March 31, 2008 by Naomi.

It would be a shame not to make any mention of Patagonian history, which is very fascinating indeed. From the bits and pieces we have read in museums, guidebooks, and of course the must-read Bruce Chatwin ‘In Patagonia’ (but by all means not the most reliable source), we have managed to gather the following facts.

Despite the generally held belief that Patagonia was not a very inhabited place, archaeological finds reveal otherwise. Patagonia was, in fact, been home to many and varied indigenous peoples for a very very long time. The idea that it was inhabited by peoples who crossed over from Far East Asia (via what is now Russia and Alaska, when they were geographically connected) is being challenged due to various footprints found (12,000 years old), and evidence that at least some originated from Polynesian islands, having arrived by boat. And of course there are thousands of cave paintings, handprints and archaeological finds to be found all over the place, indicating that Patagonia was actually quite a lively place.

However, along came our colonial ancestors, and not intent on merely decimating natives everywhere else in the Americas, also managed to clear this vast area of most of the locals over several centuries, firstly with the diseases they brought and, secondly, with their greed for gold/silver and the cities made of these allegedly to be found somewhere in this land (apparently fabrications made up by fleeing mutineers and deserters to distract captains and generals from their crimes). The introduction of alcohol into these communities didn’t help much either, and continues not to do so…

To find the names of any Latin American colonial figure, one has only to look at a map of any Argentinian or Chilean town and you’ll see that many of the streets are named after these blood-thirsty and avaricious individuals. They are all men, of whom most were of Spanish origin, except the Chilean hero O’Higgins, who was among other things, an Irish bastard. Any women who feature on these maps are of course the usual spat of virgins that feature in any city of Hispanic origin.

The indiscriminate killing of indigenous people was justified by the idea that the victims were barbaric and savage, and therefore regarded by Europeans as little more than animals. There were ‘biologists’ who thought it worthwhile to examine and measure skulls from different races around the world and list each race according to the size of its brain, and from these fastidious findings, they managed to establish how ‘civilised’ and ‘educated’ each tribe was. Some poor locals were even kidnapped and taken back to Europe to be paraded in front of various members of the public, like some kind of zoo.

Of the native American Indian tribes encountered in Patagonia, the only one to have successfully fought its ground and saved itself from almost complete extinction is the Mapuche, who the Spanish had a hard time dealing with, especially in southern Chile - this was not colonialised until long after the rest of the country. Other tribes only live on through ‘criollos’, those of mixed Spanish/European and native blood. Now and possibly due to these acts of genocide, Patagonia is very sparsely populated indeed, mainly by those who then felt safe enough to settle here, including a significant Welsh community, lots of Germans, a few Spanish and various Brits.

The latter, however, did not stick around for long. Once colonialised and settled, Patagonia thrived with various agricultural industries, especially sheep-rearing (although not from here), and wool was its major export. It also provided for the many ships that passed round this huge hunk of land. The Panama Canal put a firm stop to that, as no one then had to navigate around the whole continent when they could just nip through the gap instead. Many Argentinian and Chilean ports suffered as a result, not to mention the wool industry round here. So the early 20th century brought little but misery for the residents of this area, especially the sheep workers at Estancia Santa Anita in the far south, who were all massacred by the Argentine army for striking, and demanding to be paid and fed (some communist came along and encouraged them to do so). This was just one of the many factors which gave rise to the very fierce Latin American socialist streak that prevailed throughout the 20th century, that the ruling military juntas in Chile and Argentina, along with the US, tried so hard to repress in the 70s and 80s. However, Santa Anita was not to be the last massacre in Patagonia, as a group of ‘prisoners’ were also massacred at Trelew (in heart of Welsh community) having tried to ‘escape’ during the rule of the military junta in the 70s. According to current press reports, most of those responsible for the latter massacre are currently being tried, although one of them is nowhere to be found. Only now, 20-30 years later are laws protecting those members of the military junta who committed atrocities during this time being repealed so they can face justice, but of course many are dying or dead (Pinochet is a good example of this). There are still those who believe it never happened. Then there are the fleeing Nazis (but we’ll tell you about them later on).

Luckily Patagonia is a happier place these days, agriculture and tourism are its major exports and indeed it’s a fantastic place to visit despite its tragic history. Both Chile and Argentina now have female presidents, which might have something to do with the chirpier vibe, but who knows!

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March 25, 2008 by Naomi.

