was under instructions to buy a leg of lamb from Carne Natales, which is where some of Jose and Tamara, the ranch owners´, meat ends up. But I found out that unfortunately, you can´t just buy a leg, you have to buy a quarter of the lamb (which is huge) so I ended up in a complete pickle, as I bought a leg of mutton first of all, then realised what I´d done, and had to try and change it. So now have a quarter of a lamb and there´s no refrigerator at the puesto. So I´ve taken the executive decision to cook half of it tonight for J and his sister at my hostel in Natales (I´m back in the same one), plus anyone else who happens to be there. I really must try and learn more Spanish, as my lack of it is going to land me in trouble before long, and am feeling completely incompetent! Right, need to nip back and turn it over anyway, so watch this space for more news...

AW(O)L in Patagonia

Well, I´m now ready for my next adventure... Am back in Puerto Natales waiting to meet up with James, the English guy who led our mountain trip whilst on the ranch. He´s spending a few weeks getting a horse fit to compete in an endurance race that takes place in Torres del Paine national park at the beginning of May, and has invited me along to do the same. How can I say no!?! Work have very kindly agreed to let me come back a bit later than planned (thankyou, thankyou!), and it´s a fantastic opportunity - riding in beautiful, remote countryside, and the chance to do something that is well and truly off the ´gringo trail´. Unfortunately the last I heard James was heading out to the estancia on Wednesday, and was supposed to come back here to pick me up yesterday, but rumour has it that he hired a regular car rather than a 4x4 and is now stuck in mud somewhere. It doesn´t bode well, but at least makes me realise that I need to allow days rather than hours to get out to catch my flight home, unless I want to arrive at the airport on horseback.





So, it looks like I will be disappearing off into the wilds of Patagonia again, living in a puesto (small hut made out of sticks - no kidding), cooking on an open fire. I must be mad, but I love the idea...

Tierra del Fuego

On Monday I decided to get a bus down to Tierra del Fuego, el fin del mundo. It took fifteen hours from Puerto Natales, on a crowded bus that did the usual trick of blasting you with baking hot air for half an hour, followed by half an hour of wind chill via the air con. The perfect way to make yourself nice and ill. At some point during the journey the windows became so mud splattered that you couldn´t actually see out of them, so the fifteen hours dragged on even longer than it might have done otherwise. Unfortunately my plan to rely entirely on solar power for the duration of my trip has fallen flat on its face, given that the climate here is similar to the Lake District during winter. By pressing the solar panel right up against the window I was able to get just about enough light to ease the pain of the journey with some music from my Ipod. Hey, when else do you get the chance to listen to non-stop music?

So I arrived in Ushaia late at night, and checked into a nice hostel called Yakush, where one of the guys working there very kindly fixed me some food and gave me some beer - what a welcome. The next day who should show up but Marie! She´d left Natales a few days earlier than me, headed for Punta Arenas. Was great to see her, and we decided to head straight to the park, along with an Ozzie guy called Drouyn. We´d had enough of camping, and opted to stay in the refugio there instead, so she managed to sell her tent to Dougal and Jamie, the two poshest Essex boys I´ve ever met!

The park is huge, but only a small amount is open to the public, so we set off for a walk to Hito XXIV, a patrolled border point with Chile. It was a nice easy walk alongside Lago Roca, the banks of which are covered in the most beautiful, red leaved trees. It looks far more autumnal here than further north, and the air was really still, mist rising from the lake. The frontier is marked by nothing more than a sign that tells you you´re not allowed to cross any further, which of course, immediately makes you want to do the exact opposite.

We were the only people staying in the refugio - it had a lovely woodburning stove which we took turns to keep going throughout the night. Unfortunately it got so hot that the socks I was drying on top of it spontaneously combusted. Ok, that´s a bit of an exaggeration, but they now smell a bit odd and have holes burnt in them.

