Barriloche

Barriloche, if you`ve never heard of it, is in the lake district of Argentina. Its great. We`re chilling out here for a while, its been hard going for the last month - well, ok, sitting on a boat isn`t exactly hard but the sheer culture shock of doing 5000 miles of differing locales in the last month adds up.

Barriloche is famous for its chocolate (start the day with chocolate con churros, go to one of the many chocolaterias for lunch, Jauja for the best chocolate icecream in the siesta, you get the idea), its lake (Nuael Haupi if I`ve spelt that right), its nightlife, restaurants and general scenery. There`s a excellent free newspaper which just happens to have 10 pages on all the activities here, so much better than the lonely planet. Tonight there`s a barbeque at this great hostal (they`re not bribing me honest, just giving me free internet acces) La Bolsa, tomorrow there`s mountain biking round the circuito chico, there`s hikes up several nearby mountains, kayaking on the lake, white water rafting, tons of stuff.

As much as I shouldn`t enjoy entire populations being put through financial ruin as their life savings are thirded, the gbp is going really far out here. Argentina`s just defaulted on a huge loan, the comment was that if you owe the bank $2000 and you can`t pay, you`ve got a problem, if you owe the bank $2000m and can`t pay, the bank`s got a problem. Its weird looking at the people, their clothes, obvious wealth etc - compared to Chile, which is traditionally poorer but more expensive right now. We think we have financial uncertainty?

Navimag

The route through the Southern Chilean Fjords was a beautiful one and the pace of the boat was very relaxing.

The Navimag was more a cargo ship with passengers than a cruise ship. I appreciate the meaning of cattle class now. We thought our cabins were cramped until we watched the cows and sheep being herded on.

We're quite happy to have got to land now as the boat was over crowded and the butlinsesque style of entertainment a little grating. ( I wouldn't have missed for anything the Chilean keyboardist's rendition of another brick in the wall. They seem to love that song out here).

Next time ruta40!

Laguna underneath the torres

Laguna underneath the torres
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

Grand Paine

Grand Paine
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

Just some of the landscapes round here, enjoy.

Fitz Roy at dawn

IMG_0145
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

I`ve just realised we`ve got tons of photos on flickr that we haven`t blogged yet, this is Fitz Roy aka El Chalten, just about 10 miles away from Torres del Paine, that`s 10 miles straight over an ice field and several 3km high mountains.

Flying saucer spotted

Flying saucer spotted
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

View from the katamaran over torres del paine

Navimag

Well, we`re just about finished with puerto natales, all that remains is to stock up on beer and snacks for a 4 day trip through the austral fjords to Puerto Montt on the Navimag.

We´ve just been 5 days in Torres del Paine, camping all the way. Its pure scenary overload, on one side there´s a huge glacier, the other a huge lake, the center has the paine towers - 2500m high towers of granite that well, tower over you. The east side is completely black and devastated, the result of a careless camper with a cooking stove - the fire went on for several months, which I find hard to believe considering the amount of freezing rain we had. This is all granite rock, which makes the paths straight up, straight down - you learn to dread river valleys.
We did what`s known as the "W", but kinda backwards - east to west. The hardest walk in the entire place, the climb to las torres, we did first. That was mad, real scrambling up rocks 45` angle for the last hour. 5 days worth of food in a rucksack is heavy. The full circuit sounded great, and we had the time to do it, its just the reports of knee high snow and ankle deep mud put us off. And the wind... I think the best description is, imagine 120kmh gusts of wind in every direction at the same time, and then, occasionally, one of those directions will let off. It was quite funny, you could walk uphill with the wind behind your back and you`d feel weightless.
We met some Royal Navy lads, their ship was stationed off the antartic, so they chose to tale their shore leave here. They`d got bored of skiing down glaciers dodging penguins and sea lions in antartica, they were fully kitted out with rat packs, light sticks, military sleeping bags. Its a hard life.

