Picture 1, reconstruction of a Yamana hut, the original inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego. Pic 2 Banco Patagonia in a Swiss style building. Pic 3 Monument for some naval hero was unveiled on Sunday with much ceremonyArrived last night in the dark so didn´t get to see the place properly, I was just so pleased to have so easily found a bed and a computer under one roof. Got up early this morning for a walk about and decided I may have to come and live here... And then a few hours later when I was out on a boat in the bay I fell totally in love with the place and was making all sorts of plans about how it would be to spend at least a few months here, preferably in June (later correction, that should of course be December - it´s difficult to remember that the seasons are reversed here) when the sun practically never sets but also in the winter when all the tourists have gone. Meantime I´ve found a language school and am going to see if it´s possible to join in with a Spanish course this week. I definitely want to spend some more time here At the End of the World. It´s the most spectacularly beautiful place. Small easily navigable town on the bay surrounded by picture perfect snow topped peaks. Esta demasiado bonito, verdad. (It´s my blog and I´ll practise my dodgy Spanish if I want to! :-) What makes it even more spectacular is that you know that behind the mountains there is hundreds of miles of nOthing. Well, there is a tired little town about an hour up the road but most of the 14 hours we spent on the bus yesterday was totally empty.
Went out for the sealions and seabirds trip this morning. I suspect I may have taken the more expensive boat by mistake as I was in a hurry to get a ticket for the 9.30 departure but ach, it was worth it just for the entertainment value of the couple from Long Island tourists straight out of a Woody Allen film who gave a running commentary most of the time. I won´t repeat their conversations as they´ll sound boring written down, but ´live´ they were hilarious. The dearer boat option also meant I got to have ´free´ hot chocolate afterwards in a chocolate shop in town. And a free gift at the biggest giftshop place (where the t-shirts were 3 times the price of the one I bought in the hypermarket later - see next post). The sealions lounged on the rocks and fought and growled and took no notice at all of the fotographing hordes. The hundreds of cormorants also just went about their business of digesting fish and adding to the white layer on their rock. Saw King Cormorants and Roco Cormorants and various other sorts of ducks and huge bruiser-type seagulls. I was glad I had my wee binoculars in my bag.
I´m so pleased how up till now my minimum luggage has provided me with everything I´ve needed. Have I already told how I made a pair of bathslippers out of a torn in half nylon bag and 2 bits of elastic? I didn´t bring any extra shoes with me and realised in Rio Gallegos that slippers would be handy so manufactured the ultimate lightweight foldaway pair from what I could find in my bag. The Canadian snowboarder was sO impressed that I was travelling with handluggage - he´d had a crisis a few days earlier when his rucksack had almost gone off on the wrong bus when they had to change buses somewhere and was jealous that I had everything with me inside the bus rather than out of sight in the hold.
I had both my trousers on this morning on the boat and my rainjacket on over my various layers and it was definitely necessary when on the top of the boat in the wind. But it´s not ridiculously cold, about 10 degrees, which is warmer than it was in Soest when I left. Mind you, it is summer here. But I prefer this to the heat further North. And it´s dry. The sun even comes out from behind the fast moving clouds now and then. I´m off for a walk along the coast now. Have decided to go to see the glacier later in the week, no point in ´doing´ everything the first day.
I have some photos to add to the blogs of the past few days but have been told that this computer is too slow to make it much use for that so am going to go to the one down the road, maybe tomorrow. There´s almost literally an internet café on every street corner here and the helpful girl at the reception has told me where the best and cheapest one is to be found.