The second day we set off to walk to Cerro Guanaco, a look out point 1000 odd metres above sea level. It was a steep climb, and really slippery. It also involved peat bogs, and towards the top we were walking in six inches of snow. It got to the point where we could no longer see the path, and the weather was closing in with big snow flakes blowing horizontally at us, so we decided to turn back. It was annoying, as we were so near the top, but wouldn´t have been able to see anything anyway, and it was too cold to hang around and wait for the cloud to clear. We´d had good views of the lakes, and the Beagle Channel when the sky was clearer. You have to get a ferry across the Magellenes Strait (?) to get to Tierra del Fuego, as it´s a whole island that´s separated from the mainland, and I saw seals, and some little black and white dolphins on my way over. On the way back the sea was too rough for us to be allowed out of the bus, so it was a very surreal moment of being on a bus, on a boat, able to see huge waves out of the window, whilst having to listen to crazy 90´s house music and accompanying videos played at full volume. I think I paid more for the journey on the way home, as when I got to Ushaia I could find no trace of the company I´d travelled there with, so just booked with the only company I could find offering the journey. So think I was actually paying extra for the music, along with a couple of empanadas which mysteriously landed in my lap whilst I was asleep.

We had to change buses at Punta Arenas on the way home, and I had a very interesting conversation with a guy who was deaf and mute, which made me realise that perhaps it´s my sign language that´s been improving over the last couple of months rather than my Spanish.

Still in Puerto Natales

Well we never got our asado the other night... J bought the lamb, and lit the fire with a bit too much petrol, but then had so much to drink that he never got round to cooking it. No-one could track him down for ages and then I found him, virtually asleep on the toilet. By the time I got back to the hostel, poor Marie was in tears because she´d been terrorised by J´s over-exciteable puppy in the garden, she´d been standing on one leg trying to shake it off her other leg which it wouldn´t stop biting! So we ended up sticking the lamb in the oven, and when it was done J hacked it up in a frenzied attack with a giant knife that terrified us all, splattering fat all over the kitchen floor, walls, himself and us.

Marie left the next morning, and I´ve survived another couple of days so far. This town is quite surreal, as it´s really tiny, with packs of dogs roaming the streets. It´s been interesting staying here for a few days though, as I think normally you´d only stop here for a night or so before and after a trip to the park. Had a nice day yesterday - went for some lunch with the German girls, and then J had very kindly (guiltily) organised for us to go riding with a friend of his up to Mirador Dorotea, a lookout just out of town, from where you´ve got a great view of the bay, the mountains that are miles away in the park, and Argentina. It was the end of Michelle´s time here after working as a guide all season, so there was a big party last night - this time we managed to cook the lamb in the garden. Was a late night, so am sleepy today.

AG hostel, Puerto Natales

This hostel is hilarious! Have been enjoying a few days doing little more than getting up and making porridge, drinking coffee and chatting to the others that are staying here, nipping out into the cold to go to the internet place to update this blog, and then making a big soup for lunch, afternoon, dinner... It´s run by J, who used to live and work in the national park here, with the horses, and is filled with photos and drawings of horses, tack and headcollars, and other Baqueano bits and pieces. There´s a few of us staying here, from all over the place - a Chilean guy, Angel, who seems to live here and works as a social worker in a nearby village, Favio, a Columbian guy who is working in a local restaurant, Julia, a German girl who runs an arthouse cinema in Frankfurt, her friend Michelle, also German, who works as a guide in the national park, Marcus a Brazilian guy who is here on holiday, Saozig, a Tahitian girl also here on holiday, plus Marie and myself. Everyone´s been here at least a few days, it´s very cozy and fun in an unusual sort of way - we´ve just been doing very simple things like playing cards, cooking and so on.

This morning, J, who is also a musician, serenaded us all with his guitar whilst we had breakfast, and he´s been playing us CDs of his friends singing Patagonian folk songs this afternoon, and is cooking us an asado tonight. The house has polished wooden floorboards, and a strip of carpet running the length of the hall. J always wears shoes, but has little rectangles of sheepskin which he steps onto whenever he wants to leave the carpet, so we´ve been dancing/sliding around the floor on those to various types of music. It´s great staying somewhere where not everyone has the same first language, as it means we´re all defaulting to Spanish, which is good practice for me.

Torres del Paine

Well, we´re back, and we´re back early... Only managed five nights camping.



