Where we've been: Trip Progress Map & Resources

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F E B R U A R Y / 0 6 

Saturday February 25 2006

I "heart" Patagonia

Frank and I have been entertaining the idea of staying to live in Patagonia. Probably in the northern bit, up in El Bolson or Esquel. But the question is what would we do? We're not interested in working in the travel business (there goes running a hostel, B&B, restaurant - although I could be convinced - or cyber-café). We could operate a roving smoothie shack, the fruit in El Bolsón and surrounds is spectacular. No, too seasonal. Basically, it's up to our collective imagination as to how we'd make a living, but realistically I figure we should learn some new skills before we start our job-hunt.

Here's the top-three trades we've indentified are in demand here:

-Fence-builder (so much land, so many sheep)
-Car Mechanic (especially 60-70s Citroens, Peugeots, Fiats, Renaults)
-Plumber (especially in Chile, although I think they might be outlawed by the looks - and sounds - of things)

Saturday February 25 2006

"Frappé La Rue"

After a six-day delay in Gobernador Gregores, the mechanic (a different one this time) made some temporary fixes to the alternator and we Hit The Road (thanks to Jack Christie for the quote). Yesterday we drove from Argentina, through some gorgeous country into Chile, passing through the wild Chacabuco Valley to where it joins the Baker River in a spectacular canyon. From there we joined the Carretera Austral and drove into Cochrane, a dumpy little village with an "end of the road" feel perched on the edge of towering Andes.

Nice dropshadows. The Hardware Store in Gobernador Gregores.

The other funky thing in Gobernador Gregores: a garbage basket disguised as an African Construction worker. What the?!

Cuevas de los Manos (Hand Caves) at the edge of the gaping Painted Canyon just off Argentina's rugged Ruta 40.

There are 600 meters of paintings in the caves, mostly of stenciled left hands - a few with only 3 fingers and one with as many as six. Pigments derived from the surrounding rock were used to create this prehistoric graffiti, the making of which spanned a time period over 3000-7000 years ago.

We found this nandu egg in the middle of the road. Nandus are big flightless birds resembling ostriches. They seem to be bountiful in Argentina, but are on the endangered list in Chile. This (rotten) egg had a thick shell like pearlized enamel, it' hard to imagine a chick manageing to bust itself out from the inside.

Rock sculpture on the rarely-travelled road to the Argentina-Chile border at Paso Roballos.

The Chacabuco Valley, Chile

Confluence of the Chacabuco and Baker rivers near Cochrane. Imagine the water a bright glacial-tinted turquoise. A hydroelectric dam is planned for the Baker River, which would devastate the Baker/Chacabuco valleys. In Cochrane there appears to be a fight on to save this piece of wilderness from destruction. (More on this as I find out more)

Storefronts, Cochrane. Another dreary, unimagineative Chilean town with bad plumbing on the Carretera Austral.

Wednesday February 22 2006

Peaks and Glaciers

A day's drive north of Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, lies another fabulous national park in Argentina, Los Glacieres. The Perito Moreno Glacier, near tourist-driven El Calafate draws tens of thousands of visitors a year. In the northern section of the park, the Fitzroy range attracts a hardy bunch of trekkers and serious mountaineers. Frank and I trekked around the Fitzroy range, but had a less than stellar trip. Biting winds blew into dusty overcrowded campsites filling our tent with grit, the trails were crawling with tour groups, and the peaks were shrouded in mist, making some of the side-trips into valley lookouts pointless.

Views of the Perito Moreno Glacier from the boardwalks in Los Glacieres National Park

 The Perito Moreno Glacier and the sprawling Southern Ice Field in the distance

The finest views of the Fitzroy range were from the road on the day we arrived. Four days of hiking around the base of the peaks didn't earn us a much better views.

Multi coloured grasses fill a meadow recently burned by a forest fire on the trail to Lago Cerro Torre.

A brief glimpse at the "smoking" Cerro Fitzroy as clouds swirled, as if we were watching a film on fast-forward, around the peaks.

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Tuesday February 21 2006

The Kindness of Strangers

It happened. I knew it would. Only a matter of time. It was just as distressing as I imagined it would be. And as I also imagined, someone would arrive to Save Our Sorry Asses.

Picture this: Nearly dark, gravel road, two hundred kilometers from the nearest town, on the way to one of Argentina's most isolated national parks. The Rhino's headlights faded to embers, Bob Marley's "Exodus, freedom to the peop...." warbled to silence. Dead battery. "It's that damned alternator again" Frank and I moaned in unison.

