For the last four days I´ve been whiling away my time in El Calafate on the shores of Lago Argentino, staying at Hostal America del Sur which occupies a prime spot overlooking the town and the lake. Like Chalten, El Calafate is a tourist town set up to extort money from helpless foreigners who want to go and see the Perito Moreno glacier nearby. Despite the mock alpine chalets and habitual outdoor sport shops, it has a great feeling of openess and acts as a springboard for National Park Los Glaciares and other spectacular countryside.
On the first night in the hostel, I met a Danish guy who said that he was bored of his home country and couldn`t wait to escape. While the rest of the Scandinavian countries were blessed with mountain ranges and lakes, Denmark had nothing. The only mitigating factor is the Danish women, and even then, he compared them unfavourably with the Brazilian girls he had seen in Rio during "carnival". Apparently girls in Denmark "dont know how to flaunt their femininity".
America del Sur is one of the nicest hostels I have stayed in to date with a large chill out area and huge picture windows looking out to the lake. Nevertheless, one morning I woke up to find that I had been bitten at least a hundred times all over my arms and my back. The hostel denied that the beds were infested with bed bugs and implied my clothes might need a wash. The cheek! Gonna go to a lavaderia soon.
One disadvantage of Patagonia, though, is that it is frequented by the more mature traveller. Since leaving Buenos Aires, I havn`t met anyone below the age of twenty and doddery old guys aren`t an uncommon sight. This probably reflects the price of goods in Patagonia; in most of Patagonia, a litre bottle of Quilmes (the local beer) costs upwards of 10 pesos or two pounds. In Cordoba (and, incidentally, the home of David Nalbandian), it costs 5 pesos.
Israelis are everywhere in Patagonia. Most of them have been firing rifles and other firearms for three years and need a break. Military service must be a great way of imbuing people with certain sentiments, for good or ill. What would most British youths turn out like if they spent three years being told that the world was in the hands of a Jewish conspiracy. On my penultimate night in El Calafate, I was dragged to the casino by my three Israeli roomates and watched as they staked my fifty pesos on roulette. The seemed to think that they had come up with an infallible formula for making money by putting nine chips on the diagonals of the thirty six squares. Maybe they were right because two hours later I left one hundred pesos richer.
The real highlight of my stay was the trip to the Perito Moreno Glacier, a 50km tongue of ice that descends from the Campo de Hielo Sur, before breaking up in Lago Argentino. I was woken up one morning at 5am to the sound of my Israeli roomates forraging around, intent on getting to the park before 830 when you have to pay for an entry permit. I left in bright sunshine, but the rainclouds became ever thicker, spattering the bus with light rain and snow. Even in these conditions the glacier was spectacular. You look down at the snout of glacier, a vertical wall of ice 40 metres high which extends back for tens of kilometres. Deep fissures divide it into great daggers of ice which advance around a metre a day in the centre, letting off creaks and groans. Photos can never capture the intense, pulsating blue of the glacier. Every now and again, a huge chunk of ice, the size of a car, breaks off the face of the glacier and plunges into the water below with a boom that reverberates for tens of seconds. Some said it sounded like thunder. In my opinion, it sounded like a condensed, compressed explosion, ripping the air apart. From the top of the walkways you can appreciate the glacier`s extent, from the bottom, its height. The volumes of ice are almost inconceivable. Its all the more amazing when you reflect that you can only see a small portion of this glacier, which is itself but a small finger of ice descending from a huge icefield, which itself pales in comparison to the ice field which once covered Patagonia, extending from near the Pacific to the Falkland Islands.
The following day I cycled around Lago Argentino, repeatedly pursued by dogs of every size and type. I discoverd yesterday that I can´t ride faster than a dog can run. Even when two small dogs are chasing you, their barks and bared teeth make it a pretty scary experience.
At the moment, I am in Puerto Natales, Chile, preparing to depart for Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, on a walk (the "w" which should last about four days. I thought for a long time about hiring a tent, but I just know that I would end up wet and miserable. Gonna stay in the refugios, despite their inflated price. Just went to the supermarket to buy provisions and came out with rather more food than I had intended. Huge portions of rice and lentels it is then, washed down with some nutritious canned tuna and anchovies. As a side note, I would like to say how much I miss my mums cooking. Only when I started to buy food myself and to cook it did I realise what I was missing at home. Fantasising about food has been a staple of this trip. There just arent any grazing opportunities when youre travelling. And no, they dont have any Jacobs cream crackers. The apostrophe has just stopped working. I think thats a sign I should sign off. Until later.....
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
El chalten and the mighty fitzroy
After a bus trip of around 28 hours, four of which were spent on a dusty floor in the middle of nowhere (Perito Moreno to be exact), I was rudely awakened by biting rain and wind at 6:00 on Wednesday, 25 March. The only thing you could make out through the gloom was a huge, vertical escarpment that looms over the east side of town. That´s pretty much all I would see on the first day because the all enveloping rain hid the mountains from sight and forced me to seek entertainment in the town itself. Chalten was the last settlement to be built in Argentina in the 1980s. When seen from further down the valley it looks like a random cluster of houses huddling together against the cold. None of the roads are paved and the place is littered with stray dogs and productos artesanales. Everything is orientated towards the tourist from mock log cabins and adventure sports shops to the hostel that sits on almost every street corner. As a French girl said to me, "Nobody is born in El Chalten". In such adverse conditions there was nothing for it but to walk down the street to a microbrewery to try some locally brewed beer and cake. It wasn´t exactly what I came for what the hell!