Day 1 - We set off from the bottom of the tail of the ´Q´, the third and final bus stop. Very windy but beautiful sunshine, and the walking is across lovely flat fields of long yellow grass, with the dramatic scenery of the mountains in the background. We were in high spirits, I think we´d worked ourselves up into a bit of a frenzy about camping for 8 nights - a result of staying at the Erratic Rock hostel for a couple of nights, where everyone is setting off on a similar adventure, and is up until one in the morning packing their bags. The owner of the hostel, Rustyn, does a brilliant and very informative talk every afternoon at 3pm, part of which is about the importance of wrapping absolutely everything in your rucksack in plastic bags, preferably of the Ziplock variety. It´s a great plave to be before setting out, as they give you lots of good advice, but at the end of the day there´s a lot of hype surrounding what is, essentially, a walk in the park, along well-marked trails, and a walk you´ll be doing along with hundreds of other people - not quite the wilderness experience I´d been hoping for. The first day we were only meant to be doing 7 or 8km, as our bags were at their heaviest, with tent, sleeping bags, and nine days worth of food. (I got a bit carried away in the dried fruit shop in Puerto Natales and ended up buying about 2 kilos of the stuff!) However, this only took a couple of hours, so we decided to take advantage of the good weather and press on to the next campsite, Paine Grande. this was a huge campsite, and a bit of a shock after having only seen about three people on the tail of the ´Q´. There was a giant refugio, the size of a hotel, and for the campers a little octagonal hut with glass windows where you could cook, and even three gas rings you could use if needs be. However, it was jam-packed with people, a lot of whom I was hoping we´d seen the last of at the hostel! Not because I didn´t want to bump into them again, but more that for me, the whole point of being self-sufficient for 9 days is that you´re leaving the outside world behind for a bit. Anyway, slept reasonably well - I hired a sleeping bag from the hostel, which although it was bulky did the job a lot better than my tiny one, which is about as much use as a crisp packet in the cold.



Day 2 - We woke up to rain and set off for Campamento Italiano, although again we´d decided to try and push on to the next site, Los Cuernos, in order to make day 3 a bit shorter. Sadly, the weather meant that Valle de Frances, which is normally one of the highlights, was in pretty thick cloud, so rather than go all the way to the top, we dumped our bags at the bottom and walked up only an hour or so beore heading back down. It was still pretty impressive - a huge waterfall, glaciers, snow-covered mountains, all looking like a scene from Lord of the Rings. By the time we got to the campsite we were pretty wet, the pitches were wet, and the tent was still wet from the morning. Luckily, there was again a big room with a woodburning stove that the soggy campers could pile into, although you weren´t allowed to cook in this one, so everyone still had to get wet in order to eat. Inside, I kept on all my waterproof stuff in an attempt to dry it out, and tried to anaesthatise myself with some large doses of red wine. The atmosphere was like being in a bar, and was good fun as everyone was so relieved to have somewhere warm and dry to sit, even though it smelled of wet dog. Chucking out time was about 10pm, when someone came in and announced that peoples´ tents were quite literally blowing away. So there was a mass exodus as everyone ran outside, desperately hoping that they weren´t one of the unlucky ones. A few days later we met up with ´Mr Northface´, an American guy we´d met at Fitzroy, whose tent we´d all been admiring for how tiny it packed away - apparently he couldn´t even find his tent that night, had ended up bundling in with Tige, (an Irish guy whose name I can´t remember how to spell), and had found his tent the next morning, hanging in a tree! I woke up in the morning to find that a mouse had eaten its way into my rucksack and made a start on my nougat - a cartoon-like corner had been nibbled away.

