Where the mosquitoes are as big as dogs

Aeroplanes often have to delay landing at Iquitos airport because of vultures, they say. The vultures` interest lie in the town`s rubbish heap, which is sidling ever closer to the airstrip. Something will have to be done soon, they say.

Iquitos is a jungle town that lies sweatily on the shores of the river Amazon in northern Peru. The vultures probably don`t realise it but the town can only be reached by air or river - there is no road. And this lack of road access has turned the town into something that`s not quite Peruvian.

Perhaps it`s the manic motocars (motorbike taxis) that smack of Ho Chi Minh City, or maybe the searingly hot and humid climate that feels so strange after the thin air of the Andes. Or maybe it`s the pack of old American men with shady pasts and pretty, young Peruana wives who call this place paradise.

And so we go not into the lap of luxury

Above: Base camp

Left: The assault course to our blue-canvassed jungle toilet

Authentic, we said, when asked about the kind of jungle experience we were after - the reason we were in Iquitos in the first place. No gringo sheep trail. No caimans in jail ponds or villagers in "jungle clothing" performing dances whose origin lie in Hollywood. The real thing was what we wanted.

So we get authentic and we get it real - so real and authentic it verges on the chaotic. It`s the rainy season, after all. Which means that not only do the water levels in the jungle rise dramatically, but so do the numbers of mosquitoes - all in direct proportion to the drop in gringo numbers. Just the way we want it.

Above: Levi (age 15) removed his trousers to catch us a tarantula. He shouldn´t have.

Below: In bed, not with Madonna

Luiz, our guide from Iquitos is great: intelligent, good English, a steady hand on the canoe paddle and a solid knowledge of jungle animals, plants and trees. But we also need a local guide - our jungle villa is 4 hours by bus/river boat from Iquitos.

Enrique is not there when we arrive at our base, but luckily his youthful brother-in-law Levi is. He`s been a guide for 5 years he says with quiet pride. And how old are you, we respond politely to his enquiry about our age. Fifteen, he says gravely.

Our villa is a rickety house on stilts, our bedroom door hangs on one hinge and the furniture consists of two hammocks that Luiz strings up for us. The only nod to luxury is a mosquito net each.

The long-drop toilet cubicle is a canvas affair that is reached by wading in Wellington boots through knee-high flood water (which we suspect is not necessarily securely separated from the sewage affluent that is our toilet). It also has a resident rat.

On day one Coups slips and falls on her ass in the water on the way back from the toilet. I have never seen her move so fast. It`s dangerous in the water, says Levi, there are snakes and scorpions. Maybe even anacondas. Levi`s father died of a snake bite.

The choice is clear: either we don`t ablute for three further days or we don`t fall. Biological need makes us opt for not falling.

But the jungle is fantastic

Yes it is. It is beautiful, exotic and filled with unknown, intriguing smells, noises and sights. Luiz identifies one bird after tree after plant - from giant lilly pads to black-collared hawks to macaws flying in the distance and flying fish that fall in our canoe. Levi, the veteran guide age 15, catches us a tarantula and Enrique shows us how to catch piranhas.

And they struggle valiantly to get us through the wall of water hyacinths that are strangling the lesser-used waterways of Amazonia.
Above: Fishing for piranha, but not catching.

Below: Catching, but only just

The river dolphins - grey ones that once came from the ocean and the strange-looking pink ones that originated in the jungle - keeps us mesmerises for hours. We paddle up and down the Ukayali river, a major tributary of the Amazon.

And we watch the locals wash and play in the river, from which they also drink and into which their sewage also seeps. And, in the middle of our 4-day stint, we too gather a bucket of water from the river. And we stick our heads into the bucket and wash our hair and upper bodies and we feel wondrously clean.

Above: Luiz with stingray that´s lost its sting.

Below: Lunching with mossies

Losing the fight with the mossies
The mosquitoes are large and ferocious. And much more healthy than the canines in the jungle. A healthy dog in the Amazon is only emaciated. Most have severe mange (our hearts constrict at the sight of mutts without any hair whatsoever) and all have worms and a number of other parasites.