Doh! I changed the batteries on the camera, and it reset the settings to 640x480, I didn`t notice. Nice high res piccies from now on.

Inspite of the forest fires we were allowed to make fires at one of the campsites. We learnt how to cook a meal in a fire (Rice can take up to 2 hours) and ruin our cooking pots. It was the tasteist meal we had in 5 days though - I don´t think I´ll be able to look at another packet mix for a while.

Its funny what news makes it this far - I picked up a Buenos Aires Herald, an english newspaper. Aparantely, the Millenium bridge has been unwobbled, and the queen doesn`t think the olympics will get to britain.

Camping in Torres Del Paine

IMG_0178[1]
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

This is how windy it got in torres del paine, luckily we were in the very heavy green tent in the background, the other tent was bouncing around from straight up to straight across.

Top 10 travel peeves

Wine waiters, who, when asked for a recommendation, smile and point to the most expensive bottle of wine on the list.

Wine waiters, who, when asked for something a bit cheaper, point to 2nd most expensive bottle of wine on list

Screaming babies in airplanes

Youth hostels. Why are they more expensive than 3* air nonditioned satellite tv hotels? (I`m not kidding - Buenos Aires, 12gbp for youth hostel, 10gbp for 3* hotel).

Fans in rooms that have 2 settings, blow your head off and off.

People snoring in dorm rooms

Internet cafes that refuse to let you plug your camera in

Chile (ok, ok, its a bit harsh to condem an entire country, but all we`ve heard/experiences, its far more expensive and grumpy than next door Argentina)

Beds that are only 5'5" long.

Incredibly cheap alcohol, I mean, 1 pound for a good bottle of wine, 40pence for a litre of beer, are they trying to get me drunk here? (joke)

Top 10 tips

This post is an antidote to Lonely Planet, where I take out my frustrations:

Every country cannot be "slightly more expensive than its immediate neighbours". This is impossible.

Wear only cotton, leather, denim, goretex and wool at the same time. Anything else will make you wet/silly/spaceman/smelly.

The only sleeping bags that are warm when wet are hollow point, and even then, not that warm, and very heavy and expensive. Get a down-filled bag if you can afford it, or lug a huge polyester bag around.

Lillywhites are doing a 70% off sale, or at least they were.

Don`t lose your tent.

Don`t forget your towel.

Get extra leg room seats on plane, or seats as far away from screaming babies/parents in extra leg room seats.

Woolen socks. Don`t laugh, they work.

accuweather has actually heard of these remote places

DONT PANIC

Blog

I`ve been using flickr.com for the photos, if you`d like to see the complete set they`re stored at http://flickr.com/photos/51192499@N00/

I`ve just changed the settings so that anyone can post comments - feel free to flame on.

Torres Del Paine

We`re now in Puerto Natales, heading out for Torres del Paine ("Paine towers" - the westerner who discovered them first, lots of interesting adverts for "full day paine" excursions... but I digress).

Phew. In 2 weeks, we`ve come from the beaches of brazil, the good air of Buenos Aires, the ice fields of Calafate and now Chile. All because in a few weeks time, it`ll start snowing in torres del paine and it becomes a bit tricky to get around.

Liz`z thinking of writing a few comments, she`s going to write them in green.

Fitz Roy

IMG_0134
Originally uploaded by matthewharrup.

El Chalten

3 days camping beneath the Fitz Roy glaciers, stunning scenery, I`ll let the photos do the talking.
We`re now in Puerto Natales, with 10 days before the Navimag ferry through the fjords.

The Moreno Glacier is definitely worth seeing - one of those things that lives up to ones expectaions. You can sit for hours predicting where the next ton off ice will smash off into the lake. The glacier is apparently larger than the area of Buenos Aires City.

El Calafate

A quick 3-hour plane ride, down the 2000miles of argentina, to El Calafate and the Fitz Roy towers and Torres del Paine ("torry piny") awaits. I`ve finally managed to find a sleeping bag, kept thinking they were too expensive, too expensive oh dear I really need one. Currently staying in a funky hostel -America del Sur, just outside of town.