Day 3 - Was nothing but misery... It rained all day, and at one point I was having to force myself to keep walking, on the basis that moving people don´t get hypothermia. We walked across one boggy valley and the wind was like ice. We´d been tramping through ankle-deep mud, and both of my boots were full of cold water. I ended up cursing lots, stamping my feet like a five-year old, and stabbing the ground with my walking poles - I was furious with myself and asking what on earth had possessed me to think that setting off for a trek carrying the weight of a four year old on my back would be good fun. We made it to Chileno, and the refugio was shut as it´s the end of the season, so we huddled with some others under the porch, and cooked some cuppa soup. You know things are bad when a chicken cuppa soup turns out to be the best thing about your day. Poor Marie didn´t even have a waterproof jacket, despite the fact that her Mum works at Millets in Manchester! She was following Rustyn´s advice (from Erratic Rock) - no matter what the weather does, just let your ´stink uniform´ (the same clothes you wear for 9 days on the trot) get wet. She´d obviously missed the bit where he said that if it rained for more than ten minutes you were allowed to put your Gortex on over the top. I stood under a tree and let a group of about ten people walking in the opposite direction, ie. homeward bound, pass by, smiling cheerfully and saying ´hola´in my best Spanish as though I was having the best holiday ever, and then dissolved into tears after the last one had gone by. Fortunately myself and Marie seemed to have a similar sense of humour - the worse things got, the more we laughed - there were actually points when I would be lying in my sleeping bag rigid with cold during the early hours of the morning, and would just crack up laughing at the sheer idiocy of what we were doing in the name of fun. However, after our cuppa soup on day 3, we both decided we´d had enough and just wanted to go home. So we set off in the direction of the park entrance and walked for about five minutes before deciding we were being complete wimps, and doing a U-turn and setting off in the opposite direction, which the others who were still sheltering under the porch found intriguing. So that night we camped at Campamento Torres, the site at the base of the legendary Los Torres. It was absolutely sopping wet - you literally had to pick which puddle to pitch the tent in. There was a 3-sided shack with a mud floor to cook in. However, I felt lucky compared to some people, who were completely unprepared for spending the night halfway up a mountain - there was a couple who didn´t have sleeping mats or a cooking stove who must have been freezing during the night. One young guy from County Durham had carried yeast and flour up the mounatin with him so that he could make himself bread! I asked him how he was going to cook it, and he reckoned he could do it the way you do bagels (apparently boiled first then lightly panfried!) Needless to say, this is pretty impossible on a camping stove, which he didn´t have anyway, but he managed to persuade the refugios to let him use their ovens! All I could think about was cooking the instant mashed potato as quickly as possible and getting into my sleeping bag before I got any colder. I did this and must have pretty much passed out, as I only found out in the morning that cheeky Marie had managed to talk her way into the park ranger´s hut where she spent the evening by the stove drinking mulled wine! Grrrr....

Day 4 - Anyway, there was no way we were going to follow Rustyn´s advice about getting up before sunrise and climbing the final hour or so up to the Torres to see the sun light them up all red and pink like it does on the postcards (hey, that´s what Photoshop´s for!) Instead, we stuck our noses out of the tent at about 8am, saw to our horror/delight that it was snowing, and went back to sleep for a bit. When we got up, it really was so cold you just had to move in order to have any chance of getting warm, so we put the tent down, guzzled down some porridge, and set off up to Los Torres. It was great walking without the bags weighing us down, and despite thick cloud and snow we managed to see the infamous pilllars of rock, which felt like an achievement in itself. So we were on good form heading back down to Hosteria Las Torres, I was mainly thinking of the Irish coffee I was going to celebrate with once I arrived. Once we made it there, we´d have the choice of going home on the 7pm bus, or staying on to do a bit more. Of course, we decided to stay on - gluttons for punishment. I never did get my Irish coffee, but had to celebrate with a creamy coffee, and a huge measure of whisky instead, which was one of those ´measures´ where they just pour, and pour, and keep pouring. Marie had gone to sort out her feet, which were starting by now to show signs of the beginnings of trenchfoot! When she came and found me 20 minutes later I was bright red with alcohol and windburn, and giggling like a lunatic. This was the only campsite where you could light a fire, so we made the most of it. There was also the luxury of hot water to wash the pot in, so at the end of the night we filled our metal drinking bottles and used them as hot water bottles - a real treat.

Day 5 - We caught the bus down to the second bus stop in order to get the catamaran over the lake, and hike up to Refugio Grey so that we could see the glacier there. Unfortunately, we were running a bit late and ended up having to run across the field with our bags to get to the bus stop in time, whilst clutching the ´magic porridge pot´ - realising what the time was we´d just stuck the lid on it and done a runner, so ended up eating it on the bus. The walk up to Grey is one of the nicest we did, and we were really lucky to get some sunshine, and clear skies, which meant great views of the glacier and beyond. The campsite at Grey was right by a lake with huge chunks of ice that had broken off the glacier floating in it, and was a lot less busy than most. Again, it had a nice cosy room where you could hang out and have a beer. We met a cheeky English couple who basically asked us to cook porridge for them in the morning - they´d carried oats up the mountain, but had no means of cooking them. It was a really chilly campsite, despite being dry, so I had to put all my normal clothes back on over the top of my thermals, and actually slept really well.

