And back to reality...

It hardly seems like two months now since our return to the UK. As we approached the end of our trip in South America our mindset certainly began to shift towards home and all that that entails. I remember standing on the balcony of our hostel in beautiful Buzios and checking our email on the laptop and Sarah beckoned me over to look at an email she had been sent by Sarah Hunter-Rodwell of Didlington Doodles. In the email we had received confirmation that our name was on the list for a litter of miniature Labradoodle puppies due at the beginning of May. We were so excited, but at the time it seemed like such a long way off that we didn't want to get too excited (besides, we didn't know how many puppies would be in the litter). Our last couple of weeks reinforced the proximity of our impending return and we began to adjust to the prospect of heading back to the UK.

After nearly five months on the road and jaded by the cost of living in Brazil we were quietly looking forward to getting back to the peace and quiet of the Cotswolds and re-establishing our life at home. For me the transition was always going to be abrupt as we returned on the Saturday and I was at week on the Tuesday (it was a Bank Holiday). I had been in contact with the office and knew that I was due to start a project up in Warwick and was glad to be straight back at the coal face, fresh and eager to get stuck in. The project is fascinating and the client is great so it is a huge relief to be back in such fine style.

For Sarah, the transition was always going to be tougher as the ambiguity of not having a job to come back to is always unsettling. As it happens, things fell into place quite quickly as the opportunity to continue her studies with a Masters in Early Years Education came up and news came through that Dawn (a beautiful Chocolate Labrador) had had a litter of six new puppies and we were sixth of the waiting list. After eight weeks of waiting we finally headed down to Cranbourne Chase last weekend to collect the newest edition to the Giles household...Jasper. Today he has been with us eight days and it has not been the easiest adjustment to make but he has been worth every minute of the lost sleep we have had. There will be more on Jasper over the next few weeks but now onto something completely different...

I mentioned in my post from Florianopolis that I was cooking up plans for active events to keep me focused and fit when I came back. As anticipated, I followed up and two things have come to fruition so far. The first is due next weekend and the second is due in November. On Friday Rob and I head off to Snowdonia for the weekend to join a group that is going to attempt the Welsh 3000s. We will be meeting up with Lou (who we met on the Navimag and rejoined in Mendoza) who is shortly to return from Ecuador and will head up to campsite just at the base of Snowdon to attempt the challenge. I am sure that we are woefully ill prepared, despite a lot of running and walks. Whichever way you look at it, 50k on foot in 24 hours and 14 peaks over 3000 feet is going to hurt. Still, a challenge is a challenge. The second event is the New York Marathon. Inspired by the feats of Thierry, our French friend from the trip to Antarctica, I was keen to take Simon up on his offer of a joint assault on the NYC marathon. The week before last we finally got confirmation that we had places in the race (not the easiest thing to achieve). So, the roads and trails around North Wraxall will be hit hard over the summer and autumn months. I have bought a GPS and heart rate monitor to track my progress and signed up to a program where I am tracking my progress. I'll write more about the training but for now I need to sign off...Jasper needs to head out to the garden...nature calls.

Cheek by Jowl

After a marathon bus ride from Florianopolis we are now in the spectacular city of Rio de Janeiro. After the near biblical day of rain in Florianopolis the weather came good for our last couple of days and the charm of Santa Catarina began to shine through the off-season gloom. The tennis continued to be a regular fixture as we followed a Canadian player, Peter Polansky, that we got chatting to on the first day as he made his way to the Quarter Finals only to be knocked out by the narrowest of margins. Watching these guys slug it out in the blistering heat of the midday sun was a fantastic and unexpected experience. The overnight bus trip to Rio was more comfortable than expected but it is nice to think that we only have a mere six hour ride remaining to take us from Rio back Sao Paulo next week.

