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Regresso

We’re on our way back!

2 flights to go 😃

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Buenos Aires - activities

These pics are from the last couple days. We had some very unfortunate timing in terms of catching places open and catching tours at the times we wanted. There would be a great few weeks of exploration in this city were we to come back. I also couldn’t get my head around all the revolutions and dictators we heard about. What a history. Well, less about politics and let’s jump to the parks and animals...

Buenos Aires do a mighty fine Japanese garden.

We haven’t looked up what the rabbit-guineapigs are yet! But probably one of the 18 types of guinea pig that I didn’t know existed before July this year 😂 Why don’t primary schools get these ones?! I’m sure they survive longer in the hands of preps. Anyway, these fellas were in an ecoparque that used to be a zoo. We went to visit but they never opened their gates. We figure they forgot to remove these ones when they closed the zoo. Or something.

Also dog walkers galore here. In a local park there were 5 dog walkers with about 10dogs each and plenty more walking down the streets with their hoards. Quite a sight, and somewhat crowded on the footpath!

We’ve noticed the keys here are all super old! The ones you have to jiggle a bunch to make work. All the locals had them too.

Paul stumbled upon this night market restaurant that functioned as if it were an Asian night market. They have a money exchange at the front where you buy pretend coins of a different currency, and use those to “shop” at the stalls at the other end of the restaurant. Their cider tasted like apple wine, but the food was delish!

It was easy to find street art on every corner. Some great stories to outline the faces of these paintings. In the area we were staying there were heaps of “hidden” bars from prohibition time, with one of them providing a “gaol” experience reliving fake scenes of the old gaol it’s set in. We chose a more fancy option and found a closed door restaurant with some superb hosts who had amazing chefs, knowledge of wine and a good sense of humour. We stayed there for about 5 hours revelling in the food, drink and chats.

And finally out of these pics, we visited the Tigre National Naval museum to see dad’s painting and meet the staff. It was a very humble affair and a beautiful town, that unfortunately was looking very flooded but had some remarkable buildings and a relaxed vibe. The staff member who greeted us was extremely generous, giving us much of his time and taking us around the entire exhibition to point out stories and discuss some of his local knowledge. Looking forward to sharing some with Dad upon return. The painting was in its element among only a few others that sat right next to Vito Dumas’ replica boat. Surrounded by relics of an Argentinian hero.

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Buenos Aires

So far in Buenos Aires 😂👍...

Check out a very large mausoleum (above) and Evita’s grave. A very awesome bookstore in an old theatre.

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Sick of mountain pictures yet?

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Patagonia

Day 1 - arrived to park with clear skies, expecting a bit of a hike in, but found ourselves walking door to door into what seemed like a bustling pub chalet! Enormous with beautiful wooden dorm rooms and heated by fireplaces. Had dinner with some engineers - one who was pondering the ethics of what the value of human life is worth in his design for driverless cars. Just a small question. He said he has to give an actual value in the programming to what a life is worth eg of a child vs older adult. They had just finished their hike so gave us some tips and helped to give perspective of the difficulty level.

Day 2 - 24km/8hours walking...woke at stupid o’clock (3.30am) started walking in mild temperature and drizzle to get to the Torres for sunrise (3 stark peaks). Unfortunately very foggy morning but enjoyed the sunrise lighting up the other mountains and were happy to finish our hike by midday with the chalet to ourselves, napping in the sun for the afternoon. Our package included ‘welcome drinks’ which were very unmeasured Pisco sours...so that made the evening bubbly.

Day 3 - 22km / 6hrs walking...beautifully mild spring morning so a lot of birds and rabbits showed themselves as we walked in the shrub lower lands past lakes of different colours and up to knolls to view the perfect reflections on the water. Had lunch at a beach of the lakes to skim rocks. Arrived at our spaceship-like accommodation domes where we met an israeli-Russian father-daughter combo who said there’s 1million of the 8million people in Israel who are Russian?! Met aussies from port hedland, and a lovely Chilean tour guide. Dinner was fancypants with a dessert that had a decoration of jam splotches. Having talked about pumas most of the evening, they resembled the bloodied markings of puma claws a little too realistically! We attempted to sleep in the dome with our newly acquired upgraded snore-factories who had trumped those of the night before. Ah the pleasantries of dorm accom.

Day 4 - 25km/9hrs walking...leap frogged with all the other travellers throughout the day, stopping at the huts en route, amazing lookouts towards the river and glacier and stopping suddenly every time we heard a crash of the glacier breaking and plummeting off the cliff. We saw a few cloud puffs of ice when this happened. Finished the valley with a 360 degree mountain lookout that was stunning atop a rocky outcrop. Had to backtrack through a lot of this, but loved the marshy woodlands that wove through by the river. Plodded by the reflections again for the afternoon and gradually approached more and more people who were on day walks from the main Paine Grande accomodation...which despite outside appearances, was surprisingly underwhelming inside (time-out showers, cold small rooms, non-cosy communal spaces, generally more day-trip tourists with high expectations and low-level-manners).

Day 5 - 32km/8.5hrs walking...this was a big big day to the glacier and back from Paine Grande in order to catch a ferry at 6.30 off the park. We reached a spectacular hanging bridge that overlooked the grey glacier, with icebergs floating in the distance off the lake. En route there were several lookouts through the initial valley, over the lakes and out towards the glacier. Grey Refugio, which most groups aimed to walk to, had a very modern but cattle ranch feel with white trimmed windows and wooden polished boardwalks linking them. This section of woodland had several woodpeckers that we could hear clearly, and could see evidence of in the perfectly drilled holes in the sides of trees. As we headed back, racing for time a little, the weather closed in and strong winds brought condors and falcons 🦅 to play in the currents, while giving us a tail wind by which to travel with down through the valley. There was a touch of sleet followed by storm clouds brewing. As we left the park, we had a calming sunset to look out upon, and one of the guides said he saw a puma, but no one else did. When we asked what to look for, he said “it’s brown”. Helpful 😂👍When we arrived back to the hostel, we no doubt bumped into the other Aussie couple who had gone the opposite direction to us, so we compared tales of all the other people we crossed paths with. A good little debrief!