We are full of holes - the mossies are relentless. They stop for no Goretex, Deet or sleeping net. We itch, scratch and slap our way through our jungle walk, and in temperatures in the mid-thirties and 80% humidity we sit on top of our lunch fire in our Goretexes because the bastards keep coming at us.
Above: Jungle Jane. Below: Sunset

Never has a woman been so glad to sit on a flush toilet
So all`s well that ends well - apart from the fact that we now have an ex-camera after Amanda dropped our lovely digital Canon into the Ukayali.

But even that we overcome by buying a cheap Kodak for 48 soles ($16). We`ll see what electronic delights Lima has on offer.

And then there`s always the maple syrup and bacon pancakes at the Yellow Rose of Texas, whose Texan owner had a role in the Motorcycle Diaries and is married to a local half his age.

Iquitos is that kind of place.

Trailing the Incas

It pays to tackle challenges well prepared and with a healthy arsenal of self-doubt and foreboding. Armed with dismal levels of fitness, chest infections and dodgy boots and despite anticipating lung failure crawling up Dead Woman´s Pass and ensuing helicopter evacuations, we completed the 4-day Inca Trail intact and in good spirits.













Pics: The scene of unrequited love; Amanda urgently needs a toilet

A story of spurned love in the mountains
And what a hike. Along with 14 fellow walkers (and 21 porters, 1 cook and two guides) we start off on day 1 muttering about the rain and cursing our cheap ponchos, but soon succumb to the beautiful mountain scenery.

When, during our first lunch of perfectly prepared fresh trout, a lonely mutt proposes passion to an unsuspecting and sleepy piglet, we get an inkling of the delights awaiting us on the trail. (The dog only gives up on his love overtures - imagine a lot of air humping and high-pitched squealing - when an indignant mother pig shows him the door in no uncertain terms.)

Dead Woman´s Pass - a piece of cake
(As uttered by Victor, our guide)
Our experience of walking up a volcano in Chile stands us in good stead as we do the five-hour walk (rising in altitude from 3,100m to 4,200m) in slow motion, ensuring that the heart rate never gets too high and therefore not needing to stop apart from official breaks, including elevenses of tea, bread, cheese and popcorn seated at table.

Porters, laden to the T and preferring rubber sandles to walking boots, zoom past us to set up our sleeping and dining tents and prepare 3-course meals (lunch AND dinner). We´re not exactly roughing it.

And so we walk on, amazed by the number of Inca ruins, the variety of orchids and the lushness of the cloud forest (we´re pretty close to the jungle). And the pain we do feel - 99% of the walk is either severely up or severely down, with very little flat - we douse in laughter and beer. Brits Barney and Rebecca (in month 11 of their world trip) convince the assortment of Dutchies, South Africans (yep, two from Green Point), Canadians and Americans that all English people indulge in group sex all the time, and are forced into numerous renditions of Kumbayah (spelling??) My Lord.

A matter of honour


The last morning we´re up at 4am and in the dark man the control point (allowing us entry into the Machu Picchu reserve) half an hour before it opens. We follow Victor´s orders and lock arms and raise our walking sticks to a queue-jumping guide and his clients from a rival company. (On the verge of violence, we are convinced by Victor that the offenders are there legitimately. See pic)

Once through the control point the race is on and we virtually run for nearly two hours to the sun gate in pissing rain. A good thing, too, because it means we´re the first group to observe Machu Picchu entirely covered in clouds. But the sun makes its mark as we walk down and all is revealed.

Pic: Clouds rolling in herald another wet night

It is spectacular. One wonders at the mind that found this remote spot among the incredibly high and inhospitable cucumber-like mountains and conceived of a sophisticated city. And then disappeared after only a few hundres years.

