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Randle on the Road 2007A restless soul taking 6 months out to travel from Mexico to Antarctica!
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May 09 Vote for me!Howdy
OK so I'm back in the Uk and my dedication to this blog had to be replaced by my search for a job! But HA HA I have one now and I'm just getting to the point where I am awake at the end of the day and I'm trying to do something with all that content that I produced over my trip.
Which
is the whole point of this blog :)
I've just entered my first photo competition and I can only win if you all vote for me. So please vote for me......asuming that you like the pic.
Details are on the following link!
http://ta.canon-europe.com/?pg=gallery&cc=gb&lc=en&photo_id=foto48162e66e9b75
all the best
paul December 13 Poles Apart!What? Hey? WOW!!! OH MY GOD!!!! WOW O WOW O WOW!!!! After 2 days of having to do the maritime equivalent of listen to the Spice Girls constantly over and over again with no respite, somebody THANKFULLY pressed the stop button! The grinding roar of the engine was gone. Even better (and I hold my breath whilst I write this) that sickening, sucking, wallow and lurch had stopped! I peered over the top of my twisted and sweat soaked duvet and suddenly that Christmas-morning-when-you’re-5 feeling of excitement swept over me. Even from my cabin, down in the depths of the Antarctic Dream I could feel a magical atmosphere surrounding the ship. Should I look out of my porthole? No! I tried that once and spent the next 5 hrs shouting “HUEY” down the great white telephone, whilst a distorted hell bounced around me! But hey I can stand! I can even bend down and tie my shoes! I can finally even face cleaning my teeth and having a shower! And what’s that sensation in my stomach? Hunger? I’m human again! And Antarctica awaits! I cleaned up and dressed quickly, but cautiously, terrified that the whole world might start lurching around again. I emerged from my cabin for the first time in 2 days and a couple of stair cases later I was stood on deck in world of white! Antarctica! It’s trite to say that no words can describe this place, but it is true and definitely true of my words. This place aches! It wrenches your eyes from shadowy white sculpture to tenuous ghostly feature with such hypnotic magnetism that every other colour falls from you memory. This place is the mythological call of the Sirens made manifest. After 2 days my eyes felt bruised from staring endlessly at the white glare, the white shadow, the white mist, the white movement. It’s not a winter wonderland. There are no reindeer to pull your sleigh only ice, water, rock and ice. It’s a harsh place. All the books remind you that you can’t live here. No human can live here. You can only visit. Even the surreal comfort of our boat is a favour granted by the continent. And If that sounds overly dramatic just look to the MS Explorer; if Antarctica doesn’t want you here you won’t be for long! After a while you realise that it’s not pure white, that the continent has colour. Blue or rather blues of every possible shade. Look deep into the shapes and the crevasses and the mountains, the glaciers and the icebergs are lit up from within with their own blue fluorescent glow! I’m sorry, if this all sounds over-the-top and excessive, then it probably is, but Antarctica has shattered all my highest hopes. The beauty and magnitude of the place is breathtaking, to give you an idea I took over 2300 pictures on our first day amongst the ice and I deleted most of them (you’ll be thankful to know) because they just could not do justice to what this place is like. The only way to know the place is to come here. I can’t photograph it, or film it, or write about it in any way that really captures what it is like. If I can convey 1% of the magic it has enthralled me with then I’m communicated better than I have ever done (about time some might say!). I’ll write and tell you more about what’s actually happening on a day to day basis, but right now I’m just wrapped up in it and simply in love with the place.
paul “Drugs!”“Give me DRUGS!” Antarctica! The place of my dreams! A place that for years has called me to it, for no other reason than to explore its otherworldliness and marvel with kid-like goggle eyes at the mystery of the land of ice! It’s just a shame that there is something called the Drake Passage between you and it! Now I knew all about the Drake Passage. Everybody seemed to take delight in reminding me that it was home to the World’s worst seas and ....Ohhh.... don’t you get a little bit sea sick? Snigger Snigger! Gits! No I don’t get a little bit sea sick. I get a whole monstrous heap of sea sick! And for me the Drake Passage loomed ahead of me like an appointment with a firing squad, or even worse my childhood dentist (He had hairy palms, very very scary when you are 5!) So I was prepared! I had a stock of super anti-seasickness drugs and I had even placed a large stone atop a pile of others at the top of the Martial Glacier as an offering to the bloke in charge of weather, to give me a bit of a break. And to be fair he did! The seas are graded from a scale of 1 to 8 and for our crossing they bobbed the little Antarctica Dream (our boat) about with a playful Grade 1. Perfect weather, for the hardy bunch of ocean going crew, who on their last voyage had to return early with broken ribs and cracked skulls because of the sea being a bit stroppy! But for me it was enough. 1 or 10 I didn’t care. Even writing about it makes me feel nauseous! For 2 whole days I wallowed in a semi-conscious drug addled state; unable to eat and although I slept it was in fitful bursts with wild crazy dreams that more than once introduced me to a Mika singing killer whale sat atop a pile of penguin poo (which smelled suspiciously of diesel!). Believe me I simply don’t have the words to describe how wretched I felt during the crossing. I simply couldn’t function and whilst I was only physically sick once (OK you probably didn’t want to know that) even the waft of a bread roll was enough to send me into unconsciousness. Quite simply it was the two worst days of my trip. And guess what L I have to do it all on the way back! Doctor! DOCTOR!!!!!! “...a little bit of Freddy!”Hola!
