Puerto Natales

Bus was a simple común version this time. But it´s not such a long journey, only about 6 hours. The border crossing wasn´t too much hassle this time either. Arrived in town a lot earlier than I thought. When I'd bought the ticket the man had scribbled 10.30 on the ticket and I thought he meant that it was 10 + hours but I think now he meant I should be at the bus station at this time for the 11 o´clock departure. Anyway it was still light and I could easily find the hostel I´d read about. 6000 chilean pesos, and as there are about 700 to the euro this is less than 9 euros a night

Leg Room (huh?)

Forgot to take a photo of my dog bite when it was ´fresh´. This is it 5 days later then. Also a pic of my wonderful bath slippers. And a couple of room 3 in Hotel Colonial. Have just successfully put all my photos on the USB stick. Took a few attempts and I had to slide them all into a new folder first but it went reasonably quickly and maybe next time I´ll be able to work out how to just say Copy Everything to F...

Pioneers Museum

Superstitious, Moi??

Anyone who´s ever witnessed how I automatically swipe a pair of new shoes from the table if anyone is daft enough to put them there in my company will know that I´m not entirely devoid of superstition. So here is a close-up view of my ´protectors´ during this journey. The angel hangs from one of the zips on my ´big´ rucksack. The fold up kitsch St Christopher is around the strap of my small leather rucksack. The onyx hanger I bought in Ushuaia because it´s good to take a stone from the furthest point of your journey (and I felt my hippouch thing needed some protection too). The charm bracelet is one I got from my Canadian auntie when I was 14. I used to hate it because for years I got another charm for it for my birthday (when I would have propably preferred something else). Most of the other charms have long been given away or used in some dubious experiment to see how long they could preserve drinking water (based on the theory that cowboys used to put a silver dollar in their drinking bottles to keep the water drinkable). But the horseshoe was still attached and I´ve now hung another stone on it and had the safety chain repaired (see earlier Ushuaia blog) so I feel it has some ´use´ to me now.

Nada Penguins

Ah, well, it seems the penguins were not meant to happen today. Went along to the place where the excursion could be booked, only to be told that it only went ahead if there were at least 5 people. Which there weren´t. ´¿Mañana?´ she asked. But tomorrow I´m off on the bus to Puerto Natales in Chile. Had a look at my map and decided I could easily hitch there and back myself in a day. It was about 120km and I´d heard from various people at the hostel in Ushuaia that hitching is easy here. So set off quite happily for the walk out of town and as soon as I got on the road a car stopped before I´d even had to put my thumb out. The 2 men in the van thought it was hilarious that I wanted to go to Capo Virgenes. They told me they could only drop me at the fork in the road 14 km further and asked how I was going to go after that. ´Other cars?´ I said hopefully. More hilarity. Anyway they dropped me off and I was soon picked up by a huge tanker truck. He told me he could only take me as far as he was going to deliver his petrol (or oil or whatever it was - I only understand a fraction of what people say to me). Fair enough - I asked him to point out on the map roughly where that was and he told me and said it would take 3 hours. And it was not even a third of the distance I needed to go. Ah... this was getting more complicated - I´d assumed I´d just nip along there in at most 2 hours. I still think like a European, that where there are roads there are also cars. But this road barely deserved the name. It was a dust track. With hardly any traffic. The driver was trying to tell me that really it wasn´t possible to get a lift all the way to the cape. No-one goes there. Only the excursions. Eventually I realised that it wasn´t going to work and decided to get out and turn back. We agreed that if no-one had come he would take me back to the main road on his return trip later in the afternoon. Walked for about an hour, enjoying being out in this huge empty landscape. The wind was just right, not cold, not too warm, not too strong to dislodge my cap (which I need to stop my face burning, the sun is deceptive, it doesn´t feel hot because of the wind but is therefore all the more dangerous). Then got picked up by another 2 men in a pick-up. They took me right to my hotel, after stopping for 5 minutes at the edge of town to deliver some stuff. They told me that the 2 ranches we passed (which look like nothing more than a few barns and an unimpressive house) are owned by the family Benetton. As indeed is most of the land in the area. When I was walking out of town this morning I was thinking that as I delete all the photos from my camera as soon as I´ve uploaded them to the blog I don´t have a ´hard copy´ of them anywhere. If Blogger goes bankrupt or whatever I´ll lose them all. I was thinking of asking if someone at home could somehow take them from the blog and store them on a cd when suddenly I had the brilliant idea that I can put them on my USB stick. I brought it with me with only the vaguest idea that it might be handy if someone else wanted to give me some photos from their camera, as I can´t actually use it with this camera. But I can put the photos on it after I´ve uploaded them to the computer I use to put them on the blog. At least I think I can. Off to try it when I´ve uploaded the latest lot.

Rio Gallegos part 2

Got a taxi straight from the airport to the bus station to see if I could get a bus today to Puerto Natales. ´Solo martes y sabado´. So I have to wait till Saturday. It´s not such a bad thing really. Went back to ´my´ hotel, where the owner greeted me like a long lost friend and when I asked her if I´d maybe left my glasses there last week she produced them too. Did my washing and then had a siesta to recover from the early start and all the airport stress. Have just been to the Museo de los Pioneros. Beautifully preserved little wooden house from the end of the 19th century. Have lots of photos but have left the cable for the camera in my other bag so will add them later. Tomorrow I´ll take the bus down to Cape Virgenes and finally see some live penguins, as the only ones I´ve seen up till now are the toy versions in all the souvenir shops and the 6 foot Disney type one that scares children in the main street as he hands out booklets with all the tourist attraction things in the town.
Photos were taken during the walk from the bus station to the hotel. Lots of colourful buildings cheering up the otherwise dusty and dilapidated streets here.

Day later - added some more pics taken when walking back to get the bus. Including the one of Eva Peron that I must have missed the other 3 times I walked that route...

Leaving Ushuaia

Got up in plenty time to walk to the airport. Took about 70 minutes with a few stops for photos. The sky behind me was black with rainclouds but there were only a few drops of rain and the sun was coming up in front of me so there was a rainbow for a while. When I saw the plane coming in with the mountains in the background I burst into tears because I realised it was going to take me away (duh... :-o) and I´ll probably never be back again. Had a bit of a daft tourist moment just before boarding. I´d been through all the various bag checks, got my boarding card in plenty time and then just when I was about to get on the plane someone thought to tell me I had still to pay the airport tax. Had to rush back down into the hall, find the office, get the receipt and run up again to get on board just in time. In all the carry on I dropped various cards from the ´safe´ place next to my passport. Not wildly important, my staying permit, my donor card and a bank card for the giro account which I only have with me in case there´s a problem with my other card (which is in a ´safer´ place...). I hadn´t even noticed till I was getting into my seat and a steward came first with the bankcard and then, just as I was trying to work out what else I was missing, the other 2. Gracias, muchas gracias, Señor Aerolinas Argentina! It must be all the good luck charms I have hanging on all my bags which are protecting me from disaster. I also had to insist on having my window seat as someone else had installed themselves in it whilst I was running about the airport like a mad thing. I´d only bought the plane ticket on the condition that I got a window seat and had carefully selected it specially with the guy in the ticket office. Once all that was sorted the flight was fine! The cloud cover meant that the mountains soon disappeared but it was good to see the bay from above for the last time and later the sky cleared and there were some good views of the rest of Tierra del Fuego. It was only a 50 minute flight and then I was back in Rio Gallegos.