Day 6 - We set off back down the mountain in the morning, to get the 12.30 catamaran back, but ended up kicking ourselves as the day turned out to be stunning - really clear and sunny - and we wished we´d kept going and stayed out another night which would have meant we could have seen the glacier from above, and also seen beyond to the Southern Continental Ice Field. It was a shame, but at the same time, I was ready to call it a day - five nights sleeping on cold hard ground means you wake up aching - and nice to leave feeling that you´d like to come back one day. We got amazing views of the mountains from the boat, and again from the bus back to Puerto Natales. All in all, a memorable trip! When we arrived back in Natales, we got off the bus opposite Erratic Rock, and who should come running out of the talk there but Rebecca from El Chalten! Was great to see her and Paddy, and we went for some food with them - they were heading off to the park the next day, and then to get the Navimag.

So today, have done very little - some laundry, some internet and so on. We´re staying at a really nice chilled out hostel called AG, round the corner from Erratic Rock, who didn´t have room for us as we´d come back early. Has worked out well though, as Erratic Rock was lovely and cosy and had nice cats to cuddle, but very intense and full of exciteable people getting ready to go off on their adventures in the park, whereas here has the Chilean equivalent of Magic FM playing on the radio...

Puerto Natales

Well, it´s been a busy few days. After meeting up with Paddy and Rebecca on the fun bus, (he from Manchester, she from Perth), and Marie (also from Manchester), the four of us formed the Muppet Team and set off to explore the National Park at El Chalten. We camped out for two nights, the first at Poincenot, at Los Tres, from which you can walk up to the glacier and lake directly below Fitzroy Massif. There´s actually two lakes up there, the second being a beautiful bright blue laguna that looked really deep. We were so lucky with the weather - it was incredibly windy climbing up there, you sometimes had to virtually sit on the ground and hug a rock, but lovely sunshine. It was even windier when we got down, but it calmed down just before sunset, and the remaining clouds cleared to give us a perfect view of the almighty rock! It put on quite a show - beautiful clouds that swirled around the peaks like puffs of smoke, and the sky glowed orange and pink as the sun went down.


We got up the next morning, and walked to the third of the Tres Lagos, at Piedras Blancas. There was another glacier there, a blue one, and we had to scrabble over huge boulders to get a view of the lake. It was only an hour or so each way, but after that we had to take the tent down and walk on to the next campsite at Agostini, at Lago Torre. Didn´t sleep very well at this one, and Paddy and Rebecca´s gas had run out, so we ate biscuits and olives for dinner, and soaked some oats in water overnight to have for breakfast. Not great, but an important lesson to learn! Walked along the side of the lake to a huge glacier in the morning, before packing up camp and heading back to El Chalten. Slept really badly again even in my nice comfy hostel bed, as it was ridiculously windy (again), and the four of us were up again first thing to get a bus to El Calafate.

Arrived there yesterday lunchtime, and went to see the Perito Merino glacier in the afternoon. It was an expensive tourist trap, but very impressive all the same. Think I was slightly hysterical with tiredness though, as I spent a lot of time just giggling like a lunatic at nothing in particular. there were a lot of very rich-looking tourists there, all taking the exact same shot of each other with the glacier in the background. I eventually succumbed to the Disneyland atmosphere, and treated myself to a very expensive chocolate brownie and an Irish coffee, which calmed me down a bit! We all stayed in a lovely hospedaje near the bus station, and then myself and Marie got a bus to Puerto Natales this morning and are now at the Erratic Rock hostel, and Paddy and Rebecca are getting a bus down to Ushaia this afternoon. I may manage to meet up with them agan later, as they´re heading here before getting the Navimag (big boat) to Puerto Montt.

So, am back in Chile again, and giving myself what feels like a hard-earned rest after a busy few days. Will spend tomorrow doing a bit of washing, and getting equipment and food sorted out for doing some hiking in Torres del Paine national park on Thursday. Myself and Marie are thinking of doing the whole circuit, or the ´Q´, in addition to the well-trodden ´W´, so will be a long trip - I think it´s 8 or 9 nights camping out, along with carrying all our gear, so imagine it will be a tough few days. An American girl has also asked to join us, so will be interesting to see how the new team works out. Half of me wishes I was doing it on my own, partly for the feeling of being totally self-reliant, but I´m hoping we´ll have fun, not all fall out with each other, and have an enjoyable experience all round. Fingers crossed... (After going out for some food with the American girl that night, she failed to show up in the morning ready to go to the park, and we later heard from someone else staying at her hostel that she´d been spotted getting on a bus to Ushaia!)