That night while repeatedly burning myself on the cheap, handless pots scattered around the kitchen, I met an Enlish guy from Cheltenham, Chris, and an American. We agreed to get up at seven the following morning and brave veritable tempests to reach Laguna de los Tres, a small lake that sits at the foot of Mount Fitzroy. Fitzroy´s alternative name is Cerro Chalten, which means "smoking mountain" in Telhueche. At sunrise, Fitzroy is sometimes lit up a vivid red which led them to believe that it was a volcano.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and a huge basket of toast, we headed out under an overcast sky. None of us were very hopeful of seeing the mountains unobscured by clouds. Uphill through a cool forest we climbed before reaching a lake. This was where we got our first sight of the mountains ahead. At first, I mistook Cerro Poincenot for Fitroy because the higher peak was circled by cloud. The American was shooting off hundreds of pictures as we went. As we emerged into the valley below, Fitzroy was ahead, grotesquely stunted dead trees to the left and to the right a long flat valley culminated in further snow covered mountains enveloped by brooding, grey clouds. Just needed Vigo Mortensen flying across the plain on a fiery steed to complete the picture.
After reaching Camping Poincenot complete with huge tents and hebrew signs, we climbed steeply for what must have been eight hundred metres . Fitzroy gradually disappeared as we entered the lee (?) of the hill. The ascent became progressively steeper; we had been warned that this last portion of the trek could be dangerous in icy or windy conditions. I was surprised that at this high altitude the air was so warm (it was soon to cool down when we were blasted by the ferocious winds of the ice field). A snowball fight followed before the final slog up to the ridge in front of Lago de los Tres and Fitzroy. Everything had worked in our favour. As we had walked, the remaining clouds had cleared giving us an uninterrupted view of the mountains, the two glaciers slipping down the mountainside on either side of the ridge and the vivid blue Lago de los Tres, filled with glacial meltwater. Against an azure blue sky, Fitzroy rose up like a dagger, its sides too steep for any snow to stick. Instead, tens of metres of snow had accumulated in a huge bowl below the peaks and was being blown off the hillside and into the hillside. Small ledges ,of perhaps half a foot, on the left hand side of the peak were the only things that looked as if they would give any purchase.
Sheltered from the wind behind a huge boulder and saw numerous rocks that had been split sheer in half by freeze thaw weathering. Salami sandwiches never tasted better. After a couple of hours gaping in awe, we walked back down the path between deep thickets of nire bushes shimmering red and brown in the afternoon sun.
Sausages, egg and potato salad, peas and sweetcorn for dinner in front of Clint´s chiselled face in Gran Terino. Good film by the way. Am now in Calafate, in a great hostel that costs $40 a night, including breakfast and free internet. Pictures will be along soon. Hasta luego chicos!
That night while repeatedly burning myself on the cheap, handless pots scattered around the kitchen, I met an Enlish guy from Cheltenham, Chris, and an American. We agreed to get up at seven the following morning and brave veritable tempests to reach Laguna de los Tres, a small lake that sits at the foot of Mount Fitzroy. Fitzroy´s alternative name is Cerro Chalten, which means "smoking mountain" in Telhueche. At sunrise, Fitzroy is sometimes lit up a vivid red which led them to believe that it was a volcano.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and a huge basket of toast, we headed out under an overcast sky. None of us were very hopeful of seeing the mountains unobscured by clouds. Uphill through a cool forest we climbed before reaching a lake. This was where we got our first sight of the mountains ahead. At first, I mistook Cerro Poincenot for Fitroy because the higher peak was circled by cloud. The American was shooting off hundreds of pictures as we went. As we emerged into the valley below, Fitzroy was ahead, grotesquely stunted dead trees to the left and to the right a long flat valley culminated in further snow covered mountains enveloped by brooding, grey clouds. Just needed Vigo Mortensen flying across the plain on a fiery steed to complete the picture.
After reaching Camping Poincenot complete with huge tents and hebrew signs, we climbed steeply for what must have been eight hundred metres . Fitzroy gradually disappeared as we entered the lee (?) of the hill. The ascent became progressively steeper; we had been warned that this last portion of the trek could be dangerous in icy or windy conditions. I was surprised that at this high altitude the air was so warm (it was soon to cool down when we were blasted by the ferocious winds of the ice field). A snowball fight followed before the final slog up to the ridge in front of Lago de los Tres and Fitzroy. Everything had worked in our favour. As we had walked, the remaining clouds had cleared giving us an uninterrupted view of the mountains, the two glaciers slipping down the mountainside on either side of the ridge and the vivid blue Lago de los Tres, filled with glacial meltwater. Against an azure blue sky, Fitzroy rose up like a dagger, its sides too steep for any snow to stick. Instead, tens of metres of snow had accumulated in a huge bowl below the peaks and was being blown off the hillside and into the hillside. Small ledges ,of perhaps half a foot, on the left hand side of the peak were the only things that looked as if they would give any purchase.
