Happy New Year from Viña Del Mar, Valparaiso, Chile :)
All the best wishes to you all for the New year!
Gledilegt àr til aettingja og vina naer og fjaer!
Godt nytt aar allesammen!
Feliz Nuevo año todo el mundo!
Happy Hogmanay!
Jòn & Kathleen :)
Hello again, Hope everyone has had a very good Christmas. We had a nice one too... a different one but very nice. Anyways, back to the travel story...where were we...oh yes: Puerto Natales.
The town Puerto Natales has a very special meaning to us especially Torres del Paine national park where we got together. That was the main reason we decided to return to the area. After a day relaxing and preparing for our trek, we headed off on Monday the 10th of December. We started at the Posada Rio Serrano this time, at the Ranger station. This was the only part of our trek we had not done before. Bill, at the Erratic Rock, managed to get us a special deal on a tour bus so we could see the
Cueva de Milodon - A huge cave where the biggest one was 50 meters high and 200 meters deep - and also to get us to the start of our walk about 3 hours earlier than with the normal bus as they were taking the new road. There was, though, a slight problem. It turned out the bus was driving exactly the same route as the regular bus making us almost 4 hours behind schedule. However, the cave was cool, and we saw condors up close, plus a lone fox that was begging for food from the tourists practically sniffing their hands. So finally when we started our walk around 2 in the afternoon we had a big task ahead of us. Not only did we have to walk about 6 hours to the refugio at Pehoe but we had to walk against the wind...and I am talking gale force winds. I got blown off the trail at least 20 times sometimes by at least 5 meters; but luckily it did not happen while scaling narrow paths overlooking an ice cold glacial river. The views were pretty spectacular. For most of the trek we had panoramic views of the whole Torres del Paine mountain ranges.
We got to the camping place about 20:00 and after pitching the tent (with difficulties in the strong winds) we headed to the Refugio for some sup
per. We had decided to have dinner at the refugios this time so we did not have to cook and so we did not have to carry so much food, it is after all, our honeymoon and we deserve small luxuries once in a while ;). It was a canteen and only one menu for everyone. As we got through the queue and to the register this happened:
" Are you staying at the refugio?" the register guy asked me
"No we are camping" I answered politely back, looking forward to having a nice dinner after a hard day of walking.
"Ok, then it will be 38 us dollars per person" he said casually
"What!", my voice was getting a bit less polite by now, "but it says 30 dollars outside?"
"Yes that is for the guests who are staying in the refugio...for you it is 38 dollars...is that ok sir?"
"is that OK!? No it is not OK, it is extortion, it is daylight robbery...it is....it is..."
at this time Kathleen was tugging at my shirt saying in a low voice "Jón, just pay the man and let´s go...your holding up the queue". The cashier guy was looking at me like I was about to smack him one...but then luckily for him I decided to back down and pay the ransom they were holding for my food. And besides, there were more poor campers behind us that would protest about the same inequality and have to pay the food ransom for not staying in the extortionate refugio.
The next morning it was still windy...I remember asking at some point a local guy if it was always windy there and the answer was something like: " no no not at all...I remember one day two years ago where it was almost not windy" Anyway, this was just a sign of what was to come. The day started quite well. We had some sun and the walk was beautiful. When we arrived at the encampamiento Italiano we had lunch and instead of walking to the Valle Francais where we had already been the first time around, we pushed on to campamiento las Cuernos (the horns) to save time and be well rested for the next day. We passed a beautiful pebble beach and cooled our feet in the lake s
itting there for a while enjoying the sunshine. Half an hour later we were at the Camping place and just managed to pitch the tent before all hell broke loose. The winds were unbelievable. We heard from people who had to run from tree to tree at the pebble beach between the strongest gusts -where we had been sunbathing half an hour earlier- so they did not get swept into the lake. Two guys trying to camp could not hold on and the whole tent was gone in seconds never to be seen again. Being inside our tent was like being in a tumble dryer and for a short period I realized how it must be getting caught in a tornado. As we were having our dinner in the refugio, it sounded and looked like the roof was going to blow off any minute. The storm was so intense that the water in a waterfall in the mountains above never reached the bottom as the wind just swept it away. And if it was not raining heavily, which it was most of the time, the wind actually drenched us with water it had collected in the lake about half a kilometer away.
And then....(to be continued!!)