Pic: Nobody does terraces like the Incas

Pic: A lucky dog (luck ain`t a thing that comes to many perros in S America) in Aguas Calientes`main shopping drag

Cathedral, Plaza de Armas, Cusco

We conquered the World`s Most Dangerous Road

And so do thousands of other people every year (some of them even older and porkier than me), but here are some pics to show you how we defied death to tell the story. (See Breathless in Bolvia below for more details on the road that descends about 1,500m)

Left: Pacifying Pachamama (earth goddess with 100% alcohol to ensure a safe ride. She did a fairly good job but for a lapse of concentration. Right: The easy bit on the tarmac: Coups zooming down at the speed of light.

And me going along at a stately pace post-fall:

Best not to look down some times:

And so we rode ourselves around the bends:

After the ride, some fashion shots:

Lake Titicaca and the Cardboard Boat

Having risked life and limb mining in Potosi and careering headlong (by bike) down the world's most dangerous road outside of La Paz, we decided a peaceful stay by Lake Titicaca was in order.

It started well with an $8 (for 2) night in a new hotel with spectacular views of the Lake at Copacabana-the Bolivian version, interupted only by the dulcet tones of one of our travelling companions, Felicity, who had forgotten that Barry Manilow was referring to the Brazilian version. The next day, our boat ride to and hiking on the Isla del Sol, the mythical birthplace of the Incas was spectacular.

Esther decided to do the peaceful thing and retire to bed (another great $6 place- Bolivia really is the cheap but spectacular holiday seekers destination) with its 180 degree views of the Lake whilst Gavin, Felcity and I thought that it would be fun to walk one way down the island (3 hours) and then persuade a fisherman to take us back to the other end where we were staying.

The walk was gorgeous (though not far off 4000m above sea level so the hills required a fair amount of panting). When we finally arrived at the far end and enquired with the locals about the possibilty of a boat, the answers were as usual- very clear and definitive- no, yes, maybe, lets see.

Finally a man with a tiny boat turned up, the price negotiated and we were ready. What we hadn't noticed was that the wind had really whipped up and the waves had responded. No problem in an ordinary boat but this was tiny, made of cardboard (well ok, maybe chipboard but it felt like cardboard), with a little outboard motor which was being refuelled from a clear tub between the captain's legs.

The boat thudded through the waves that at times rocked it so severly that we discussed which bit of land we would swim for and I mentioned the possibility of taking shoes off. I really was gripping on for dear life and matters were not made better when we had to stop while the captain tried to untangle his rope which had wound itself around the outboard motor.

We finally arrived and clambered up onto the jetty, and watched the little boat disappear. It had less than a third of the fuel left that had been used to get us to our destination and we could only hope that the "captain" had returned safely.

Breathless in Boliva

Above: Our Landcruiser and the Arbol de Piedra (tree of stone, chiseled by the wind)

What a country. And how lucky we are that the gods sent us on this unplanned journey into the clouds.

It started with a double-take - severe rain in the driest place on earth (San Pedro de Atacama) meant severe snow at 5,000m and two days of waiting at the Chile/Bolivia border for our 4x4 to be allowed to cross.

And since then we´ve been operating at altitude (around 4,000m). After nearly two weeks the discomfort of dull headaches and nausea is gone (plenty of coca tea), but we still wake up out of breath and the slightest incline sends the heart on a pinball course. (Maybe the heavy breathing has more to do with our deep awe at the spectacular countryside than with altitude sickness?)

Colour-coded delights
The four days in the Toyota Landcruiser united us, and Gavin and Felicity from London and Luz and Miguel from Santiago against Grumpy Git, our Bolivian driver. It is also, in all probability, the most spectacular scenery we've been lucky enough to find ourselves in (sorry, South Africa), from which even the intense cold and atrocious toilets (balance back in favour of SA) could not detract.

From different-coloured lakes (algi, salt, and other minerals made for Lagos Blanco, Verde and the red Colorado (pic on left) packed with flamingos, to snow-covered volcanos, geysers spouting sulphur into thin air, the wind-eroded arbol de piedra and miles and miles of sky, we had it all.