Our journey over the border did not get off to a good start as the absent-minded girl who filled out our bus tickets put the departure time as 8:30am. The bus left at 8, so we missed it. And had a good five hours to kill in El Chaltén before the next one set off. We finally crossed the Chilean border at around 7pm; of course, we had to stop for bureaucratic rigmarole not once but twice (once to leave Argentina, and then to enter Chile) and had our bags searched for fruit and veg.

Puerto Natales is not a picturesque town. After getting used to sturdy Argentinian wooden, alpine-like structures, Chilean houses look as if a few planks of wood have been haphazardly thrown together. Our hostel was no exception. Cleanliness standards weren’t too high either, confirmed by the smell of pee in the bathroom (all too common!) and the numerous infuriatingly-itchy spider bites we found ourselves covered with on leaving the establishment. However, the place was warm, so was the toast and the owner was very friendly which made things somewhat more pleasant.

The reason we’d come to this less than inspiring place was to see the Torres del Paine National Park, one of Patagonian Chile’s major tourist destinations. However, the park is not very accessible, being 120km away from town, mostly on ‘ripio’ (dirt road). Staying in the park is hideously expensive ($50 for a dorm bed!), the only alternative being camping (which also meant carrying your equipment with you). So we rented a car for a day. It wasn’t particularly cheap, but it worked out only slightly more expensive than doing a day tour in a bus with a load of other people (and a lot cheaper than staying in park), and gave us the opportunity to do our own exploring. We set off happily, in our dust-covered car, on the paved section of the road. Then we hit the ‘ripio’, and the inevitable washboard (how does this ghastly profile form on the road?) and our brains rattled around inside our skulls for the rest of the day. Of course, it wasn’t a 4×4 so tricky sections slowed us down considerably but it was a small price to pay for the couple of lovely hikes we did (one of them a particularly windy affair), and of course we got some excellent shots of the torres (towers, not towels as one tourist leaflet described them!!) and the cuernos (horns) in all their glory on this partly cloudy day. On our way back to Puerto Natales, covered head to toe in road dust, we went to the Cueva del Milodon (sloth’s cave) where we got to see a lifesize model of a sloth (an extinct vegetarian mammal that lived around these parts), and get an idea of how some of our predecessors lived.

After our easy, car-based tour of Torres del Paine, the next day, under a grey sky, we returned for some more active sightseeing and a walk up to the base of the eponymous towers. Having tied ourselves to the bus schedules which gave us a scant eight hours from drop off to pick up, and our map telling us the walk was four hours each way, speed was of the essence. After almost running through the first steep section of the hike (and panting and sweating heavily as a result), we realised we were already an hour ahead of schedule and wouldn’t need to rush quite as much as expected to get back in time. After a wind blown sandwich at the glacial lake below the Torres with far too many other people (and smokers polluting the air!) we were back down with hours to spare and while away in the Hosteria de las Torres bar with beer and tea as the rain fell ever more heavily outside (and feeling very content that we were not among the happy campers up in the mountains). As you will see from photos, snapshots are actually better of these imposing mountains from our roadtrip around the edge of the park than they are from right in the middle. The day finished with an excellent and well-deserved meal in Afrigonia, our favourite restaurant in all of Patagonia, so far.

Recommended after this visit:
Afrigonia - food so good we went there twice!
El Living - tourist/backpacker-oriented chilled coffee shop, but don’t expect any smiles from British owners

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March 16, 2008 by Naomi.

When we arrived down south, we were expecting some kind of Patagonian paradise; what we got was El Calafate. Little more than a street eight years ago, the devaluation of the Argentine peso in 2001 led to an influx of tourists coming to gawp at the nearby Glaciar Perito Moreno (you’ve probably seen a photo of it somewhere). Now El Calafate is a sizeable town jam-packed with tourists and the inevitable over-priced everything. Things are made somewhat more difficult by the fact that no one takes credit cards and Argentine banks will not let Visa users take more than 50GPB out at a time (making withdrawing money very expensive), but seeing the creaking, groaning, moaning glacier and a bikeride around Lago Argentino made it all worth it in the end.