Rio is without doubt one of the most visually spectacular cities in the world and quite unlike any other city we have been to on the trip so far. The city is punctuated by steep mountains that separate the regions and make it feel more compact than it actually is. The main beaches of Ipanema and Copocabana are some of the most densely populated areas in South America as the high rise apartment buildings are crammed into the few blocks between the beach and the lagoon, just a few hundred metres inland. As there are a couple of public holidays this week the beaches were packed with people enjoying the last throws of autumn. The beaches reflect the diversity of life in Rio with each section of the beach ‘claimed’ by a different group: the pensioners playing suttlecock, favella kids playing beach football, bronzed poseurs playing beach volleyball in the tightest speedos they could find and only marginally more modest than the beachwear on show in the gay section between the rainbow flags. On Sundays and public holidays they shut down an entire carriage-way of the beach road for runners, rollerbladers and promenaders. This is where people come to see and be seen. It is fair to say that Ipanema beach takes the award for the most inappropriate exercise clothing I have ever seen; who would have thought that an octagenarian would wear a pair of speedos to go running.

After Chile we thought that we had left the most expensive country on our trip but Brazil has been a real eye opener. Our room in the Mango Tree Inn is possibly the worst value for money we have had thus far at $65 US for what if effectively a damp shed with a bunk bed. The restaurants are equally extortionate with fish and meat main courses in the region of $30-35 each we are talking London prices. As we head up the coast tomorrow to Buzios for our final attempt at a sunny beach stay we are hoping for a little self-catering to ease the strain on our already hemorrhaging budget.

The strangest thing about Rio is the proximity of extreme wealth and poverty. This morning we went on an organised tour of a couple of Favellas. These areas of the city house the poorest of Rio’s inhabitants and are effectively outside of government control. The Favellas are controlled by organised crime syndicates that run drug franchises around the city and are de facto no-go areas for the police. Robberies and street crime rarely occur in the Favellas as the dealers don’t want to draw attention to the area, this is usually reserved for Ipanema and Copacabana. However, as the balance of power ebbs and flows within the gangs there are regular shoot-outs as turf wars reach their inevitable conclusion. Recent investments by NGOs and the Inter-American Development Bank have improved infrastructure in these makeshift areas bringing rudimentary healthcare and eduction to the families that desperately need it. However, what is most striking is how close the Favellas are to some of the most affluent parts of town with single roads lined with million dollar houses on one side and tenements on the other. Education is the only path the kids in the Favellas have to escape the cycle of poverty but few have access to good quality public schooling. Hopefully this will change as the government begins to provide the much needed investment that address the needs of this underclass, until then the dealers will rule and have plenty of willing recruits with a shortened life expectancy.

Off-season melancholy

There is something melancholy about beach resorts in the off season. Restaurants stand empty save for the rows of tables with seats stacked upside down, legs in the air. Shops selling flip-flops and swimwear have brown paper messages plastered on the inside of the window: ‘Stock Liquidation’; ‘Final Clearance 50% off’. Sand drifts down the street, blown on the wind along the curb until it forms into drifts against a stick lodged in front of the storm drain. On our first day on the Isla de Santa Catarina, outside the city of Florianopolis, the overcast skies brought a chill to the air and the gloom added to the off-season quiet of a town slowly dropping into hibernation. Bright flowers in the courtyard of our hostel, a warm oasis in the doleful tranquility of the resort, indicate what might have been if we had arrived a month or so ago. Bathed in sunshine and bustling with holiday makers, this town would be positively radiant, however, the weather and season conspire to suppress the joie de vivre and dampen the spirits of even the ebullient Brazilians.

We had come to Brazil with visions of white sandy beaches bathed in sunshine and ice cold caiparinhas. With two weeks remaining on the continent we were prepared to surrender to the sound of the sea lapping against the shore, read a book and mentally adjust to the prospect of a return to ‘everyday life’. Being well seasoned travelers now we have both learnt to always have a Plan B and to adjust to the situation at hand. As such, we have a second beach trip planned to Buzios after a brief trip to Rio and have stumbled across an ATP Challenger Tour tennis event just down the road; entrance is free and the standard is fantastic and with a bit of luck the next couple of days will bring more sunshine to boot.