What followed was almost miraculous. A series of Helpers appeared from the isolated and windswept Patagonian steppe. One after another they came, in a variety of forms, to get the Rhino back on it's feet.

Walking in front of the van, with my Petzl headlamp on full and Frank driving, I guided us to a semi-abandoned Hotel Las Horquetas which we had passed an hour earlier. We parked, and hesitantly shut off the motor. Deafening silence. "Someone will give us a jumpstart in the morning" Frank reassured himself first, then me. We looked at the scene around us. The hotel's missing doors indicated by rusty hinges, old bed frames stacked against the walls, windows long since shattered to shards by violent Andean winds. Night sky twinkling with constellations. A chubby cat appeared from behind a set of reflected yellow slits and brushed against my leg. This was no stray.

The hotel caretakers, the ones keeping our feline friend well-fed, gave themselves away when we heard a scratchy radio broadcast escaping through cardboard-patched windows. Acting as if two Gringos in a sporty van asking to park in their courtyard was nothing out of the ordinary, a leathery old man appeared through a crack in a door made from bits of corrugated steel. He said, "Sure, make yourselves at home. Let us know if you need anything, and we'll give you a hand in the morning. Chao!" Slam! Meeooow.

It appears this old hotel in Patagonia is where cars come to die...

...and be reincarnated as trailers.

Distracting me from my spooky thoughts of zombie-infested abandoned hotels, a set of headlights appeared on the horizon. Followed by the unmistakable churning of either a car in serious trouble, or more likely in these parts, an normal old French import driven by an intrepid Argentinean wanting to stop for the night.

Now, this is when our bad luck turned to not-such-bad-luck after all.

From behind the wheel of the car jumps an energetic young guy, dressed in shiny blue athletic pants, silver Pumas and a hoodie. "Ola, que tal? Mi nombre es Pablo." Handshakes, cheek-kisses. Then something that translates into "What in God's name are you guys doing here?" We explained. Pablo had solutions. After all he and his girlfriend Roxana were Porteños (folk from Buenos Aires) on a circumnavigation of Argentina in their '74 Citroen, of course they exuded confidence and charm (some may call it cockiness). I liked them right away.

We bid each other goodnight, and headed off to our separate sleeping arrangements. Frank and I on our fold-down bed with Woolrest™ sleeper and down duvet and pillows, our new friends to a foam pad rolled over top of two folded-down seats leaving a slab of space below a overstuffed mesh basket attached to the ceiling. Suddenly I felt like a cocooning baby-boomer in a luxury Winebego compared to the Porteños in a sardine can.

Patched door in the abandoned hotel

Roxana, Pablo and the Citroen

The following morning, sipping "café con leche" under a bold blue sky, we swapped stories with each other and prepared for take-off. We would push the Rhino back to life.

Up on the Patagonian steppe, if the wind isn't howling, one can hear and see everything that moves. So on this calm morning spotting two figures, flickering on the hazy horizon, slowly approaching us on the Ruta Cuarenta was easy.

"Are they on bikes or foot?," I asked Frank as he gazed through the binoculars.

"They're walking. Jesus, where are they coming from? There's nothing out there."

The two young estancia workers spent a cold night in their Peugeot sedan after it died twelve kilometers down the road. They were looking for help, but figured it would come from a friend that was expecting them at the estancia. Pablo chatted with them for a bit. "Pablo, he'd chat to the walls if he could," sighed Roxana with resignation.

Things looked good, there were four extra people to push the Rhino, and we would help by giving the Peugeot a jumpstart.

But then, as if struck with another bolt of highway happenstance a big red truck with a massive V8 motor and a beaten-up Fiat with a tow-rope in the trunk simultaneously happened onto the scene with remarkably precise timing. Friends from the estancia to the rescue. No doubt used to bailing out the odd tourist from time to time on this god-forsaken stretch of gravel.

Chubs the Cat, or El Gatito Gordito in spanish.

With abundant cheek-kissing and handshaking we got back on the road, convoyed with our friends to the turnoff 35 kilometers away, and bid our farewells under the blistering sun. We were heading back to the nearest town, Gobernador Gregores (that's "Gob" for short), 75 kilometers further along a minor road. Here we would go back to the mechanic who worked on the alternator the day before, and lop off his head (after he made the necessary repairs, that is).