Our visit to Glaciar Perito Moreno was marked by crappy weather. We flocked onto a boat with lots of other tourists and were quite surprised it didn’t capsize as all the people crowded to the same side to take a ridiculous quantity of photos of the ice. At the various viewpoints back on land, we saw the glacier from directly opposite where there had been a bridge of ice. The glacier is most famous for the bridge it often forms, from its outmost point on Lago Argentino, to the land opposite. The bridge follows a cycle along with the ever-moving glacier. As with all glaciers, the ice and silt build up, and it gradually moves across the lake, and unlike others, it meets the land on the other side, a bridge is formed with the water rushing underneath, and then as the glacier makes its gradual progress forward, the weight of the ice and rock and silt becomes too much for the bridge to bear, the bridge explodes and all the ice falls into water in a dramatic scene. To see this great spectacle, one has to time their visit with great expertise, or visit the local museum in El Calafate and watch it on DVD (as we did the following day). Because it was pissing with rain, most tourists took refuge in the over-crowded visitors’ centre while the few who braved the weather got to watch and listen to the glacier moaning, creaking and cracking with the pressure of its own weight, and even witnessed some minor examples of calving.

The contrasting scenery we saw from the bus made us regret not being on our bikes (we jealously eyed a rather weathered pair of road warriors on their bikes down at the glacier). However, it would have taken at least a day to cycle from Calafate to the glacier, and let’s face it, with all that wind and rain, buses are a pretty cosy option, despite the pet peeves that one develops when having to share limited space with others.

The weather was more favourable the following day, when we managed to rent a couple of bikes to soak up the Patagonian vibe of wind, sky, sun and prairie and cycled a good 30km around the Lago Argentino with only a mild wind hindering/pushing us along the way.

Two days was plenty of time for El Calafate, after which we moved onto the far superior El Chaltén. The town has only existed since 1985 and the best part of the journey to this town is on unpaved roads. The area was the subject of a border dispute between Argentina and Chile, but the former cunningly went in and founded the town, which itself is not a particularly attractive place, being made up of metal-roofed houses and various boxy little places to serve all the tourists that come to town. So, what is the attraction of this pokey little place?

As we approached the town, we were extremely lucky to have clear weather and were able to see the mighty peaks of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitzroy and their neighbouring companions piercing the sky above the valley in which the village lay. All visitors have to stop at the park visitors’ centre, where they are told not to litter the park with toilet paper, sanitary towels (occasionally ignored), plastic bags and especially not to start any fires with their cigarette butts. Indeed it is illegal for supermarkets in El Chaltén and El Calafate to give out plastic bags, a very wise decision indeed, although it does rather make it difficult to take your litter out of the park with you.

As to be expected in areas like this, the weather changed dramatically and by nightful the driving rain and wind was blasting against our window. We woke up with the idea that we wouldn’t be going anywhere, but as things calmed down a bit we decided to head off and see how far we could get without getting too battered by the elements. The weather was changeable, which meant we got to see a few rainbows through the drizzle and sun. We climbed up to the first Mirador de los Torres, the view of Cerro Torre was marred by cloud, although the glacier wasn’t. Further up the trail at the highest point, we were disappointed to see the clouds still hiding Cerro Torre even though we were right up next to it! Several times, we bumped into and chatted to Tosh from Barra (Outer Hebrides) who walked with super-human speed; we were shocked to see him literally running down the mountain on the way back (at which point the weather was well and truly miserable), just because he’d got bored of walking. Despite the disappointing weather, we still managed to hike a good seven hours through the wilderness, which was a delight in itself (despite crippled feet), and find ourselves a drinking partner for the night. It turned out that it was Tosh’s birthday, and being 29th February meant that it was actually only his 9th birthday despite being born in 1972; a very merry night in the local microbrewery was in order to help him celebrate this most important day, along with Tory, Suzi and Elaine.

As a result, we were not going to get very far the next day. A humble walk against the mighty Patagonian wind took us up to a Chorrio de Salto waterfall 3kms up the road, which just about cured us of our hangovers. All a big pity as the weather was clearing and you could see the mountain peaks from the town. Red sky at night shepherd’s delight: the red sky in the evening was indeed a very good omen for the following day. We booked a stupidly over-priced lift in a minibus up the road to Hosteria Pilar to do the Fitzroy trail from the other end of the valley (instead of just going up and back again). Thus we were treated to some excellent views of the mighty Fitzroy peak from various different points, not to mention some of its hanging glaciers. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and after a good four hours, the last of which required quite a scramble up a steep zig-zagging rocky path, brought us to the lake at the foot of this triangular peak, where we thoroughly enjoyed our well-deserved lunch. While scrambling our way down we were treated to some excellent views of most of the valley, especially of Laguna Madre and Laguna Hija (Mother and Daughter Lakes). We could have walked straight back to town in a couple of hours, but foolishly decided that the four-hour detour via aforesaid picturesque lakes, and Laguna Nieta (Grandaughter Lake), to two miradores of the Cerro Torre (the peak hidden behind clouds two days earlier) would be worth the extra effort. However, after another hour of walking poor feet had to be plunged into refreshing Laguna Hija to help calm the pain. And we finally got to lay our eyes on Cerro Torre and its surrounding peaks in a perfectly clear afternoon sky which we’d missed on our earlier walk.