I mentioned in my post about Buenos Aires that we were already starting to think about home and the prospect of ‘business as usual’. After several months on the road the frustrations of an itinerant life are always close to the surface: the constant packing and unpacking of bags; the limitations of restaurant food for every meal; the need to pay for activities that at home would cost nothing; and, the inability to access the everyday amenities of home. As we get closer to our return the lure of normality becomes more real and compelling. However, we are both conscious that we don’t want to suffer the inevitable feelings of anticlimax that also accompany the end of such an epic trip and the only way we know to avoid this is to begin planning new experiences. Strange as it may seem, I am really looking forward to getting back to work and all the challenges that it will bring, however, I have also missed being able to get out and ride, run and walk in the way that I can when we are at home. With that in mind I have a number of plans afoot to enter events in the summer and to set myself some longer term goals for endurance events that will test my limits and bring structure and meaning to my training. Luckily it looks like I will have someone to push me on as my good friend Simon is also looking for a challenge. We have bandied around a few ideas and will continue to do so until mid-May when we will meet in person to agree a schedule. Knowing how we are, I suspect that there will be a distinctly competitive edge to it, all the better to focus the mind.

Turning up the heat

The thunderous wall of water seems to vaporise before it hits the plunge pool 60 metres below. From the viewing platform above the Devil’s Throat the river seems sedate in its passage towards the precipice, slowly flowing around islets of vegetation, barely a few feet deep. Fish swim lazily from rock to rock seemingly oblivious to the commotion less than twenty metres downstream. As the water flows over the terminal face of the falls the light refracts through the gentle curve of the fall before it reaches the vertical and dissipates into millions of individual droplets. As they fall further they form an homogenous meld of foaming white water that crashes into the plunge pool below, frothing and seething, sending a billowing cloud of vapour high above the falls.

The Devil’s Throat is the showpiece of the Iguaçu Falls, but there are several falls that match it or surpass it in power. What makes Iguaçu unique is the breadth of the horseshoe and the panoramic sweep of the falls. From the Argentinean side it is possible to see several aspects of the falls and you get a real feel for the sheer size and majesty of the spectacle. Well marked paths cut through the jungle guiding visitor to all the best viewpoints and a small train carries passengers to the walkway at the top of the falls. The humidity and heat of the jungle hold the perfume of the jungle plants close to the ground as the oppressive heat of the midday sun smothers the low lying canopy of vegetation. Copious butterflies flit from tree to tree searching for moisture and nectar, each variety seemingly seeking to out compete the next in the colour stakes.

The fact that we got to the falls at all was an achievement in itself. A group of local residents, exasperated by the governments lack of funding for education had taken to the streets and blockaded the one arterial route that links the town to Falls and the airport. Traffic was backed up all day and the picket lines were locked down. Luckily, on our way out we had reached the picket before they had enough critical mass to stop us crossing, however, our bus was not able to cross so we resorted to a mixture of hitchhiking and walking to get to the falls. On our return the traffic tailed back several kilometres and the barricade was watertight; no amount of talking and gesticulating could get us through. As we baked under the full force of the sun the mass of pedestrians grew and the clamour to get through increased until it was decided by the protestors to open the lines to pedestrians to ease the pressure. The legacy of civil disobedience in South America is longstanding and protest is a natural extension of the process of negotiation; whether it is parents demanding better education, water taxi drivers demanding more money or farmers challenging the onerous tax burden on their produce, demonstrators remonstrate in the loudest possible terms.

Lofts, boutiques and La Boca

Buenos Aires is the beating heart of South America popular culture. A long history of European immigration has left an indelible mark of old and new Europe on this city. From the architecture of San Telmo and the Parisian flair of the Belles Artes style public buildings to the ever-present campaign posters of Berlusconi aimed at the voting power of the Italian diaspora, the links to Europe abound.

After five days of wandering around the streets of Buenos Aires it was sometimes hard to believe that we were in South America with all the street-style boutiques, couture stores and cafes bustling with cosmopolitan Porteños. However, move South of San Telmo and you quickly find yourself in La Boca, the home of Boca Juniors (the club made famous by the eponymous Diego Maradona). La Boca is the ‘other’ side of Buenos Aires; altogether grittier and more in-keeping with the Barrios of Lima and Quito. As we made our way to the La Bombonera (the Boca Stadium) we could see families seated on the steps of their tenement buildings, drinking and chatting in the warm, late summer evening. Along the streets, vendors were selling knock-off merchandise and impromptu grills were smoking with tripe and chorizos dripping fat onto the red hot coals, fanned constantly with a copy of the evening paper by the distracted owner.