Sheltered from the wind behind a huge boulder and saw numerous rocks that had been split sheer in half by freeze thaw weathering. Salami sandwiches never tasted better. After a couple of hours gaping in awe, we walked back down the path between deep thickets of nire bushes shimmering red and brown in the afternoon sun.
Sausages, egg and potato salad, peas and sweetcorn for dinner in front of Clint´s chiselled face in Gran Terino. Good film by the way. Am now in Calafate, in a great hostel that costs $40 a night, including breakfast and free internet. Pictures will be along soon. Hasta luego chicos!
Monday, 23 March 2009
It has been a great experience fishing in National Park Los Alerces after an inauspicious start. Esquel is an offshoot of the welsh settlments at Puerto Madryn and Esquel, and is a sprawling town overlooked by mountains in every direction, mountains that look as if they could be in the highlands except that they are higher and less rounded. Pine trees give it an alpine feel, and the temperature is perfect with cool, crisp mornings succeeded by warm, sunny days when there is not a cloud in the sky. Immediatly after arriving, I realised that the bus to Lago Verde had already left and so I tried to hitchike, but to no avail. Perhaps I didn´t look dirty enough. In the space of an hour, only one man stopped and he couldn´t take me far enough.
After dining on local trout, I set off on the bus the following day for Lago Verde passing towering hills, huge lakes teeming with fish and a receding glacier that looked impressive nonetheless. The accomodation I secured through Pablo was basic (my fishing contact), but the location was stunning. Perched on the edge of the brilliant turquoise blue waters of Lago Verde, the cabanas looked up the valley to huge soaring mountains and down it to Rio Rivadavia and beyond. Outside, children practised with the lazo and huge, perfectly groomed horses trotted around listlessly. After lazing around on the side of the lake reading my book, Pablo called off the fishing excursion because of "terrible toothache", and I was left alone with a rod a huge monster of a fly, called a "tarantula". Thus armed, I ventured to cast into the brilliant waters looking for unsuspecting prey. The brilliant thing about this lake is that (weather conditions permitting), you can see the fish rise to take your fly. The first time this happened, I was so startled that I raised my rod tip and pulled the fly out of the fish´s mouth. Frustrated, I headed down the lake to the next bay where I took off my trainers, rolled my trousers up to my thighs and began to wade into a weedy mudbed. Bad idea; the mud suddenly sucked my leg down . I clambered out and waded into sandy shallows this time. After about twenty minutes of casting, a huge silver fish suddenly leapt at the fly, missed it and foul hooked itself on the way down. Caught by the dorsal fin, the fish struggled for a good half hour, repeatedly pulling line of the reel, before I could lay my hands on its silver sides. It must have been at least five times bigger than the biggest fish I have ever caught in Scotland, probably weighing ten pounds. (No scales were at hand, so you can forgive a little exageration). A smaller rainbow trout that I caught an hour later provoked the scorn of a native who called it a "chicitito", or tiddler. It was around six pounds. There are obviously monsters out there to be caught.
Inspired by the previous day´s efforts I set out on Sunday to the sound of a cock crowing next to my cabana. But where the previous day had been exhilerating, Sunday was frustrating, with only one rise to my fly. This did give me the opportunity, though, to explore the River Rivadavia that flows into Lago Verde. With more water, this could be a good bet for hooking some large fish.
Today, I´m preparing to travel to El Calafate where you can see the Perito Moreno glacier and many other attractions. A twenty hour bus journey awaits, so you´ll forgive me if I sign off and go and get a cold beer.
After dining on local trout, I set off on the bus the following day for Lago Verde passing towering hills, huge lakes teeming with fish and a receding glacier that looked impressive nonetheless. The accomodation I secured through Pablo was basic (my fishing contact), but the location was stunning. Perched on the edge of the brilliant turquoise blue waters of Lago Verde, the cabanas looked up the valley to huge soaring mountains and down it to Rio Rivadavia and beyond. Outside, children practised with the lazo and huge, perfectly groomed horses trotted around listlessly. After lazing around on the side of the lake reading my book, Pablo called off the fishing excursion because of "terrible toothache", and I was left alone with a rod a huge monster of a fly, called a "tarantula". Thus armed, I ventured to cast into the brilliant waters looking for unsuspecting prey. The brilliant thing about this lake is that (weather conditions permitting), you can see the fish rise to take your fly. The first time this happened, I was so startled that I raised my rod tip and pulled the fly out of the fish´s mouth. Frustrated, I headed down the lake to the next bay where I took off my trainers, rolled my trousers up to my thighs and began to wade into a weedy mudbed. Bad idea; the mud suddenly sucked my leg down . I clambered out and waded into sandy shallows this time. After about twenty minutes of casting, a huge silver fish suddenly leapt at the fly, missed it and foul hooked itself on the way down. Caught by the dorsal fin, the fish struggled for a good half hour, repeatedly pulling line of the reel, before I could lay my hands on its silver sides. It must have been at least five times bigger than the biggest fish I have ever caught in Scotland, probably weighing ten pounds. (No scales were at hand, so you can forgive a little exageration). A smaller rainbow trout that I caught an hour later provoked the scorn of a native who called it a "chicitito", or tiddler. It was around six pounds. There are obviously monsters out there to be caught.