And then the Salar de Uyuni. Nothing can adequately explain the expanse of whiteness that is this salt flat. Or the mirror images that the 1500m-thick salt crust, covered in summer rains, exposes to our overloaded brains. We cling to Grumpy Git, desperately hoping that the experience won´t end. But the futility sinks in as he slams his door, races off and refuses to stop for more photographs. (Pic below: Coups and a mirror image on the salt flat.)

Precarious pueblos
A six-hour bus trip through yet more spectacular countryside makes us hope with innocent fervour that we´ll never reach beauty-overload, and brings us to Potosi, an unlikely mining town clinging to rich Cerro Rico at more than 4,000m.

A trip to the mines - a good source of income for the mining co-operatives - makes for an uneasy experience as we meet 13-year-old boys pouring with sweat in the heat of the inner mountain and see wiry men push 3-tonne ore trolleys down ill-lit shafts. We keep moving on.

La Paz, too, clings unfeasibly to its mountainside, and you wonder why. But, still hanging out with Gav and Flick, we walk throught the witches market and grimace at the llama foetuses, and Coups indulges in some consumer therapy. (Pic left: a lady doing what ladies do in La Paz)

And then we go down the mountain
We whizz down the 69km that is Most Dangerous Road in the World (according to all the guide books) from La Paz to Coroico on mountain bikes in about 4 hours. And it is scary. So scary that they force traffic to drive on the left - so the lorry drivers can accurately judge the few centimetres they have on the gravelly cliff edge.

Wanting to keep up with the boys, I come off my bike, suffering no more than a grazed fore-arm, dinky thumb and stiff hip and shoulder. (And bristly ego - silly 38 year old). Coups turns out to be fearless, and after my fall I never manage to see her backwheel for more than a few minutes.

But we made it - and have the T-shirts and multi-media CD to prove it. We´re loving it.

Over to Amanda for the Lake Titicaca instalment.

(Pic left: Clearly deeply traumatised by my fall on the Most Dangerous Road in the World)

Valle de la Luna

Us waiting for the sun to set on Valle de la Luna in the Atacama Desert after a gruelling run up a sand dune. More pics to come later.

Valle de la Luna
Originally uploaded by espaarwater.

Low flying

Low flying
Originally uploaded by espaarwater.

Amanda shows her sporty side at the iceberg graveyard that is Lago Onelli near Calafate. For a change, I managed to press the button at just the right time.

What a glacier

What a glacier
Originally uploaded by espaarwater.

The Perito Moreno Glacier near El Calafate in Argentinian Patagonia. We´ve been doing a straw poll of fellow Gringo Trailists and some reckon that they were more bowled over by this than by the 4x4 trip from San Pedro de Atacama to Lagunas Blanco, Verde, Colorado and the Salar de Uyuni. The latter is probably our all-time favourite so far, with this glacier a close second.

Up a volcano, on the beach with old friends and into the desert

Esther here again. Further to Coups' previous entry just a quick thought for the day: Keep the Clean. (Copied from the ladies' bathroom in our Calafate hostel. Joined by: Do Not put paper in odorless. The Spanish for toilet is inodoro or some such.)

Puke-on (Apologies to Nelis and Johanna)
We hit Pucon, the playground of the Chilean rich in the Lake District as the sun sets in most spectacular, red-enhancing fashion.

We spend the first, cloudy morning in bed reading, chilling after some heavy traveling across mountains and lakes. I also still have not shaken my chest infection completely and need to rest. Amanda ventures out and gets her first glimps of Pucon, this quaint (albeit artificially so) village of low-level log buildings and no neon signs: lago Villarica, massive mountains in the background and, lording it over all, Villarica volcano. Its mouth is mostly covered in clouds, but when the curtain is lifted, it flaunts its splendour with the tell-tale sign of a live volcano: a gently rising whisp of smoke.

The next morning we're on the beach of black volcanic ash, and later meet up with Janet the Aussie and Kieran. The four us spend a decadent afternoon in the 6 mountain pools of a thermal spring, preparing for our ascent of the volcano the next day.