Inside the stadium the atmosphere was electric. Stood behind the home team’s goal, the entire stand opposite seemed to throb to the beat of the drummers within their midst; a jumping mass of blue and yellow chanted for ninety minutes without stopping for breath. The football was mediocre at best, but the experience was unforgettable.

San Telmo used to be the home of the wealthy Portenos before they moved north to Recoleta. Now, San Telmo has become gentrified again with artists, photographers and fashionistas moving into loft apartments and a thriving market for antiques, lively bars, clubs and restaurants. A brief flick through the Buenos Aires Time Out will confirm how cutting edge BA has become with avant garde artists, musicians and designers producing work on a par with what you may see in London, New York or Milan.

Just a ten minute cab ride north takes you to Recoleta, the heart of old money Buenos Aires. High rise apartment blocks with ornate atria and twenty four hour service, tower above a grid of couture boutiques and saddlery shops frequented by the wealthy polo playing community. The buildings overlook the Cementerio de la Recoleta, the resting place of Argentina’s rich and famous (including Eva Peron - Evita); bringing back memories of the old money apartment blocks on the Upper East Side of New York, bordering Central Park. The coffee shops buzz with ‘ladies who lunch’. chain smoking and quaffing impossibly small coffees. Cars double park outside the malls, protected by their diplomatic plates and blacked out windows. Every now and then a tiny lady with totter out of the mall laden with bags from Dior, Versace et al, hand them off to a driver and jump in the back, shielded from eye contact by over-sized dark glasses.

I look forward to returning to Buenos Aires in the future with a budget to shop and party whilst staying in the Faena Hotel + Universe. After nearly four months backpacking it was great to spend time in a pseudo-European city doing all the things we would do on a European city break. We are now into the three week countdown to our return and mentally we are trying to readjust to the prospect. Our final stint in Brazil will be more like a holiday as we spend time on the beach preparing for home. We are strangely looking forward to heading back to the UK, the promise of seeing friends and family is so enticing that we are palpably excited at the thought. We are already planning the next phase of ‘life at home’ but more on that later...

Shaded by Sycamores

Sycamore’s line the matrix of streets in Mendoza turning what should be a parched, dusty city into a grid of dappled, shady streets and avenues. The Centre of the town is dominated by the Plaza de Independencia and its four satellite squares, one at each corner. Our hostel was located on a a broad, tree lined avenues several blocks away from the centre of town where, on either side of the streets wide irrigation channels bring precious water from the nearby Andes to sustain the sycamores with their smooth, peeling bark and mottled green leaves. The wine lovers amongst you may recognise Mendoza as the heart of the Argentinian wine industry. The long, warm summers and plentiful supply of meltwater from the Andes provide ideal conditions for red wine production and this is evident in the number of vineyards and winemakers in the area.

On our second day in Mendoza we took a tour (not the best but fairly informative) of the vineyards to get an idea of how the industry works in this part of the world. We were shown around three very different winemakers: the first, a large scale commercial winemaker (Weinert) several hundred of thousand bottles a year; the second, a smaller scale commercial vineyard; and, the last was a boutique, family run affair that concentrated only on what they could make in a small barn. The Weinert winery made both red and whites but concentrated on blended reds for the mass market. Their wines were generally made in vast concrete chambers lined with epoxy paint and then aged in giant oak casks. None of the wines we tasted their were anything to shout about.

The second winery was much more interesting. It had been set up by an Italian who had tired of mass production and was aiming for quantity over quality. He made several wines including a Cabernet Sauvignon/Malbec blend but focused on high quality Malbec, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. What I found particularly interesting was that they had taken white wine production techniques from Australia and New Zealand including liquid nitrogen cooling techniques and malolactic fermentation, that turns the green apple like malic acid into the softer, more buttery lactic acid.

The final vineyard we went into also played host to our buffet lunch, a collection of cold meats, juicy meat empenadas and artesenal cheeses. As it happens, the wine made on the premises was probably the best, despite the fact that it was served in bottles without labels. The lunch was delicious and quite typical of the region. The meats and cheeses were all served on platters made from the remnants of old oak wine barrels and the vegetables, roasted or pickled including beetroot and red cabbage.