Inspired by the previous day´s efforts I set out on Sunday to the sound of a cock crowing next to my cabana. But where the previous day had been exhilerating, Sunday was frustrating, with only one rise to my fly. This did give me the opportunity, though, to explore the River Rivadavia that flows into Lago Verde. With more water, this could be a good bet for hooking some large fish.
Today, I´m preparing to travel to El Calafate where you can see the Perito Moreno glacier and many other attractions. A twenty hour bus journey awaits, so you´ll forgive me if I sign off and go and get a cold beer.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Puerto Madryn
Sitting in a "locutorio", wasting time until my bus to Esquel at 9:00 this evening. Esquel is just east of the Parque Nacional los Alerces, one of the most untouched areas of Argentina with fantastic fishing and hiking. In Puerto Madryn, I´ve visited a penguin colony, swum with sealions, had my "bautismo" in scubadiving and visited Peninsula Valdes (penguins, elephant seals and killer whales). Not bad in four days eh?
It has eaten away at the funds though. After aluminium production and fishing, tourism is the third biggest earner in Puerto Madryn and you can see why. Doing the dive and snorkelling with sealions cost me 550 argentine dollars (110 quid), which is pretty extortionate for Argentina.
The journey from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn was long. I had read about it in books but no-one can fail to be stunned by the vast, seemingly infinite emptiness of the Pampa humeda, echoing with the lowing of cattle. The landscape made it almost impossible to tell one place from another and I was worried that I would miss my stop and end up hundreds of kilometres away. I also forgot how cold buses can be. With the AC pumping out cold air, I spent most of the journey shivering in my "semi-cama" seat and got only two hours sleep. Just before reaching Puerto Madryn, I started talking to an old man with a grave, bespectacled face and bushy grey eyebrows. He tried to convince me that only one fifth of the normal employees turned up for work on 11 September and hinted at a Jewish conspiracy. He also said that the Argentinian government had scrapped the majority of the nation´s railways and privatised the rest to force people to take the roads, paying at toll booths along the way. He obviously thought he was enlightening a naive English child.
Puerto Madryn is a great place to watch wales from about September to February, but at other times of the year you have to make do with penguins, seals, sealions, elephant seals and orcas. I stayed at a hostel, HI Patagonia, that felt much more like an ordinary house than the place in Buenos Aires. The owner, Gaston, has been great and almost indecently helpful (he´s helped me to set up the fishing trip with his friend on Lago Verde), admirably dealing with my faltering Spanish.
Geology of the area is fascinating. The area was once the sea bed, but once volcanic activity began in the ocean rift in the Pacific, the whole land was pushed up. That explained the incredibly flat scrubland that surrounds Puerto Madryn and the huge hills of shells at Puerto Piramide. Apparently before the Andes rose to such a height that they blocked cool, wet winds from the Pacific, the whole of Chubut Province was a lush rainforest. Today, lack of rain (only around 200mm a year) means that the area is arid and dry.
After visiting a Penguin colony on Monday at Punta Tombo and dropping in on the old Welsh colonies of Trelew and Caiman (founded 1874), swam with sealions and dived on Tuesday. Walked down the wide, sunny boulevard bordering the sea to Terra del Mar where I was kitted out with a wetsuit fit for the Antartic; two layers, rubber shoes and rubber face mask. I realised why, though, when I jumped into the water and my knuckles slowly started to turn a deep purple. The first stop on the boatride was a shipwreck where two experienced divers took the plunge. Further towards land, I had my "bautismo". Although breathing was no problem, I took a while to master adjusting to the pressure by blowing out through my nose. We shimmied down a rope into the murky deep. Visibility wasn´t particulary good because of the high winds which had churned up the sea bed and I was virtually pulled along by the instructor since this was my first dive. Nevertheless, saw some pretty intersting fish, anemones and starfish. Continued on to Punta Lomos where we could see hundreds of sealions basking in the sun on a rocky ledge. You could hear them roaring across the water. Their lumbering movement on land was contrasted with their grace in the water. They twisted and turned at unlikely angles, and the moment I thought I might be able to touch one, it curved away and below me. The poor visibility made it all the more impressive to see them suddenly emerge from the gloom with wide eyes bulging, and their flipper-like feet propelling them along. That night I was treated to the traditional Argentine music of Julio Garcia (as important a national figure as Maradonna it seems)
On the excursion to Peninsula Valdes yesterday, we saw fluffy, bedraggled looking penguins shedding their feathers before continuing on to Punta Delgada in the SE of the peninsula. Sediment from the erosion of the NE of the peninsula is being deposited here in a long, slender spit that snaked along the coast. At first sight, the elephant seals looked like huge, smooth rocks and seemed almost impossibly large given the distance we were viewing them from. Adult males can weigh up to 4000kg. After a rest of four or five months and after the breeding season is over, each elephant seal goes his own way to hunt continuously for around seven months, not touching land until they return to breed again in the same spot exactly a year later. Scuttled off after hearing that killer whales had been sighted at Punta Norte. Only seconds after piling out of the bus, we saw a huge black fin slice its way out of the water and disappear again. As we watched them, it became clear that they were circling into deeper water, turning round and shooting towards the baby seals playing on the beach. They voluntarily beach themselves to have to maximise their chances of catching their prey.The two orcas had killed at least five cachorros that day.