Moreno glacier tomorrow - there will be pictures. Somehow, pictures of yet another presidential palace in Buenos Aires didn`t seem worth taking.

Sau Paulo and Beunos Aires

Wow. The steaks are huge. Sau Paulo had a churassco Rodiro, where waiters carrying huge freshly barbequed chunks of beef, lamb, pork, sausages, beef, beef etc carved it onto your plate if you so much as looked in their direction. Carprinhas -cocktails- were served, none of this namby pamby double vodka and lime, more like 300ml of, err, probably vodka, could have been pinga which would explain the hangover, an entire fresh lime and some sprigs of something. It cost less than a McDonalds - think 1.60gbp (no pound key on this keyboard!) for the food, 1gbp for the cocktail. A great meating place.

Beunos Aires didn`t disapoint either - La Estancia, on Lavalle, with its Bife Especial- slightly more expensive, but 2 pounds (weight) of the best beef stake I`ve ever had.

But its not just about food, we`ve seen some culture, there were also a few tango dancers on the street. We`re just slightly wilting in the 30`C heat.

I´d definitely like to return to Brazil. I liked the 3 - Dimensional feel of Sau Paulo with its hundreds of Sky Scrapers.

Sao Paulo
Originally uploaded by Lizzie Roe.

Sao Sebastiou

First impressions: its wet, you can have any coffee you want as long as its black, no one speaks a word of english and brazilian portugeuse is incomprehensible.

The plan was to spend a week on the beach to chill out, we spent it huddling in cafes looking at torrential downpours. Oh well.

The guidebook said that Ilha Bella was really nice, and the backpackers all stayed in Sao Sebastiou on the mainland and caught the ferry accross. We tried this, Ilha Bella is sort of underwhelming, ok, but nothing special. Sao Sebastiou is a petrol town, dominated by 2 oil tankers in the bay, petrobas cylinder thingies etc. There were 2 beaches just west, Pauba and Marsesias that´d I´d recommend (if it wasn´t raining). Oh well. The place we stayed (Hotel Roma) was excellent, 25 Real ("rhhhe-al") which is about 5quid, came with an absolutely huge breakfast- including 4 types of cake, scrambled eggs, fresh papya/melon, the lot. At this price we´ll be fine.

Food in brazil is weird. Pay per kilo, per person, per dish, per pretty much anything goes. Most portions are actually for 2 people, it sometimes says this on the menu. Beer is long, cold and cheap (60p a pint)

We´ve just caught the bus back to Sau Paulo, for the flight to Buenos Aires tomorrow (hey, it was free on the ticket as its more or less in a straight line - that´d be $150US of bus travel over 72 hours, ouch). Then El Calafate for the Moreno glacier (60m high moving wall of ice which falls off to become icebergs (we´ll actually have to pay for this flight, but I´m not going 2000 miles by bus, at least not there and back). Then Torres del Paine, the navimag ferry through the fjords to Puerto Montt, then we´ll have a few months trekking through the andes. Its a hard life.

I enjoyed beeing off the Beaten Back Packer track. We didn´t notice any other foreign tourists in Sau Sebastiou. I´ve never seen rain forest before so found it really exciting to see the original atalntic rainforest lining the Sau Sebastiou coast between Rio de Janeiro and Sau Paulo. If we´d had more time it would have been great to explore Ilha Bella as the beaches on the western most side are said to be the best in Brazil. (It seems the best places are always the hardest to get to)

A journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step

We´re in Sao Paulo, after a 11-hour overnight flight. Its a nice 27´C, which feels hot but its not even midday yet. Sau Paulo is a big ugly city with a couple of big buildings; this keyboard is damn weird, apologies for any pronunciation. Headed off to the cost - Sao Sebastian- in a few minutes.