36 hours to the end of the world

Peninsula Valdez
Puerto Madryn, 60km or so from Trelew, our entry into Patagonia, feels a let-down as we mosey in from the airport. It´s flat, windy, fails to extract beauty from its seaside location and is expensive to boot. And it derives its fame from riding on the tailcoat of Peninsula Valdes. (For those in the know, it´s a bit like Saldanha, but somehow without the salty charm)

But after 3 days, a stunning day trip and a bicycle ride for tough girls, we soften to the town and even forgive the very friendly owners of Hostal J´os (yes that´s indeed where the apostrophe is) for charging us 75 pesos (US$25) for our broom cupboard in the sandpit with a shared bathroom. (Little do we know that worse tourist excesses are still to come.)

On Peninsula Valdez, we coo at the Hollowood-star armadillo who entertains the luvvies by parading up and down his sandy catwalk, then showing us a pointy face, then an equally pointy bottom, his hairy back bristling in the wind. Always pausing long enough for the cameras to get a perfect angle. He even allows a Hello style photo shoot in his house.

We gawp for hours at the beachside reality show that is the social life of the sea lion. Probably about 200 participate in sex, violence, practical jokes and sporting activities while the others sleep contentedly under the fierce Patagonian sun, occasionally flicking some wet sand onto a hot back with a lazy flipper.

The penguins stand and waddle about in a daze, waiting for their moulting process to finish so that life can continue.

The sea is blue, the land dusty, the wind incessant.

Patagonia is harsh (the size of France and Italy combined, only half a million inhabitants) with very little water, a few towns (all proudly called cities) and plenty of sheep. The scrubby countyside at first looks flat, until you realise it´s the first-impression monotony of undergrowth that hides the wilderness of crags, canyons, colours and hills. And then you spot all the animals: guanacos (the llama´s cousin), rheas (the ostriche´s cousin. The males look after the children while the females hunt - right on), birds, birds and then some more birds. The rare sight of trees indicate estancias (hence all the sheep).

But above all it´s beautiful. Beautifull and desolate and we love it.

The OK bus (16 hours)
Then we put on our real backpacker gear, raid the supermercado and set foot on our first long-distance bus heading towards the southernmost city in the world in Tierra del Fuego. All the camas (bed buses) are booked out (the entire Argentina is on holiday in January, plus busloads of foreign mile vultures) and we happily settle for a semi-cama (obvious).

The iPod shuffle (which we share through a splitter) is a perfect antidote to the Dolby surround sound that is a) American action movies and b) Spanish soppy songs to fill the silences in-between films (Unbreak my Heart in Spanish - is up on the evil list alongside dulce de leche (sorry) and George Bush).

We´re slightly unsettled by the airconditioning, which from its smell seems to be located in the armpit of a large, hairy man who has not washed since the overthrow of Juan Peron, but we get use to it, marvel at the spectacular sunset and curious guanacos by the roadside and even catch a few hours sleep. Punta Delgado sweeps by and we´re only vaguely aware of traversing Comodore Rivadavia (where some Boers settled in the early 1900s. Apparently their descendents are still about albeit Spanish speaking, but we haven´t got time to look them up.)

The bad bus (18 hours)
So we arrive in Rio Gallegos, relatively but not totally, fresh and ready to jump on the next bus that will take us to the end of the world. Except that the bus is full. And all the buses for the following week are too. Gallegos is, to be honest, a dump. Nobody would want to spend a week there.

So we don´t. Three hours of shall-we-rent-a-car and a taxi-is-to-expensive with 3 other Anglo-Saxons, we spot a fat bloke in a dodgy mauve sweater who hides a bus around the corner from the official bus station, charges us the same price as the "real" bus and then spends an hour driving around Gallegos doing his shopping before we eventually head out on the dust road to Tierra del Fuego.

Hell. The airconditioning unit in this bus is located in the bowl of a blocked toilet. A blocked toilet that is frequently used and frequently blocked with different-smelling foulnesses. Top speed probably 30 miles an hour. Noisy kids, Unbreak my heart on auto-replay (Shuffle battery dead by this time) and freezing cold (the airconditioning/heating simply emits smells, not actual temperature changes.)

After 3 hours we hit the hightlight - and it really is - the Straits of Magellan. Beautiful, cold, windy (wind was invented in Pategonia and all other countries merely have mild imitations thereof). The hour-long wait for the ferry allows us to walk along the desolate beach and to spot a Pategonian hare (skinny like a Cuban dog). That was the last bit of fun we had until 8am the next morning.

Shattered - we got on the bus at Puerto Madryn at 5pm on Thursday and arrive in Ushuaia at 8am on Saturday. That´s a long time to spend on a bus.

(Coups will do the next entry on Tierra del Fuego and the end of our Argentinian trip - we´re in Chile now. Sleeping in REAL youth hostels. God they´re awful)

Siesta in Salta

The internet centre in BA´s Aeroparque airport feels like home (6 hours to kill between the Northwest of Argie and Patagonia) so it leaves me time to tell you a story of a slow-turning ceiling fan, 3 rocky towns, a 3400m pass with the sweetest mountain air and CrapCar, a valiant chariot that linked them all.