The Rhino has been plagued with electrical problems since November. Knowing this Frank and I have comforted ourselves with the mistaken belief that while the battery is dead, if the van is running it will continue to do so until the engine is turned off, or it runs out of fuel. Thus, with none of our gauges, including the fuel indicator, working we figured that when the van died halfway to to "Gob" we'd run out of diesel. It seemed premature, but our reasoning was hey, these gravel roads make for lousy mileage. We poured in half a tank of fuel from our reserve bottle, and started to push. Where were our friends now?

The afternoon progressed, the shadows grew long. Two pushes and a tow from estancia types driving big pick-ups with names like "Ram" and "Ranger" couldn't get us started. Could it be that that the fuel injectors have seized, or the fuel line is blocked with air? I grabbed our now-empty water jug and headed downhill to the brownish pond to collect some water for purifying. It looked like we'd be sleeping out on the steppe again.

A roadside sign for the aptly named Estancia Siberiana, draped with a fox carcass for added effect.

Three large trucks on the horizon trailing tell-tale clouds of dust. Possibly the drivers would stop to talk but have a delivery deadline to meet. If the truckers couldn't help us we were looking at hitching 60 kilometers into town the following morning and hiring a tow-truck. Knowing that they could offer us the kind of help we needed (lots of engine power for towing and charging a battery, a well-equipped tool-kit, lots of know-how) I sent a prayer to the Goddess of Roadside Assistance and exhaled deeply.

The three trucks slowed to a halt. They were hauling a double-decker trailer full of sheep. The animals shuffled to balance, pink noses pressed between the wood slats of the trailer. Three "transportadores" dressed in typical Patagonian garb (cotton slippers, cuffed cotton trousers, a black felt beret and smoldering cigarette) jumped from their cabs and asked "What's up?" When we described the problem they knew immediately that the Rhino's engine needed some electrical power to operate the inflow of diesel, and that this is why we couldn't push the beast to a start. Through a combination of jump starting our battery and, when our vehicle died again after 30 kilometers, towing us the rest of the way we limped back into "Gob" as the sun was setting.

Often when traveling I been overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. When asked why they are helping, the answers range from "it is the Christian (or Muslim, or Buddhist) thing to do", "you have come from far to visit our country and you should have a good impression of the people" to "I have lots of time, what else am I going to do? When I asked one of the sheep transporters (who had to rush off to deliver the animals to the slaughterhouse the following morning) how we could repay them, he replied "Just have a good time traveling in Argentina." I think I can handle that.

During our ordeal with the mechanics in Gobernador Gregores, I considered trading-in The Rhino for this Citroen. They may be old beaters, but they never die.

Saturday February 18 2006

Taking in The Torres

Sunrise on The Torres, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. We were incredibly lucky to have a clear day (sandwiched between two cloudy days) for an early morning viewing of the sunlit Torres (or towers in english) in this spectacular national park.

View of the Torres massif (from our campsite on Lago Pehoé), which we trekked around on "The 'W' Trail" over the course of five days. Here, the famous Torres, as seen in the top photo, are partly obscured by the bulky Cerro Almirante Neto at the right. The three black-topped "horns" to the left are Cerro Espalda, Cuernos Norte and Principal (average 2500 meters) at the east side of the peak-fringed French Valley.

View of the massive Grey Glaciar where it feeds into Grey Lake, at the start of our trek.

On the trail to Campamento Italiano, at the foot of the French Valley, with mesmerizing views to the two Cuernos, or Horns.

Glaciar formed Cuerno Norte dwarfs trekkers looking across to Punta Bariloche at the edge of the French Valley.

Punta Bariloche and Cumbres Central and Principal with the entertainingly active Glacier Frances at the far left. We sat at a view point across the glacier and watched small avalanches, and heard deafening cracks of shifting ice as the heat of the day rose.

Stickers on the window at the Hostal Los Torres, an indication of the intense international popularity of the park amongst trekkers, tour groups, and mountaineers. "The 'W' Trail" is crawling with gore-tex and polar fleece-adorned outdoor enthusiasts, all taking in probably one of the most famous and commercialized trails in South America (second only to Peru's Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu, that is).

The magnificent Torres. We could see through my binoculars that several climbers were making their way to the summit of the centre towers. We could spot their bivvy sacks - microscopic yellow and blue dots - halfway up the face, and see several real life Spidermen advancing up through a vertical seam in the rock.

meadow daisies, hardy and windswept

Lichens and creeping berry bushes like these, along with pink and red grasses, make up a delightful patchwork of hardy pampas carpet.

At the trail side, brilliant shades of green and purple

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Thanks for visiting.

all photographs lindsay simmonds ©2005