In addition to the vineyards we visited a beautiful modern distillery. The building had been designed by an local architect using local materials in a very modern style blending industrial and domestic methods. The grounds had been landscaped and planted with Cypress, cacti and lavenders to take advantage of the warm weather and arid conditions. It brought home to me how much great architecture, classical and modern there is in this part of Latin America; I look forward to seeing more when we go to Brazil as I hear that Sao Paulo and Rio have some amazing new buildings.

A Dot in the Pacific

Rapa Nui is the definition of remote. Over 3600km from mainland South America and over 2000km from its nearest inhabited neighbour, Pitcairn Island (Population 50), it exists on the margins. Its enigmatic history is fascinating and its modern existence is precariously dependent on the thousands of tourists that visit from mainland via Santiago or on the cruise ships that swing by en route across the Pacific. As a Chilean dependency, it is supported by the central government and, as such, has all the facilities you would expect to see in a frontier town: a hospital, bank, post office, satellite communications centre, etc. However, all its cultural references derive from Polynesia: Rapa Nui language is 80% the same as Maori and the song and dance take cues from Hawaii, Tahiti and Micronesia. It is thought that the island may have been originally settled both East and West and this is evident by looking at the physical characteristics of the people. Although Polynesian in appearance they are distinctly taller and more slender than their Western Polynesian cousins. When Thor Heyerdahl was conducting research in the 1950s he heard stories of there having been two distinct ethnic groups on the island with one displaying Caucasian characteristics such as red hair and pale skin.

Although almost 163 square kilometres in area, over 90% of the c.3800 people that call Rapa Nui home live in the few square kilometres of the main town, Hanga Roa. The island is formed of three extinct volcanos and is triangular in shape. At its highest point it is just over 500m high and the landscape undulates with grassy hills cut through with the remnants of a volcanic landscape: lava tunnels, basalt rock faces and showers of tuff (compacted volcanic ash). Most of the coastline either consists of steep sided basalt cliffs or rocky shore, the legacy of lava flows now being eroded by the pounding waves that roll in, uninterrupted over thousands of kilometres of open ocean. Only one pair of white sandy beaches exist on the North side of the island but these are certainly the epitome of the Pacific island beach idyll; gently curving coconut palms and tufts of coarse grass giving way to fine, silver sand.

It is not, however, the physical geography or remoteness that makes Rapa Nui so famous, but the unique Moai. These giant, monolithic sculptures stand guard over the island and need to been seen to be believed. At one location on the South East coast a line of fifteen Moai stand on their ceremonial platform (Ahu), gazing in towards the island. Rectangular in structure, with angular facial features, recessed eye sockets and bulging bellies they cut an imposing shadow against the sunrise. Originally, it is thought that they had oval eyes make of white coral and jet black obsidian, however only one now remains, reconstructed at Ahu Ko Te Riku. No one knows for sure why the Moai were carved or how they were moved from their nursery at Rano Raraku, however, it is thought that they were used for ancestor worship before the introduction of the birdman cult. This cult centred around an annual ceremony that saw young men of each tribe competing to return the first egg from the Sooty Tern rookery on Motu Nui. They had to descend a steep cliff before swimming the shark infested waters to the island a kilometre of so off shore. There they would wait until the first egg could be found before swimming back to the mainland to become the venerated ‘birdman’.

Modern day Rapa Nui seems to be indicative of many of the Polynesian island in its battle to retain cultural distinctness whilst balancing the comforts and trappings of modern life. Cars abound on the island although few seem to be driven outside of Hanga Roa. The islanders all work in tourist related activities either in guest houses, hotels, restaurants or tour agencies. However, there is still a strong sense of cultural identity with the local language still used in preference to Spanish. The islanders sing and dance for the tourists but you get the impression that they would do so even if they weren’t getting paid to do it. On the flip side, however, all the pitfalls of island communities abound.

After several months on the mainland it has been great to see an entirely different place. We are so far removed from South America here that you may as well be in Asia or Africa. The four days that we have spent here have been relaxing and fascinating and have given us a taste of the South Pacific. I would love to see more of the islands further West in Micronesia and Melanesia but that will have to wait for another trip. For now, we will take the memories of this unique island back to Santiago and on to Argentina. In a few days we will be heading for Mendoza to celebrate Sarah’s birthday in the vineyards of Western Argentina. We are approaching the one month countdown to returning but still have a lot to see on the final leg of our South American odyssey.