About Salta I don´t know a lot - spent two days in bed, alternately swimming in sweat and shivering under 2 blankets, with a chest infection that left me weak and without appetite, and turned Coups into a nurse unrivalled by Mother Theresa.(Returning every few hours with an interesting story, or a photograph and always a little present to tempt me back to life. The hat, yoghurt and nuts were great hits, but somehow the combination of whirring fan, intense heat and wet sheets nauseatingly turned the wonderfulness that is dulce de leche (caramelly milk "paste" and totally divine) into something I will never be able to eat again.)

Then we hired CrapCar (clearly having been in an accident recently, the bonnet unspray-painted; cellotape stretched across the roof seemingly holding the new windscreen in place; spare tyre balder than a man with no hair on his head; semen stains on the back seat. You name it.)

But in the end, CrapCar did the job most admirably (I was still feeling weak so Amanda drove the first stretch), taking us (along a paved road) through a lunar-mad rocky/mountainous area to dusty Cafayate where Coups bought a lovely leather orb necklace for 12 pesos (at US$4 a possible import opportunity?). As with all Argentinian towns, the square came alive at 10pm as a blaring disco car vied for airspace with a local band, weary donkeys monotonously carried their youthful cargo around and around, and restaurants disgorged one empañada (essentially, mini Cornish pasties) after the other into expectant tourist and local gullets. (Refreshingly, most tourists here are Argentinians, with very few Europeans.)

Then CrapCar, with some gentle coaxing from myself, crawled along the rubber-hungry dirt road to sleepy Los Molinos, where it´s chased by dogs just because they hadn´t had anything else to do for two days. We stayed in a hospadeje filled with the godly memories of its previous owners, two Carmelite nuns and paid only 30 pesos. And didn´t stay in the luxurious finca of a Buenos Aires dama who, with steely good breeding- and maybe a tinge of sadness? - rules her very empty (and too expensive for us) escape for rich Porteños. I hope our meal in her dining room made up for the disappointment of rejection.

At less than 30km/h on the badly maintained Ruta 40, CrapCar makes it to fresh Cachi, a little town clinging to Nevada de Cachi (a peak over 6km up in the air). And the next morning we have breakfast (a pear and crackers) at over 3,4,00m on a mountain pass where travellers pay hommage to their kin killed on the road. And we both realise that nothing is sweeter than the smell of thinnish mountain air and nothing more soothing than the sweep of green mountain folds and crags as they point the way to the flatlands below. (Maybe a barn near Briancon, we egg each other on?)

And here we are now - at the airport, looking forward to the cooler, Atlantic air that we hope to find in Patagonia.

Life goes on, most people are at work and we, for the record, are having a most excellent time.

PS: Just realised that I, in the vein of a North American tourist, managed to wipe out two days: Iguacu Falls. And touristy it was, blimey. But also how beautiful, how impressive these falls that go on and on, surrounded by the deepest green greenery imaginable.

We´ll try to upload some more photographs at our next go. And thanks for all your messages: I get very excited every time I turn on the computer.

Buenos Aires and Uruguay

Buenos Aires is a Latino New York. In short its sky crappers, old colonial buildings, tango and steak. After Havana we felt like we were in some sort of culture shock- no horse and carts, but modern cars and a B & B to die for- Casa Vaiven in funky San Telmo. It was all ex factory/ loft type minimalist but with a South American flavour.

In San Telmo we watched the professionals followed by the locals dance tango on the square on New Years Day and then paid homage to Evita in Recoletta Cemetry. I have to say when I picture Evita- I see Madonna ( I cried at that movie- Esther tells me she laughed), but as I am fan- the real Evita doesn´t do too badly. We did decide that depite the amazing ice creams, Buenos Aires was still a dirty city (your hands are filthy after walking down the street for 1o mins) and therefore needed escaping after 4 days. Therefore we nipped across the river (the widest in the world- 3 hours by ferry) to Uruguay.

As we took a scenic route over, via the Tigre river delta, we arrived early evening in Carmelo and made a little mistake.

We wanted to spend our 2 nights in a beautiful old colonial town- Colonnia deal Sacramento and needed to take a bus there. As the next bus wasn´t until 22.40 we tried to see if there was a way of getting their earlier and when nothing materialised, bought bus tickets and sat around the town square, finally going to a bar. Returning at the alloted hour, the bus had already gone-an hour before. We hadn´t cottoned on that Uruguay is 1 hour ahead. In South American terms its right next door/ just across the river. We ended up looking for a hotel at midnight and travelling early the next morning. A plus point was the English couple who took us to their hotel and then accompanied us to Colonnia turned out to be on our Machu Pichu trek in March.

Colonnia was beautiful with a number of great beachey picnic spots. Esther impulsively hired a scooter and we went for a 2 hours drive along the coast at sunset. Stopping to watch the local race horses be taken for an evening swim. The worse point was that the only ferry we could get back left at 5.30 am the next day.

Comments

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Cuba on a dollar and a good eye for potholes

So we arrive in Buenos Aires on New Year´s Eve. Don´t know what would constitute a great celebration so opt for cheap Malbec and bad Cuban cigar in our funky San Telmo house (we´ll be here for 4 nights - feels great to hang clothes in wardrobe), where our kind B&B owners cajole us into eating calf-sized BBQed steaks.