First thing the next morning we get kitted out in volcano suits that make us look like extermination men, as well as ice picks, crampons, helmets, cloves etc. And then it begins.

The first 400m are fairly easy - we're on a chair lift, but then our motley group of one Brit, one SAer, one Irishman, 2 Dutchies and one Chilean start to follow our guide, slow snow step after slow snow step.

The thinner the air - we're zig-zagging to 3200m at the crater mouth - the slower our progress and the more frequent our requests for rests. I turn out to be the group chicken: my congested chest starts to wheeze like a forgotten granddad in House Last Sigh and it feels like my lungs have lost the capacity to send oxygen around my body. The guide's sense of competition (get the feeling it's guide's honour to make sure everybody makes it to the top) coaxes me to the top with promises of just-around-the next-brow. And, shame upon shame, I lose my hard-woman image (?) as he takes my back-pack and drags me up on the other end of his walking stick.

But worth it: the 3200m-high view of 4 or 5 other volcanos, Pucon and an ocean-full of lakes takes the breath away (although my breathing recovers miraculously) but the coolest is no doubt the swirling mass of red-hot lava down in the crater revealed every few minutes when the wind parts the cough-inducing sulpher cloud.

We rest, Amanda makes us tomato and salami sandwiches and I thank the guide profusely for getting me there. And then the fun, and the reason for our nuclear suits, starts. Whereas it took us four hours to reach the summit, we get down in 40 minutes. On our arses. Sliding down in the snow, laughing wildly and willing ourselves to go faster, faster, faster.

We spend another day in Puke-on, internetting, looking to replace Amanda's too-small boots, a quick visit to the doctor for more antibiotica (I'm about to remove my lungs manually), and some fantastic freshly liquidised peach juice before we catch the 7.45pm bus for Valparaiso on the coast near Santiago.

22 years since we last had tea together
Arrive in Valparaiso at 8.30 and immediately jump on the next bus to Algarobbo, an hour and a half away, to meet an old friend I haven't seen for a while. (A misunderstanding means he jumps in his truck at about the same time to collect us in Valpara. Sorry, Nelis.)

Our timing could not have been worse. Nelis (school mate from Cape Town, last spotted in 1984 and rediscovered thanks to Google) is in the stressful throes of a massive project converting an old house into a restaurant with the best location in Algarobbo, but he takes us home to meet Johanna, his wife, and Alexander and Daniel, his two sons who have only lived in Switzerland but speak perfect Afrikaans. With much concentration I manage to connect the images of Nelis-1984 and Nelis-2006 and listen with wonder to this driven, determined man and his bubbly, bright Chilean wife, who, along with her family, fled the Pinochet regime in 1973.

We're going back before we leave South America, and I'm glad, because there is so much more talk to talk and so much more x-raying to be done.

The driest place on earth
And here we are now, in San Pedro in the Atacama desert (supposedly the driest in the world with a rainfall of between 10 and 50mm a year). And also the very first time that our blog is up to date.

San Pedro is a mud town in the shadows of the Andes (blimey, they're enormous) that's been perfectly preserved in the dry air of the Atacama, surrounded by the most fascinating rock formations, the result of volcanic activity in the Andes millions of years ago and other such geological happenings.

We do a two-hour walk in a dry canyon filled with salt deposits, gypsum, silicone and even condor vomit. Then the Valle de la Luna where Coups and I are the only ones in our group to race up a dune to get the best view of the setting sun while the mad lunar landscape is on fire behind us. Too many other people, but damn, damn spectacular.

We've had a change of plan after meeting many travellers who said the 3-day 4x4 trip from San Pedro to the salt flats of Uyuni was THE South American highlight.

So, tomorrow morning we're crossing the border into Bolivia for our little adventure. Then on to La Paz, hopefully mountain biking down the "most dangerous road in the world" (guide book) and then into Peru via Lake Titicaca. (This means we won't go to Arequipa and Colca Canyon. They'll have to wait until next time).