Ten past one at the moment and scorching outside. Have got slightly burnt on arms and legs. Probably need to get as many rays as possible before travelling to Esquel near the Andes where it will be pretty cold. Not sure what food to take on the bus. Crackers perhaps...but which crackers. Not sure if they sell Jacob´s here. Gonna go and find out...
It has eaten away at the funds though. After aluminium production and fishing, tourism is the third biggest earner in Puerto Madryn and you can see why. Doing the dive and snorkelling with sealions cost me 550 argentine dollars (110 quid), which is pretty extortionate for Argentina.
The journey from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn was long. I had read about it in books but no-one can fail to be stunned by the vast, seemingly infinite emptiness of the Pampa humeda, echoing with the lowing of cattle. The landscape made it almost impossible to tell one place from another and I was worried that I would miss my stop and end up hundreds of kilometres away. I also forgot how cold buses can be. With the AC pumping out cold air, I spent most of the journey shivering in my "semi-cama" seat and got only two hours sleep. Just before reaching Puerto Madryn, I started talking to an old man with a grave, bespectacled face and bushy grey eyebrows. He tried to convince me that only one fifth of the normal employees turned up for work on 11 September and hinted at a Jewish conspiracy. He also said that the Argentinian government had scrapped the majority of the nation´s railways and privatised the rest to force people to take the roads, paying at toll booths along the way. He obviously thought he was enlightening a naive English child.
Puerto Madryn is a great place to watch wales from about September to February, but at other times of the year you have to make do with penguins, seals, sealions, elephant seals and orcas. I stayed at a hostel, HI Patagonia, that felt much more like an ordinary house than the place in Buenos Aires. The owner, Gaston, has been great and almost indecently helpful (he´s helped me to set up the fishing trip with his friend on Lago Verde), admirably dealing with my faltering Spanish.
Geology of the area is fascinating. The area was once the sea bed, but once volcanic activity began in the ocean rift in the Pacific, the whole land was pushed up. That explained the incredibly flat scrubland that surrounds Puerto Madryn and the huge hills of shells at Puerto Piramide. Apparently before the Andes rose to such a height that they blocked cool, wet winds from the Pacific, the whole of Chubut Province was a lush rainforest. Today, lack of rain (only around 200mm a year) means that the area is arid and dry.
After visiting a Penguin colony on Monday at Punta Tombo and dropping in on the old Welsh colonies of Trelew and Caiman (founded 1874), swam with sealions and dived on Tuesday. Walked down the wide, sunny boulevard bordering the sea to Terra del Mar where I was kitted out with a wetsuit fit for the Antartic; two layers, rubber shoes and rubber face mask. I realised why, though, when I jumped into the water and my knuckles slowly started to turn a deep purple. The first stop on the boatride was a shipwreck where two experienced divers took the plunge. Further towards land, I had my "bautismo". Although breathing was no problem, I took a while to master adjusting to the pressure by blowing out through my nose. We shimmied down a rope into the murky deep. Visibility wasn´t particulary good because of the high winds which had churned up the sea bed and I was virtually pulled along by the instructor since this was my first dive. Nevertheless, saw some pretty intersting fish, anemones and starfish. Continued on to Punta Lomos where we could see hundreds of sealions basking in the sun on a rocky ledge. You could hear them roaring across the water. Their lumbering movement on land was contrasted with their grace in the water. They twisted and turned at unlikely angles, and the moment I thought I might be able to touch one, it curved away and below me. The poor visibility made it all the more impressive to see them suddenly emerge from the gloom with wide eyes bulging, and their flipper-like feet propelling them along. That night I was treated to the traditional Argentine music of Julio Garcia (as important a national figure as Maradonna it seems)
On the excursion to Peninsula Valdes yesterday, we saw fluffy, bedraggled looking penguins shedding their feathers before continuing on to Punta Delgada in the SE of the peninsula. Sediment from the erosion of the NE of the peninsula is being deposited here in a long, slender spit that snaked along the coast. At first sight, the elephant seals looked like huge, smooth rocks and seemed almost impossibly large given the distance we were viewing them from. Adult males can weigh up to 4000kg. After a rest of four or five months and after the breeding season is over, each elephant seal goes his own way to hunt continuously for around seven months, not touching land until they return to breed again in the same spot exactly a year later. Scuttled off after hearing that killer whales had been sighted at Punta Norte. Only seconds after piling out of the bus, we saw a huge black fin slice its way out of the water and disappear again. As we watched them, it became clear that they were circling into deeper water, turning round and shooting towards the baby seals playing on the beach. They voluntarily beach themselves to have to maximise their chances of catching their prey.The two orcas had killed at least five cachorros that day.
Ten past one at the moment and scorching outside. Have got slightly burnt on arms and legs. Probably need to get as many rays as possible before travelling to Esquel near the Andes where it will be pretty cold. Not sure what food to take on the bus. Crackers perhaps...but which crackers. Not sure if they sell Jacob´s here. Gonna go and find out...