Ushuaia - The End of the World
Ushuaia is on longitude 55º South Which makes it the southern most city in the world. And here we are. The weather is a bit like autumn in Iceland and you can easyly get rain, sun, snow and enormous temperature swings in the space of one hour. The landscape here in the
Tierra del Fuego So named because the first European arrivals came here they saw smoke everywhere, which turned out to be fires from the natives making their dinner or just keeping warm. Those were hardcore people who lived naked even in the bitter cold of the winter keeping warm by covering them selves in the fat of sealions and whales. However, The Europeans managed to wipe them out in a matter of years mostly due to diseases that were foreign to them.
Anyway, We stayed at a casa de Familia Velasquez (home stay). Our room for the first two nights was a "private room" but had a room where people from the next room had to walk through our room to get in and out. The first morning we had a whole family from France stroll shyly through on their way to the bathroom. And the next, luckily just one older Canadian. He, however, took time to have a ten minut
e chat with us (still in bed and half asleep) before continuing to the bathroom. We were happy when we heard that a double room (or a Matrimonial, as they call it) was available to us for the following night. The man of the family probably about 75 years old was in charge of basically everything and for what I know did everything. I never saw the women of the house do anything. I asked him once if he knew a place where I could take my pants to get the zipper fixed and he said. "no problem I will take care of it". When we came home that night, my pants had a new zipper that for all I know, he fixed himself. He charged me for this tremendous service the stunning amount of US$ 3 dollars or about 200 Icelandic krona. In the first two days in Ushuaia the weather was pretty bad so we used the time for practical things and just enjoying this nice city and friendly atmosphere. We used the opportunity to buy some things we needed as apparently the whole city if not the whole of Tierra Del Fuego is tax free. We also, almost accidentally, went to an art exibition opening in the Maritime Museum where the prison used to be (Ushuaia started out as a prison colony).
There we saw really nice paintings and talked to the artists. We were even contemplating buying one of the paintings as it was of glaciers on Antartica, but it would have cost too much to send it back home. The busiest day we had there started with a trip up to Glacier Marcial. We took a taxi up to the skilifts and then took the skilift and walked the rest of the way up to the glacier.
(see top photo). It was a bit tough walking up as it was our first real trek for months, hovever we were wearing waterproof pants so we could slide back in the snow some of the way down. After a quick break at the refugio, we took the skilift back and then walked the rest of the way to town, just in time to catch the boat for the 3 hour sailing on the Beagle strait. (see middle photo and bottom photo). It
was very pleasant, we were staying in Ushuaia for 4 days and this was the only day this was possible because of the weather. We saw sealions (yep more of those) and cumerants living in perfect harmony(see bottom photo). We sailed to the lighthouse that is very symbolic for Ushuaia. Had a brief break and a picnic on a small island where some natives used to live. The guide and the captain were fantastic. They gave us tea and cakes on the way out and on the way back we had champagne :) . I don`t know if that happens on all of their trips or because they found out that we we´re on our honeymoon, any which way - it was very fitting.
Ironicly, the weather was gorgeous the day we left for our 14 hour bustrip to Puerto Natales.
Normally, long distance buses give you food on the way, but this one did not. We could not have any food with us as we were crossing the border to Chile and there are big fines for bringing most kind of food products into the country. At the border, I had time to run to a small foodplace, for a lack of a better word, and buy a sandwich for us, but that was about it for food on the trip. At least we were lucky to have good seat at the front with a bit more legroom... that is until Puento Arenas where they made us move to the back of the bus because some snotty locals neaded our seats. We still had 4 hours to go and we were not happy at all. We made it to Puerto Natales around 10pm, to our beloved
Erratic Rock hostel where we also stayed last time we were there. The hostel is run by Bill and Rustyn, two Americans who also happen to be two of the friendliest and most helpful guys on the planet. Luckily we managed to find a place open for dinner (restaurants are usually open till very late in these parts of the world) and then we got a nice sleep in the squeekiest bed in the universe, ready to take on the adventures that were to come.
Next: Love on the rock!
Puerto Madryn
At Puerto Madryn we did two major day tours. One was to The Península Valdés, which is a good spot to see whales, sea lions, penguins, elephant seals, guanacos (a member of the camel family, but much prettier), foxes, Armadillos, and a wide variety of birds. Unfortunately the killer whale was not quite in season so we did not see one :( . We started by seeing the Elephant seals and sealions, in two different places and a small penguin colony. It was very funny as the penguins did not seem to mind our precence, so you could get very close. Then it was time to go to Punto Piramide, the only town on Penínzula Valdés and take a 1 and a half hour boat trip. That was an amazing trip where we saw a total of 6 whales. It was the
Atlantic Southern Right Whale and they all had a baby whale with them...if you can call a 4 meter long whale a baby!!. This whale species can reach up to 18 meters and weigh up to 100 tonnes so the ones we saw were huge!! And when we reached the shore and looked back, we saw one of them jump as if to say goodbye making a huge splash when it lande
d.