El Fin del Mundo, ice fields and into Chile.

For those of you who have wondered what the end of the world would be like, I can tell you- spectacular. Picture snow capped mountains around a stretch of water which connects the Atlantic and Pacific (the Beagle Channel), islands, Chile on the one side and Argentina on the other. Living on the islands are sea lions, penguins, cormorants and other birds. On the Argentinian side colourful houses pile up against the mountain. Ushuaia- is in the middle of nowhere (the first thing we did on our arrival was to book a flight out a week later- we decided we had done buses for a while) but is surprisingly big. 60,000 people live a life of beautiful scenery but freezing cold for the majority of the year and with no easy escape. We were there at the height of summer and our souvenirs were walking trousers and hats- we lived in all the layers contained in our backpacks.

The shops are good- in fact retail therapy is highly possible. When we got out of bed the second day, and admired the view, we realised why- a huge cruise ship had arrived (carrying 2000 people). Ushuaia is the base for Antartic cruises and for the passengers -after 2 weeks stuck with 2000 other people, you can only imagine the exitement of setting forth onland and dispensing with some pesos.

We met quite a few people who were in town for the Antartic and the recommendation for anyone thinking of doing the trip is think small. A ship with 100 people which is better equiped for the ice can dock at the Falklands, South Georgia and let you off onto the Antratic ice. A passenger on the larger, more luxurious ship told us that weather had prevented them from getting off at all.

In Ushuaia we finally got to do the backpacker thing and hang out with fellow travellers, thus far we had been chatting to Argentinian holidaymakers in our broken Spanish (hence not many long conversations). John, Jim and Ali were our play mates for the week and together we ate, rode horses in spectacular scenery and walked in the national park. John turned out to be a master chef and cooked us steak and veggies for 3 nights running in his hostal.

We went miles by boat to the Harberton Estancia- the estancia built by the European founder of Ushuaia. Thomas Bridges was an Anglican missionary from the early 1800´s and appears to have been a good guy- he could speak the native language fluently, compiled a dictionary of their language and when offered 20,000 hectares anywhere in the country to retire in, by the Argentinian government- chose a part of the Beagle Channel to be near his native flock (4 hours sailing from Ushuaia). There was something quite poignant about leaving the estancia on our tourist boat and watching the lone figure of his direct descendant, wave us off- dwarfed by his remote mountain range and corrugated metal buidings.

Thoughts from the Glaciers

Next stop was Calafate- the base to explore the Argentinian ice fields. Here, we stayed in our first dorm. We wern´t really roughing it as there were only 2 bunks in a dorm and they had nice new thick mattresses. The hostal had a fab view of the bright blue Lago Argentina (blue from the glacial minerals that flow into it) and was really rather nice. Unfortunately there were a few building snags to be fixed, it having only opened a few months previously, which meant that when I shut the door of the ladies bathroom when we got up at 6am one morning- we couldn´t get out again and had to bang the door until we were rescued.

Perrito Moreno, the most famous glacier is stunning- all huge wavey blue ice. Its the only advancing glacier left in South America (everything else is receding) but doesn´t advance too much before rupturing, retreating and starting its advance again. We also did an all day boat trip which took us to many of the other glaciers that can be visited and saw numerous spectacular neon blue icebergs and fabulous scenery, mountains, wavey, jaggedy glaciers flowing off mountains into Lago Argentino. The deepest part of the lake is near the Upsala glacier (the channel it cut) and is apparently at least 700 m deep, and possibly 1000 m deep (no one has been there). 60 m of the glacier is above the water and 700m is below. Mindblowing!