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So much more to come. This was a hike of spectacular scenery! The W-Trek is in Torres National Park. We hiked for 5 days until our legs nearly didn’t bend any more! Our daily km ave was 25km with step count average at 30,000 steps. Looking more like the Chilean currency than the US😋 and today we finished on about 30km. But every step was worth it.

Sunrises, sunsets, glaciers, snow-capped peaks. A lot of distance in between through shrubby heath, mossy-treed woodlands, and some rocky granite slopes. More to come...

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Puerto Natales

We were fortunate to schedule in a rest day which turned out to be a little longer because we had an earlier bus into town and a later bus out of town.

Puerto Natales is a sleepy seaside (fjiordside) town where, again, there is a large population of stray dogs who try to sleep in any closed space they can find - the atm lockup was a popular spot due to the heaters inside. And when there’s not much else to do, it seems that people smoke and drink more as well as painting their houses brighter colours and filling the street walls with murals. Most of the town is directed towards tourism, being the gateway to the Torres Del Paine National Park, though there’s a disproportionate number of opp-shop stores compared to the population, which is unexplained. There is a lot of construction (hotels/roads) and deconstruction (old boats and parts of old machinery being used for new signs and buildings).

A quick look into the cultural museum gave us an impression of the Kawesqar (meaning tough skinned or flesh and bones) first Nation people having needed to live off animal materials as a primary source. It was a new kind of gross for me to learn about the process of leather tanning, whale tendons used for housing, seal clubbing and fats of armadillo used to preserve paints, however, it goes to show the necessity of these animals for survival in such a fiercely weathered location.

Today we are off on our hike - the Wtrek, which gets its name from the shape of the walking route. We’ve had some insight as to how to fend off a Puma, though I’ll be intending on inviting it to dinner if we see one. 🐈

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La Paz

We were grateful to have some time to wander the streets slowly, having planned some further acclimatisation to the altitude (4000m). We had another glam hotel - Spanish style wooden interior balconies and tiled floors.

The ethnography museum was really well structured and showed a chronological sequence of agriculture, clothing, use of birds and other animals in products and ceremonies (the use of feathers was incredible - an umbrella made of feathers was used in one cultural group, and a “painting” using only the feathers woven as the colours, was another). Also a loin cloth - I imagine it was very comfortable. In here, there was also a history of masks (which got crazier and bigger with time!) and a display of coins that showed clearly the overwhelming changes in economics over time. On a positive it was nice to see the main feature of the notes (mountains and llamas and symbolism from native people) had been retained in the centre of the notes and flag throughout time.

The streets were very cold due to the altitude and as soon as the sun went away, it was cold-to-the-bones type cold. We were empathising heavily with the inmates of the San Pedro prison whom we’d been reading about in Marching Powder - based on a true story, an insight into the prison, and the corruption during the US’s “crack”down on drugs in the 80s.

There was a coca museum that was super interesting - tiny and offered a Coca Lolly upon entry (that made Paul vomit, and made my mouth completely numb). The display was mostly photocopied materials and really bad photos! But it was great coverage of the traditional uses of coca leaves, spiritual significance (having been used for predicting the future similar to tea-leaf reading in Japan), use in ceremonies, chewing on leaves as a stimulant and dealings in altitude, use over time as a appetite suppressant when people were oppressed and used as slaves on farms. There seemed to be some to-ing and fro-ing surrounding whether it helped or hindered workers. Rules changed several times with a tax being brought in to cash in on those buying coca leaves. There were graphs to show comparisons of coca as a stimulant compared with other forms of nutrition and generally showing a greater level of sustained effort was possible for those who had chewed on the leaves than those who hadn’t. No greater oxygen intake though. There was a small display of how cocaine is derived from the plant, some arrests that were made and some famous users alongside the adds for cocaine’s use in coca-cola, medicines for a variety of illnesses and in particular use in dentistry as an anaesthetic. Overall, a pretty fascinating display!

Our tour guide was of indigenous descent and brought up Protestant. He mentioned he only learnt his native customs as an adult and now practices the offerings and spiritual readings that most native people still do in town. This includes reading the coca leaves and learning which regions an offering is required (candies and llama foetuses) all items are burnt at this site with the intention of giving Mother Nature further sustenance in the low seasons to rejuvenate from. Hence, at the “witches’ market” there are these sorts of things being sold. As well as llama toenails and a huge array of medicinal needs that a shaman could use effectively for spiritual and natural remedies. In Cusco, there were actually shops that you could go in to have a shaman perform a ritual on you - this included the use of hallucinogenics and what not but was seen as a very commercial means compared to how things would actually be done in a tribe (with a long slow process of body cleansing over weeks).

In our tour, we visited the Moon Valley and different regions of wealth and poverty in the city. The teleferico (gondolas) was a major form of public transport around the city and we caught a few lines that linked over several suburbs showing the diversity. The land around the area appeared very unstable and having had landslides, much was under reconstruction. Thankfully they’re not at risk of as many earthquakes, but soil is sedimentary and causes a lot of problems.

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Uyuni to Chile, the movie 🍿 🎥

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Llama’s Day Out 🍿 🎥

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Bolivian desert: Uyuni to Chile

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Bolivian backyard.

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Sunset by Paul, Uyuni, 🇧🇴

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The above is our hotel. There aren’t many here, but this one is made of salt bricks. Very impressive! And it smells amazing!