Friday, 13 March 2009
Its a couple of days since my last posting, and a lot has happened since then. At the moment, I´m getting ready to brave my mammoth bus journey to Puerto Madryn. Over the past couple of days, I´ve visited the famous cemetery of Recoleta, hit a local nightclub, toured the stadium of Boca Juniors, inspected some rival youth hostels and eaten heartily in between.
I´ve really started to enjoy life at the youth hostel. You meet loads of people from all around the world (particularly English people, Australians, Brasilians and Germans) and its definitely forced me to be more outgoing and sociable than I would have been otherwise. By contrast, we met some girls from New York in a bar a couple of nights ago, and they just reminded me why a certain type of Americans are internationally loathed. After listening to them for a couple of minutes, my head ached from the reverberations of their screeches and they had absoutely no sense of British modesty and self restraint; they were on spring break and "fluent in spanish". Two guys from London, John and Richard, have become quite good mates although Richard is in to his head banging music and says "man" and "right on" quite a lot.
Nearly every night, we end up drinking beer and playing pool for free on the table in the bar. Its a challenge, especially when the balls start to curve to one side because of the tilt of the floor. I´ve been amazed at how much you get for your money in a hostel like "Tango City Inn"; free pool, free internet, laundry, activities etc. Yesterday, we visited another famous hostel in Buenos Aires, Milhouse. Its amazingly new and plush. People were drinking, playing pool and table tennis and pissing in urinals that looked as if they had been stolen from the set of star trek. The only weak point of the hostel is the bunk beds that creak at the slightest movement and threaten to collapse under my weight. It seems that the days of cold dorms, no hot water and cooking for yourself are largely over, in these urban areas anyway. It will be interesting to find out if that rule holds further south. I secretly hope it doesn´t.
On Wednesday, I went to bed at about three and awoke to the sound of a South American man snoring in the bed opposite me. Then strolled down to San Telmo after first groping around in the half light of the room to find my towel (By the way, Alice, the towel has been a godsend. Its amazingly absorbant, even if it does feel as if you´re drying yourself with Dave´s suede coat). The light is incredible early in the morning, before it starts to press down on you with waves of heat. I thought this quote from Jose Maria Gironella was apposite: "Arboles altos, prados fondosos, cielo de luz pura y diafana, suficientemente matizada para no matar el color". The Mercado Municipal in San Telmo is dark and cool. Old women bustled about displaying trinkets and postcards of Che and Carlos Gardel. A breakfast of huevos revueltos, cafe con leche y jugo de naranja set me back only eighteen pesos (just over three pounds). It was great, fresh food prepared in a kitchen that would definitely not pass health and safety rules in GB. So different from the quiet, stayed, wood pannelled cafe where I ate breakfast today. In Spain, it would be full of the tiny, coiffeured Franco supporters who can still be seen in Madrid, but here most of the women that you see are much younger. Its the sort of place a member of the nobility would eat. Rows of starched collared, prissy women sat nibbling at their sandwiches and the waiters were no better. When I asked him the meaning of a word on the menu, he sighed as if it inconvenienced him. The place was called Richmond and reminded me of a snooty golf club in England. While I sat there in t-shirt and flip-flops, a man next to me had donned a full suit and horned rimmed glasses, eating a cheese sandwich whose crusts had been diligently removed by the camareros. Outside, a woman and her child were begging for change. You can see why the anarchist movement is so present in Buenos Aires.
Yesterday, I took a tour around Boca Juniors´ stadium, in the working class and reputedly dangerous neighbourhood of the same name. Against the advice of the book, I walked there and didn´t see anyone who looked even vaguely dodgy. Maradonna, Batistuta, Tevez and Riquelme have all played for Boca in the Bombonera stadium (the chocolate box) whose steeply rising teers give it a unique atmosphere. The guide was slightly boring; he focused more on the minutiae of the stadium´s architecture and the state of the washing facilities than on the football and the club´s history.
Tonight, I´ve booked to see a tango show close to the hostel and am getting a lesson as well. Probably be the last thing I do in BA before leaving tomorrow.
I´ve really started to enjoy life at the youth hostel. You meet loads of people from all around the world (particularly English people, Australians, Brasilians and Germans) and its definitely forced me to be more outgoing and sociable than I would have been otherwise. By contrast, we met some girls from New York in a bar a couple of nights ago, and they just reminded me why a certain type of Americans are internationally loathed. After listening to them for a couple of minutes, my head ached from the reverberations of their screeches and they had absoutely no sense of British modesty and self restraint; they were on spring break and "fluent in spanish". Two guys from London, John and Richard, have become quite good mates although Richard is in to his head banging music and says "man" and "right on" quite a lot.
Nearly every night, we end up drinking beer and playing pool for free on the table in the bar. Its a challenge, especially when the balls start to curve to one side because of the tilt of the floor. I´ve been amazed at how much you get for your money in a hostel like "Tango City Inn"; free pool, free internet, laundry, activities etc. Yesterday, we visited another famous hostel in Buenos Aires, Milhouse. Its amazingly new and plush. People were drinking, playing pool and table tennis and pissing in urinals that looked as if they had been stolen from the set of star trek. The only weak point of the hostel is the bunk beds that creak at the slightest movement and threaten to collapse under my weight. It seems that the days of cold dorms, no hot water and cooking for yourself are largely over, in these urban areas anyway. It will be interesting to find out if that rule holds further south. I secretly hope it doesn´t.