Naturally, we end up smoking dope with a Ukrainian in an American poof´s totally cool ex-cookie factory house, complete with movies projected onto wall, ping-pong table, punch bag and grumpy rescue dog from Mexico. But that´s a blog for another day.

Cuba, however? Don´t know what to say. Have been trying to write this blog entry since yesterday - and everything sounds crap and contrived, probably because it´s a country that lures you into definition, only to show you up as ignorant, hypocritical, opinionated and plainly wrong.

Maybe it´s safer just to say what we did, and to mix it up with snippets of impressions:



1. Perspective change
Spend 4 days in Havana, then head out in our family car to Viñales marvelling at the terrible condition of the Autopista - Cubano pronunciation "opitta". (16 days later, moseying back to Havana with Jane "British Citizen" (surname as defined by bank clerk) Harris and Nicki Wakefield, the opitta constitutes pure driving luxury.)

The ox and the horse work very hard for their living.

We knew Cuba wasn´t cheap, but somehow manage to completely miscalculate our monetary needs (ie don´t have enough sterling. We don´t want to be punished with 10% "up yours Bush" commission for changing US dollars so have to rely on Banker Harris.) Amanda starts coughing.

2. We drove a lot and Amanda coughed
From Viñales, we cover the 180km to tourist enclave Maria la Gorda in 3 hours, where it rains non-stop for 24 hours and we snorkel on the Wilma-damaged reef, make our own Cuba Libres (rum and coke) and smoke our first cigar on my birthday. Get an inkling then that life as travellers is going to be sweet.


Meet up with J&N in Havana, visit Che´s memorial in Santa Clara, first night in casa particular (kind of B&B, but somehow more like living in granny´s house) in Sankti Spiritus, then Holguin (scary drive in dark, Jane Harris doesnt break her leg falling into open sewage pipe, car gets scratched, I have first dodgy-bum moment. Amanda coughing non-stop.) Playing cards in casa garden in Gibara, cuba libres and fags, we are mindful of the blissfulness of living.


Two nights in Santiago de Cuba - great music mid-day in Casa de la Trova, play yummy mummies to pretty but expensive hustler boys, and JH suffers guilt on realising that changing 600 sterling into convertibles (tourist money = 1 US dollar) equals about 3 years´salary for a Cubano. Consider staging demonstration outside Guantanamo, but opt for mojitos instead.

Camaguey for a night with bossy casa lady, then decide on expensive "luxury" in Communist holiday camp at Playa Ancon. Amanda and Jane discuss business opportunities in Cuba, concentrating on customer service training. Coups is still coughing.

Then La Boca. Oh La Boca of beautiful sunsets, fantastic fresh fish in casa, Cuba Libres and Canasta. Quiet seaside settlement down the road from Unesco site Trinidad, where on Christmas day we ford gushing street rivers in pissing rain. But it means the hustlers aren´t out in droves and we play ball with local kid. Nicki W hands out pens. Esther rude to Amanda over excessive coughing.

Back to Havana for couple of nights in council block, feeling tearful on saying adios to Jane and Nicki. We love those girls.

Last day we pay 20 centavos (not even a penny) for 40-minute cultural experience in a camello (large truck with humps that doubles as bus/sardine tin) that takes us to the house in San Francisco de Paula, on a hill near Havana, where Hemingway lived from 1939 to 1960, Ava Gardner swam naked in his pool and where his boat Pilar is on display.

3. Fidel Castro does not like George Bush



Amanda tells me off for being too political. But I can´t understand why the mighty US, that great purveyor of liberty and democracy, is so intent on enforcing a 40-year long trade embargo that has very effectively ensured that the 11 million inhabitants of Communist giant Cuba have no access to the benefits of international trade.

Clearly, the Cuban model isn´t working - the people are poor and have very little freedom, and everything is in decay. But there is a lot to say for a society - and many Cubanos are quick to point out this fact - that has nearly 100% literacy and virtually no crime.

Castro, we surmise, is feeling lonely. His great revolutionary pals died a long time ago - Che Guevara in the Bolivian struggle in ´67, Camilo Cienfuegos in a plain crash a few years after the revolution of ´59. Only his brother Raul remains.

So Fidel puts up countless bill boards, keeping them alive as revolutionary heroes 40 years after the fact. Che´s "Hasta la victoria siempre" is everywhere."Nosotros vamos bien" (we are doing well), he is painfully insistent. "Only socialism can create a better world," among the seemingly unstoppable decay.

So, yes, we struggle to pigeonhole this country. We know we like it and it fascinates us. So we give out our dollar (everything´s a dollar, from a boy on a bike leading us to our casa, to having a song played on the street, to random requests for dinero) and try to imagine what that dollar means to the recipient. We give people lifts in our fancy car (Skoda Fabia Combi), pine for modern European food and wonder what Cuba will be like once Castro is no longer there.

Amanda´s cough is a little better.

PS: Can´t seem to do anything about crappy positioning of photos. Desculpe.