Into Chile

Spectacular scenery again (we are feasting our senses everyday) accompanied our 5 hour bus ride to Puerto Natales in Chile. Puerto Natales is a fabulously nowhere town. The little corrugated metal houses were bleak, wind howled, the streets were empty, shop signs creaked and there was a feeling of lack of colour and of being far from everything- fantastic! We were ecstatic to find El Living- a veggie cafe run by an English couple with fab salads, juices, soup and sarnies. English mags, the Guardian International and the sofas made it somewhere we couldn´t bare to leave (we didn´t eat anywhere else in the 2 days we were in town). On our second day we jumped on a 7am bus (oh yes- lots of early starts- but I can´t say I find them much easier) to the internationally renowned Torres del Paine national park.

We could have gone on the one day tour for not much more cash but after spending the Upsala glacier trip with 300 other tourists we decided that we had enough of the tourist group tour and had to do this ourselves even if we missed out on some of the park we would still see a good part of it. We were eventually dropped off deep inside, having passed the famous granite towers of Paine, the horns of Paine and lots of stunning blue glacial water lakes. The first hour of the walk was up a steep, scree hill with the wind howling. Putting one foot in front of each other was such a battle with the wind that I was on the verge of morphing into Scott of the Antartic when a horse came down the slope in front of us. We were in the middle of mountains, with no one around and a horse appears! It was then followed by 2 others, followed by nervous looking riders- one lady told us she didn´t know how the horses were still upright the wind had been so strong. We finished after walking through the greenest of green fields, surrounded by towering peaks. I have to admit we had a number of picnics but then again Esther had a bad cold and needed to be conserved to fight another day.

We were in Puerto Natales to take the weekly ferry which for 3 days goes up through the fjords and past the glaciers of the Far South of Chile to Puerto Montt. This didn´t happen owing to the engines deciding to cease on the way to our rendez vous and the passengers being taken off by lifeboats etc as witnessed by Chilean TV. After a wrangle for our cash and a race to book alternative means out of this tiny town, we found ourselves together with 4 other boat refugee backpackers (including Jim from Ushuaia) in a cheap and v basic backpacker place 3 hours further South in Punta Arenas. The next day we flew out in the rain with Kieran from Ireland to a hopefully sunnier place further up this thin country (the Chileans still think of it as the South but it took over a 2 flight to get there). Ultimate destination being Pucon, in the heart of the Chilean Lake District.

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

Just a quick note to say that there is a response to some of your comments on the Cuba comments page. For those of you who haven´t commented and aren´t sure how to get to it- go the bottom of the piece on Cuba and where it says "comments"- click.

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.

Shit. But thank you so much

Just a quickie to say muchos, much gracias to everyone who came to the party on Saturday: it was truly top and we both had hangovers to match. Pauline and Claude, and Jacqui M: you win top prize for your lovely surprise appearances straight from Paris and New York, respectively.

So, unless I expire from boiling bloodpressure (my bank can't find my missing Visa card, there's a leak in one of the rental flats, backpacks are as yet unpacked, Amanda has a cold, I'm still not wearing knickers because of rushing around all day long and our room on J&M's top floor looks like donkey bollocks), we'll be feeling unfriendly towards each other at 5.45am in a taxi on our way to Gatwick. Hurrah.

If Comrade Castro allows, we'll update the blog from some Cuban beach - if not, it'll be Buenos Aires in the New Year.

Merry Xmas all.

We’ll be turning right out of England

Fired up by fear, adrenaline bull-runs and sub-zero temperatures, we are sliding, slightly uncontrollably, towards our much-anticipated D-Day. In 2 weeks we will jump the bungee to Cuba, South America, Oz and, hopefully, a bloody good time on a few other continents too.

In the meanwhile, the organisational baggage of a combined 72 years is traumatically testing our patience (losing), relationship (winning) and sleeping (failing). As we move out of our shoe box under the eaves, we move into each other, inexplicably perturbed by the loss of a home.

Packing until the early hours of a Sunday morning, I wake up broken and faithless on seeing the collection of boxes, suitcases, bulging supermarket bags, camel packs - and one saxophone - and slink moodily into a corner, sipping on a cup of rooibos tea.

Because the storeroom that's costing us the GDP of an African country is smaller than most room cupboards and shit, shit what are we going to do with all the excess baggage and I've been remonstrating with Amanda right from the start that we have too many possessions.