The next day we headed off to
punta tombo . There is a very big colony of Magellanic Penguins. On the way there we stopped to take a take a boat trip out to the open sea to see the Commerson's dolphins, a black and white species that is found only in a few locations in the Southern hemisphere. We saw an abundance of those all around the boat and some even jumped for us even though that is not common for them.
The penguins were great. We were just strolled amongst them as they were nesting their young. A really amazing experie
nce. One of them even nibbled at my shoe. At the most there can be around one million penguins there. At one point a herd of
Guanacoes ran across the path just infront of us just to make our day even more spectacular. To finalise the day we went to a little town called Gaiman. It was founded in 1874 by the Welsh who had already founded the town Trelew nearby and started on their huge irrigation system around the river Chubut in the Chubut Valley. There we went for the famous welsh tea to make the experience complete. It was very nice but the funniest thing about it was how it resembled tea time at my Mums with tea, wide selection of cakes and bread with marmelade. Fortunately my Mum does not charge the same price! ;)
The next day we checked out, had lunch and relaxed until we had to take the bus that afternoon to Rio Gallegos even further south. It was a 17 hour trip, but by now we are getting used to long bus trips, so no big deal ;) . Rio Gallegos had only one purpose for us: Gateway to The Tierra Del Fuego and Ushuaia: the southern most town in the world.
Until then: take care :)
Next: At The End Of The World.
Hello again, Hope everyone has had a very good Christmas. We had a nice one too... a different one but very nice. Anyways, back to the travel story...where were we...oh yes: Puerto Natales.
per. We had decided to have dinner at the refugios this time so we did not have to cook and so we did not have to carry so much food, it is after all, our honeymoon and we deserve small luxuries once in a while ;). It was a canteen and only one menu for everyone. As we got through the queue and to the register this happened:
itting there for a while enjoying the sunshine. Half an hour later we were at the Camping place and just managed to pitch the tent before all hell broke loose. The winds were unbelievable. We heard from people who had to run from tree to tree at the pebble beach between the strongest gusts -where we had been sunbathing half an hour earlier- so they did not get swept into the lake. Two guys trying to camp could not hold on and the whole tent was gone in seconds never to be seen again. Being inside our tent was like being in a tumble dryer and for a short period I realized how it must be getting caught in a tornado. As we were having our dinner in the refugio, it sounded and looked like the roof was going to blow off any minute. The storm was so intense that the water in a waterfall in the mountains above never reached the bottom as the wind just swept it away. And if it was not raining heavily, which it was most of the time, the wind actually drenched us with water it had collected in the lake about half a kilometer away.
e chat with us (still in bed and half asleep) before continuing to the bathroom. We were happy when we heard that a double room (or a Matrimonial, as they call it) was available to us for the following night. The man of the family probably about 75 years old was in charge of basically everything and for what I know did everything. I never saw the women of the house do anything. I asked him once if he knew a place where I could take my pants to get the zipper fixed and he said. "no problem I will take care of it". When we came home that night, my pants had a new zipper that for all I know, he fixed himself. He charged me for this tremendous service the stunning amount of US$ 3 dollars or about 200 Icelandic krona. In the first two days in Ushuaia the weather was pretty bad so we used the time for practical things and just enjoying this nice city and friendly atmosphere. We used the opportunity to buy some things we needed as apparently the whole city if not the whole of Tierra Del Fuego is tax free. We also, almost accidentally, went to an art exibition opening in the Maritime Museum where the prison used to be (Ushuaia started out as a prison colony). 
was very pleasant, we were staying in Ushuaia for 4 days and this was the only day this was possible because of the weather. We saw sealions (yep more of those) and cumerants living in perfect harmony(see bottom photo). We sailed to the lighthouse that is very symbolic for Ushuaia. Had a brief break and a picnic on a small island where some natives used to live. The guide and the captain were fantastic. They gave us tea and cakes on the way out and on the way back we had champagne :) . I don`t know if that happens on all of their trips or because they found out that we we´re on our honeymoon, any which way - it was very fitting.