On Wednesday, I went to bed at about three and awoke to the sound of a South American man snoring in the bed opposite me. Then strolled down to San Telmo after first groping around in the half light of the room to find my towel (By the way, Alice, the towel has been a godsend. Its amazingly absorbant, even if it does feel as if you´re drying yourself with Dave´s suede coat). The light is incredible early in the morning, before it starts to press down on you with waves of heat. I thought this quote from Jose Maria Gironella was apposite: "Arboles altos, prados fondosos, cielo de luz pura y diafana, suficientemente matizada para no matar el color". The Mercado Municipal in San Telmo is dark and cool. Old women bustled about displaying trinkets and postcards of Che and Carlos Gardel. A breakfast of huevos revueltos, cafe con leche y jugo de naranja set me back only eighteen pesos (just over three pounds). It was great, fresh food prepared in a kitchen that would definitely not pass health and safety rules in GB. So different from the quiet, stayed, wood pannelled cafe where I ate breakfast today. In Spain, it would be full of the tiny, coiffeured Franco supporters who can still be seen in Madrid, but here most of the women that you see are much younger. Its the sort of place a member of the nobility would eat. Rows of starched collared, prissy women sat nibbling at their sandwiches and the waiters were no better. When I asked him the meaning of a word on the menu, he sighed as if it inconvenienced him. The place was called Richmond and reminded me of a snooty golf club in England. While I sat there in t-shirt and flip-flops, a man next to me had donned a full suit and horned rimmed glasses, eating a cheese sandwich whose crusts had been diligently removed by the camareros. Outside, a woman and her child were begging for change. You can see why the anarchist movement is so present in Buenos Aires.
Yesterday, I took a tour around Boca Juniors´ stadium, in the working class and reputedly dangerous neighbourhood of the same name. Against the advice of the book, I walked there and didn´t see anyone who looked even vaguely dodgy. Maradonna, Batistuta, Tevez and Riquelme have all played for Boca in the Bombonera stadium (the chocolate box) whose steeply rising teers give it a unique atmosphere. The guide was slightly boring; he focused more on the minutiae of the stadium´s architecture and the state of the washing facilities than on the football and the club´s history.
Tonight, I´ve booked to see a tango show close to the hostel and am getting a lesson as well. Probably be the last thing I do in BA before leaving tomorrow.
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Yesterday, I visited the districts of Retiro to the north and San Telmo to the South. One of the reasons I went to Retiro was to buy my bus ticket to Puerto Madryn, an eighteen hour slog south on the shores of the Atlantic. I´ll probably stay there for a couple of days before continuing on to Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego (so called because of the watchfires lit by native indians according to Darwin), which is great for its fishing.
One of the interesting things about Buenos Aires are the gradations of wealth that can be seen throughout the city. The city was originally founded to the south of its current centre, in San Telmo. But alas, the huge mansions adorned with cupolas were allowed to languish after the nineteenth century when a yellow fever epidemic forced people to flee north into what was then the open country of Retiro and Recoleta. In fact, only two centuries ago, the area immediatly surrounding the grimy internet cafe where I am now writing was open countryside teeming with fig trees. The lack of inhabitants led the Franciscan monks to open a monastery here to ponder and recollect (hence the name Recolet).
I would advise anyone coming to Buenos Aires to stay in San Telmo, whose little cobbled streets are line by grand old houses that are slowly falling into ruin. Its one of the last places where traditional markets still exist, and I found it particularly enchanting in the evening when the golden light hid the marks on the walls and the broken glass in the windows. This is where the city waas originally founded (see photos later). Its an area of dark antique shops, faded arcades and great little cafes.
I´ve also been surprised since I´ve been here at how politically aware the people are. References to Eva Peron can be found on walls around the city, and on my first day in Buenos Aires, I passed two men with megaphones who vowed that the spilt in the Malvinas could never be atoned for. A "lema" just outside my hostel " Gane quien gane, las elecciones no ayudan al pueblo. No votes!". (Whoever wins, the elections don´t help the people. Don´t vote)
In the more salubrious area of Retiro, an eternal flame burns next to a monument honouring the Argentine of the Malvinas war. Strangely though, its overshadowed by the "Torre ingles", which was donated to the city by the British government in the 19th century. There was talk of knocking it down in the 80s but its still standing, as is the statue to George Canning in Recoleta (a British foreign secretary who helped Argentina win its independence) which looks worse for wear after having been chucked into Rio de la Plata.
Just like in British cities, people are moving further and further away from the traditional central, into quiet, leafy districts like Palermo. As in any big city, though, you have stay on your guard. After buying my bus ticket to Puerto Maryn, two guys tried to steal my I-pod from my backpack.
Staying in the hostel was a good move because I´ve met some guys from England, some Ozies from Tazmania and your customary bellicose Israelis. Better go-got the cemetery of Recoleta to explore.