Our feet wouldn’t let us get up to much the following day but no matter, seeing these fantastic peaks was the best highlight of our trip so far.

Recommended after this trip:
El Calafate:
Visit to Perito Moreno Glacier, obviously
Pura Vida Restaurant - when you get fed up with the usual meat and potatos/pizza/pasta options, this place offers a refreshing bowl of lentils and other more veggie options to make a change
Hotel Los Lagos (no toast,only bread for brekkie, though)
DO NOT DRINK El Calafate tap water, even after sterilising it

El Chaltén:
Lago Torre Trail and Fitzroy Trail
Microbewery - only has two ‘artesanal’ beers on offer but usual bottled stuff is cheaper and anything is nice to drink in cheery, cosy atmosphere, not to mention being the only aesthetically pleasing building in town.
Posada Inlandsis - first hot toast since home!, and comfortable ‘low-cost’ rooms with bunkie type beds
Del Bosque cafe - fab empanadas (pasties) and salads
Empanadas also delicious (but smaller) in the last Panaderia/bakery in town before heading off on Fitzroy trail

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March 5, 2008 by Naomi.

After sadly leaving our beloved Palermo, an hour’s train journey took us north to Tigre from where we caught a lancha (boat) into the Paraná Delta, arguably Argentina’s answer to the Heart of Darkness. It is home to a number of islands separated by various branches and tributaries of the Río de la Palma. As you leave Tigre, you feel like you’re entering a wilderness of muddy water and wild jungle. However, the further you go, the more civilised things get and you realise the tributaries function like suburban streets; the river banks are lined with perfectly kempt gardens and lawns, and quaint little houses, each with its own ‘muelle’ (jetty). We visited this area during the week, as over the weekend the wealthier Porteños (those from Buenos Aires) flock to their weekend getaways and things get quite crowded.

We spent a very relaxing night at the Bosque de Bohémia, a sweet little hotel with a pool, and various walks into the wilderness. Paul, who usually doesn’t attract mosquitos, developed quite a fanclub on our little walk and got a few (surprisingly unitchy bites), unlike a rather smug Naomi, who was covered head to toe in hardcore DEET insect repellent and managed only one mosquito bite the whole trip. One night was quite enough in this ‘wilderness’, and the next day a rather longer boat trip, round the back streets of the delta, dropped us off at Tigre where we bought tickets for a trip to Isla Martin García the following day. After wandering along the waterfront and checking out the excellent art museum at the old Hotel/Casino Tigre (see photos), we both simultaneously realised that something we had eaten, somewhere along the line, was going to restrict our travels. Our bellies clearly did not want us to go anywhere far from a toilet, so the next morning we missed our trip to the island and laid low in our B&B, whose hosts were very friendly, hospitable and sympathetic. Although it was also here that we were introduced to the puzzling Argentine fondness for cold, hard toast.

We were not too sad to leave Tigre, having not accomplised much in the place. Once we got back to BA, we made our way to the port to catch our boat to Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay, a UNESCO world heritage site just opposite Buenos Aires on the Río de la Plata. There we spent two days sight-seeing around the picturesque town, admiring the little museums and the lighthouse, watching lots of Uruguayans drink mate (ubiquitous tea in Argentina and Uruguay), and chatting to Elaine and Eric, a lovely fellow Scottish couple we met in our B&B (where we discovered that the rock hard cold toast was not necessarily an Argentinian predilection).

Another bewilderment was the shelf mounted a few inches above the bed, where our heads were supposed to be. The room had originally been designed for twin beds and the shelf served as a bedside table. With a double bed it served as little more than an obstacle threatening to bash your head in or knock an eye out sometime in the middle of the night. After a little bit of interior rearranging though we managed to sort out the health and safety issues and rested in peace.

After our relaxing weekend with the Uruguayans, and still not having tried maté, it was time to head back to Buenos Aires for a brief 12 hour overnight stay before heading South to the wilds of Patagonia.

Recommended after this visit:
Bosque de Bohemia - Paraná Delta
Casa Rosada B&B - (although not the cleanest of establishments)
El Drugstore (restaurant) - Colonia de Sacramento
La Pulpería - Colonia de Sacramento

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