Three hours later and I'm making promises of unfettered naughtinesses to two chunky Afrikaner boys (and their white van) because not only does the whole patootie fit into the storeroom - there's space for more.

And so we burn one once-white bra after the other (while uncovering new ones in unexpected places), and lurch from drinky session to dentist to Council Tax office to Cuban car hire website (still dithering whether to book it from the UK or locally).

But overlaying all the turbulence, histrionics and unspoken concerns over uprooting, is a thick blanket of excitement for all the unknown sights, experiences and people we will be lucky enough to encounter over the next year or so.

We are going to Cape Town via Tierra del Fuego and we are very excited.

Our itinerary

Left: Showing off our new gear, including a mosquito-proof t-shirt. (It works - we weren't bitten in our Stoke Newington flat.)

On 8 December, at 9.35am to be precise, we take off from Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic - direct to La Habana. And that's where the adventure begins - at least for a year, but who knows what will happen beyond that?

Come and join us - Nicki and Chopper are meeting up with us in Cuba. This is our itinerary for the first four months if you need a break from the hum-drum and want to know where to catch up with us. Also, please feel free to leave us any comments by clicking on Comments...

(Our flight itinerary may seem too planned, but we fully expect some unforeseen changes)

• Thu 08Dec05: London to Havana
• Fri 30Dec05: Havana to Buenos Aires (arrive on 31 Dec - what will NY's Eve be like?) 7 days BA + Uruguay
• Sat 07 Jan: Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls (on the border with Brazil)
• Mon 09 Jan: Iguazu back to BA and straight to Salta in north-west Argentinia
  6 days (7 nights) Salta + environs
• Mon 16 Jan06: Salta to BA and straight on to Trelew in Patagonia
  ... and the next month is overland going to:
  Valdes Peninsula
  Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego, the glaciers etc
  3 days boat trip Puerta Natales to Puerto Montt. Chile's Lake District. And then off to see my friend Nelis for the first time since 1984.
• Mon 13Feb06: Santiago to Calama, for the Aticama desert
• Fri 17Feb06: Calama to Arica to get us as close as poss. to Peruvian border. From here we go overland to Arequipa (where Dante, our spanish teacher, is from). We'll have a bit of a wander in Colca Canyon, then make our way to Puno and Lake Titicaca + environs
• Plan to get to Cusco roughly on 27 Feb06 to acclimatise for 3 days before 4-day Inca Trail
• Wed 8Mar06: Cusco to Iquitos (via Lima) for an Amazon trip
• Wed 15Mar06: Iquitos to Lima for one night
• Thurs 16 March: Lima to Quito in Equador, for 7-day Galapagos boat trip etc
• Mon 27 Mar06: Quito to Santiag0
• Wed 29 Mar06: Santiago to Sydney - arrive on 1 April 2006

Any tips for travelling in South America?

Knowing that you don't know can be alarmingly scary. So we've got a lot of questions and quite a few assumptions:

• Safety - be careful and sensible, yes. But are there any spots in BA, Santiago, Cusco, Lima, Iquitos etc we should best avoid? Any suggestions for a really practical money-belt? (Even considering strapping valuables underneath my ample breasts - but that's just plain silly.)
• Lolly - we're thinking a combination of cash (dollars?), credit card, travellers' cheques and debit card to raid the holes in the wall (yep, got the Nationwide account that doesn't charge for overseas usage). Update: Following George W's renewal of the trade embargo, the dollar carries a 10% "charge" in Cuba so sterling and euro are the way to go, apparently. And the ATMs are not the way to go - telephone lines are down most of the time.
• Food - whereas I fully expect to loose at least a stone over the four months it would be good to remember the trip for its people, places and activities and not for a lingering whiff of vomit.
• Inca Trail - want to use a local trail operator, and not an exorbitant UK-based one. Any suggestions for a responsible, environmentally aware tour company in Cusco that treats its porters well?