One of the interesting things about Buenos Aires are the gradations of wealth that can be seen throughout the city. The city was originally founded to the south of its current centre, in San Telmo. But alas, the huge mansions adorned with cupolas were allowed to languish after the nineteenth century when a yellow fever epidemic forced people to flee north into what was then the open country of Retiro and Recoleta. In fact, only two centuries ago, the area immediatly surrounding the grimy internet cafe where I am now writing was open countryside teeming with fig trees. The lack of inhabitants led the Franciscan monks to open a monastery here to ponder and recollect (hence the name Recolet).
I would advise anyone coming to Buenos Aires to stay in San Telmo, whose little cobbled streets are line by grand old houses that are slowly falling into ruin. Its one of the last places where traditional markets still exist, and I found it particularly enchanting in the evening when the golden light hid the marks on the walls and the broken glass in the windows. This is where the city waas originally founded (see photos later). Its an area of dark antique shops, faded arcades and great little cafes.
I´ve also been surprised since I´ve been here at how politically aware the people are. References to Eva Peron can be found on walls around the city, and on my first day in Buenos Aires, I passed two men with megaphones who vowed that the spilt in the Malvinas could never be atoned for. A "lema" just outside my hostel " Gane quien gane, las elecciones no ayudan al pueblo. No votes!". (Whoever wins, the elections don´t help the people. Don´t vote)
In the more salubrious area of Retiro, an eternal flame burns next to a monument honouring the Argentine of the Malvinas war. Strangely though, its overshadowed by the "Torre ingles", which was donated to the city by the British government in the 19th century. There was talk of knocking it down in the 80s but its still standing, as is the statue to George Canning in Recoleta (a British foreign secretary who helped Argentina win its independence) which looks worse for wear after having been chucked into Rio de la Plata.
Just like in British cities, people are moving further and further away from the traditional central, into quiet, leafy districts like Palermo. As in any big city, though, you have stay on your guard. After buying my bus ticket to Puerto Maryn, two guys tried to steal my I-pod from my backpack.
Staying in the hostel was a good move because I´ve met some guys from England, some Ozies from Tazmania and your customary bellicose Israelis. Better go-got the cemetery of Recoleta to explore.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Long journey
After two ten hour flights, I´m finally hear, tapping away on a weird spanish keyboard in the hostel tango, Monserrat, Buenos Aires.
Both flights were pretty fun, confounding expectations. They´ve got an amazing safety video on Delta airlines featuring a hostess who looks like she´s just been cut out of plastic: make sure you put your luggage in the overhead "bins", and fasten your seatbelts in case of rough air" etc. Atlanta was swarming with US marines who seemed to be heading to Amsterdam, and we were treated to a good two hours of a CNN presenter speculating about whether Rihanna would testify against her husband/boyfriend-whatever.
Finally got into Buenos Aires at seven this morning. It looks like it´s rained loads: the countryside was green as far as I could see. I also met an Argentine on the plane who warned me about which areas of Buenos Aires not to visit and which verbs to avoid: coger for one. I´ve also yet to master the art of Argentine slang which seems to be quiet similar to Argot in French: Cafe becomes feca and so forth.
I wandered round Buenos Aires this afternoon, or rather the central area near my hostel, Monserrat. To get there, I first traversed the financial area of the city, called "La City" in homage to the renowned acumen of British bankers. Its actually suprisingly impressive: small skysrapers of glass and metal. The bits of Buenos Aires that I´ve seen so far, down Avenida de Mayo, seem like an older and more tawdry version of Barcelona, a city of the early twentieth century struggling into the twenty-first. I did see loads of interesting buildings though(see pictures on facebook).
The only problem is that they´re surrouded by parks inhabited by homeless people and their dogs. Peronism, and Evita Peron in particular, still exert a hypnotising effect over the people. I only had to walk ten or twenty yards from the hostel to see graffiti featuring the famous "descamisados". Anyway, that´s all for now.
Both flights were pretty fun, confounding expectations. They´ve got an amazing safety video on Delta airlines featuring a hostess who looks like she´s just been cut out of plastic: make sure you put your luggage in the overhead "bins", and fasten your seatbelts in case of rough air" etc. Atlanta was swarming with US marines who seemed to be heading to Amsterdam, and we were treated to a good two hours of a CNN presenter speculating about whether Rihanna would testify against her husband/boyfriend-whatever.
Finally got into Buenos Aires at seven this morning. It looks like it´s rained loads: the countryside was green as far as I could see. I also met an Argentine on the plane who warned me about which areas of Buenos Aires not to visit and which verbs to avoid: coger for one. I´ve also yet to master the art of Argentine slang which seems to be quiet similar to Argot in French: Cafe becomes feca and so forth.
I wandered round Buenos Aires this afternoon, or rather the central area near my hostel, Monserrat. To get there, I first traversed the financial area of the city, called "La City" in homage to the renowned acumen of British bankers. Its actually suprisingly impressive: small skysrapers of glass and metal. The bits of Buenos Aires that I´ve seen so far, down Avenida de Mayo, seem like an older and more tawdry version of Barcelona, a city of the early twentieth century struggling into the twenty-first. I did see loads of interesting buildings though(see pictures on facebook).
The only problem is that they´re surrouded by parks inhabited by homeless people and their dogs. Peronism, and Evita Peron in particular, still exert a hypnotising effect over the people. I only had to walk ten or twenty yards from the hostel to see graffiti featuring the famous "descamisados". Anyway, that´s all for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)