Apathetic cruising and a vanishing culture

It is probably testament to what we have done over the last six weeks that the Navimag seemed underwhelming. On the face of it, three days cruising through the Patagonian fjord land should be something to really savour. However, after hitting the heights of Antarctica and Whale Sound the Navimag seemed a little pedestrian.

The Navimag is a ferry that runs the route once a week between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales (and vice versa). The ferry weaves its way through small channels between the mainland and the island archipelago. It carries a 150 strong contingent of international backpackers and a cargo of sheep and cattle (that after three days squeezed into trucks smell ripe). We had been warned that the food was lacklustre and to take plenty of wine onboard to fuel the quiet hours. As it happened, the food was actually pretty decent and the bar wasn’t as expensive as you might imagine with a captive clientèle. The ferry runs a series of lectures and films to explain the route and the Kaweshkar people. However, with my broken Spanish and their broken English the films and lectures became more of a burden than an education. As a consequence, we had plenty of time to catch up on backdated blog entries and photo editing that had taken a back seat whilst we were enjoying Patagonia.

One interesting element of the three days was a brief stop in the hamlet of Puerto Eden. This small village of a couple of hundred inhabitants is only accessible by boat and is home to the last dozen or so fully indigenous Kaweshkar people. The Kaweshkar have inhabited the Patagonian fjord land for several thousand years and until the 1950s followed a nomadic way of life, in small family units diving for shellfish and hunting sea lions. They would spend 80% of their life in canoes and designed them such that they could keep a fire running constantly within the canoe. They wore only loose sea lion skins and swam naked in the icy waters for up to an hour at a time diving for mussels and scallops. These people were as hardy as they come. Nowadays there are only 12 or so pure bred Kaweshkar living in a small township within Puerto Eden. They are no longer nomadic and like many aboriginal groups have fallen foul of the temptations of alcohol. Western culture has overwhelmed this small group to the extent that there is only one surviving person that speaks their native tongue. It is sad to see but unfortunately it seems inevitable that the Kaweshkar will go the same way as the Ona and Yamani people in Tierra del Fuego.

We are now in a small town above Puerto Montt called Puerto Varas. This are os known as the Chilean Lake district for obvious reasons. The town itself is like a diluted version of a Swiss or German mountain resort. Every corner seems to play host to a Strüdel maker or chocolatier and the houses have a distinctly Alpine feel. Tomorrow we will be making our way back across the border to Bariloche in Argentina before crossing back a few days later to Pucon. We are due to get to Santiago on the 25th in time for our flight to Easter Island on the 26th. Both of us are very excited about seeing La Isla de Pasqua. In the meantime, Happy Easter to everyone at home. Have a great few days off!

The Uncloaked Towers

Most visitors arrive in Puerto Natales on day one and by 7am on day two are on their way to the W trek in the Torres del Paine National Park. Sarah is officially done with trekking. The W trek was off the agenda and he circuit (the 5 day extended version) was never even a topic for discussion. With two weeks to pass before our ferry up to Puerto Montt we decided to do something a little different and after much canvassing around town settled on our trip to Whale Sound and a Land Rover supported trip into the park. The quid pro quo for not trekking was a temporary lifting of the moratorium on bikes.

As with the rest of Patagonia, the weather in TdP National Park is fickle to say the least. Mid-summer snows and gale force winds are a matter of course in this part of the world and many a trekker will complete the five day W trek without seeing the Paine Massif as it is often blanketed in cloud. We must have been making deposits into our Karma bank over the last couple of months as we were blessed with a cloudless view of the entire massif on our second night of the trip.

Everything about our trip was faultless as Pablo and Mariano had organised the ideal itinerary, provided the best equipment, cooked the finest asados and accommodated every variation that we asked for. After three months patiently waiting to get back on a bike I was eager to spend as much time as possible on the bike. After a 30km morning riding on the corrugated surfaces of the road I was so badly bruised and saddle sore that I had to peddle entirely out of the saddle for the 20 km ride in the afternoon. I felt like a kid who had been craving sweets for so long that I had gorged myself and felt so sick that I couldn’t even look at another cola cube. Luckily we had Pablo’s fantastic Land Rover Defender 110 to support us all the way and our planned riding trip turned into more of an off-road driving excursion. With the constant wind dropping off the Southern Patagonian Ice field it was so much nicer to be viewing the mountains from the protection of the vehicle than battling into a biting headwind on the bike.

The much photographed landscape of the TdP massif is captivating and surprisingly compact. Although relatively small in relation to the vast expanse of the Patagonian landscape it is capricious in the way that it changes as you move around from one viewpoint to the next. From one angle all three of the towers are visible but only a kilometre down the road they are hidden but a new vista opens up of the Fortress and the Horn. Even if you stay in one place the mood of the range can change in minutes as venticular clouds emerge and disappear. The changing light highlights different parts of the massif and casts dark shadows into the valleys that are cut into the lower level of sedimentary rock. As we awoke on the third day in our camp on the Southern shore of Lago Pehoe the entire massif was enveloped in cloud. However, after breakfast the mantle of cloud has lifted and only ethereal wisps of cloud remained giving the mountains a more mysterious character.

It would have been remiss to visit Chilean Patagonia without exploring the National Park and the breathtaking spectacle of the massif did not disappoint. As was the case with Tierra del Fuego, I would love to visit the park in winter to see a different aspect of its personality. As we make our way North over the next few days we will be closing a chapter of our travels that I had high hopes for. Every aspect of Patagonia has exceeded those expectations and I am left wanting more. In fact, whilst down here I read a copy of Bruce Chatwin’s biography by Nicholas Shakespere and a quote from it seemed to encapsulate my feelings about Patagonia:

“You have to have some sort of magic circle to which you belong. It’s not necessarily where you were born or where you were brought up. It’s somewhere you identify with, to which you always happen to go back...it’s what Proust calls ‘the soil on which I still may build’”.

Crashing Ice and Fleeting Rainbows

The milky blue waters of whale sound were several degrees colder than the Straits as the melt water gushed from the base of the glacier. Long slivers of brash ice drift on the current towards the mouth of the fjord. As we made our way in the kayak towards the terminal face of the glacier we saw what looked like a waterfall on the central nunatak that separates the two sides of the face. This waterfall was actually a huge shower of ice caused by a large section of ice high on the face calving off and pulverising on its descent to the fjord. Every few minutes there would be another crack and thunderous rumble as another section of the face parted company with the glacier. This glacier is in retreat, as are many others. The tell-tale signs of the retreat are plain to see in the rock faces that surround the face. Indeed, the central nunatak was recently entirely encased within the ice of the glacier. However, as the ice retreats these orphan rocks are left, scraped clean by the erosive power of the ice, as future islands in the fjord. The most recently uncovered rock is easily distinguishable by the absence of lichen that over a couple years will change the colour of the rock from orange to a dusky red or green.

Being so close to such an active glacier is an astonishing and belittling experience. As we paddled closer our guide Jem made his way over to the other side of the fjord. As he got closer to the glacier the perspective of the size of the face became more apparent. He became an infinitesimal dot under the towering face of ice. The sections of ice that were calving were the size of a eight story building but, from a distance, looked insignificant. Scale is so deceptive in Patagonia as everything is so vast. There are so many fjords, sounds, channels and islands here that few are ever visited. The archipelago west of Tierra del Fuego is so remote and the weather conditions so unpredictable that few visitors deign to travel here. This isolation is itself a huge attraction as you feel like you are one of the privileged few to experience the landscape that is one of the last true wildernesses.

After an al fresco lunch on a beach we made our way down a small adjoining fjord with towering mountains on either side. After negotiating the eddies and currents created by the turning tide at the mouth of the fjord we had a wind assisted paddle down the southern shoreline. The mountains tumble so precipitously into the water that we had to crane our necks back to see the peaks. Overhead we were lucky enough to see the unusual sight of two of the largest birds flying together. There are few places other than Patagonian archipelago that you can see albatross and condors flying together.

On our return to the Zodiac we could see the waves of showers as they rolled down the valley towards us. Every shower was accompanied by a rainbow as the low slung sun refracted through the approaching curtain of rain. In fact rainbows were the one constant over our stay in the archipelago as the weather changes so fast; clouds and showers roll in rapidly on the ever present wind and disperse as quickly.