I’m at the end of the World! And I can reliably inform you that it is as chaotic as you always imagined it would be. However, instead of War, Famine, Pestilence and Death, the four Horseman of the Apocalypse seemed to have turned into:
* A Titanic style Iceberg vs ship sinking event * A completely incompetent tour company (GAP never EVER use them!) * A whole hoard of incompetent Banks (HSBC, Transbank, American Express) And I’m afraid to say “Mika!” The last probably needs the most explanation first. After all I was waxing lyrical in my last blog about Goose bump moments listening to him halfway up the Fitzroy Mountains. So how did he turn into a Devil so quickly? To be honest it’s not really his fault. You see I am at the end of the World. To be exact, I’m in Ushuaia the last city on the map. It is the sort of place that conjures up in my imagination images of wild windswept streets, tin shacks rattling in the wind and impressive, industrious looking icebreaker boats sprouting all sorts of technical looking equipment. It’s a place where hard, adventurous men step outside and with due consideration let you know that they “...may be some time!” It is not a place where every other shop is a chocolate emporium and where EVERY SINGLE SHOP is blasting out Mika at top volume! It’s just not right! I don’t want to sail out to see Icebergs with “Big girls you are beautiful!” blasting in my ears or worse “No happy ending” rattling around the hull! Not with the track history of this place over the last few days :) Walking down the main street it feels like I’ve got my Gigabeat on and I’m actually listening to him. Which would actually be fine, if every shop was playing the same track at the same time. But as I bounce from choc shop to choc shop each one is playing a different track. Grace Kelly overlaps with Big Girl and the effect is one horrific cacophony of Mika Maddness! But now on to more serious things! After a couple of days of serious stress which at one point had me hating even the idea of Antarctica I’m am sorted. I’m on a boat and I leave tomorrow! Even better, in the process I've managed to move from the last bunk in the cabin by the propeller shaft (which is probably the cabin that flooded first on the boat that sank) to a double room / mini suite all for myself on the top deck of what looks like a really nice cruise ship! Result! Even better the result came from this Blog :) It was proving a bit of a nightmare to be honest, finding boats and then getting the bloody finance all arranged. GAP are about as useful as a chocolate fireguard and banks don’t really work down here (massive thanks to Kim for bailing me out!). But get this! I was researching all the companies that do cruises when I received a message from somebody who actually reads my drivel / blog! Turns out that she had a friend who was also supposed to be on the boat who had got another place via a local based consultant and here's that consultants email address :) One email conversation later and I have a place :) At the end of the World it turns out that it is a mad mad one!!!! And a HUGE thanks to Seonaid!!!! :) So I’m off tomorrow to go boogie with the penguins :) SUPER BLOODY FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :):):) November 27 A new vid!Hola
More sillyness I'm afraid! Thanks to everyone on the expedition who agreed to bare bottoms and behave well ..... in the way they were behaving anyway :)
paul November 26 The bloody boat sank!Hola
This is a blog I never in my wildest dreams expected to write! But in a way it made yesterday probably the most memorable of my entire trip. Such is the roller coaster of independent travel I had both one of my highest high points and my absolute low point all within the space of a few hours.
I’m currently in El Chatlen and if you are wondering why there hasn’t been a blog about that, it’s because this place is on the map...but only just! The total lack of infrastructure here is both the reason why there have been no updates to the site recently and why yesterday was such a shocker. All the telecoms here are beamed in by satellite and when the satellite buggers off for a tea-break (which is often) the whole place descends into the Dark Ages. There is no mobile reception, no bank and when the satellite goes down even no VISA. Which means everything is paid for by cash and I am rapidly running out!
Anyway anyway anyway!
None of this was mattering. You come to El Chatlen a: to escape the bland tourist hell hole that is El Calafate and b: (and the main reason) to explore the Fitzroy Mountain range. An absolute triumph of Glacial sculpting, the Fitzroy’s is less well known than Torres Del Paine but just as amazing. I’ve covered 100km on foot exploring the peaks over the last 4 days and a big chunk of that was actually hiking on the Torres Glacier. Yesterday’s trek to Laguna Los Tres was the high point.
Trekking on your own, might seem a bit solitary and with Pumas around slightly dodgy (according to the signs at the trail heads) but it can also be incredible. I was stomping along at a fair old rate of knots with my MP3 player blaring in my ears when I happened to round a corner just as one of my favourite tunes was playing. Those of you who know my music tastes will find this hilarious but it was a Mika tune, No Happy Ending, and I rounded the corner just as the orchestral bit got into full swing. In front of me in an almost perfect clear blue sky was the entire Fitzroy range! You totally had to be there (and be listening to your own favourite tunes) but I was stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at the mountains for ages (actually until the battery ran out in my aging Gigabeat.....which was after about 10mins). I stood there with tingles running up and down my spine, Goosebumps and probably a very silly grin on my face! Come here and do it! It’s incredible!
And then the downside!
About 6 hours I wearily trudged my way back into El Chatlen and despite the smell (my own) wondered into the phone place to call Kim. I hadn’t spoke to her or done any internet for a couple of days (because of the satellite) and I was in the middle of .....”It was amazing! I had Goosebumps...” when she said,
“You haven’t heard have you?!”
That stopped me dead in my tracks!
“Heard what?”
“Your boat to Antarctica sunk 2 days ago!”
“WHAT!?”
“It sank!”
There was a whole bunch of other sentences that came next but I’m far too polite to repeat them!
In short MS Explorer is now at the bottom of the Ocean! Nobody was hurt, although I suspect that everybody was (putting politely) shitting themselves when they had to abandon ship, but now (and entirely selfishly) I don’t have a boat to Antarctica!
This is my dream, the whole Raison D’être for my trip. Mexico to Antarctica! Not Mexico to Ushuaia! Yesterday afternoon my whole trip ground to a halt!
I leapt online (OK, here that means after about an hour of queuing) expecting to see the raft of emails from GAP, the tour operators telling me what was happening. How many emails did I have from them?
ZERO
NONE
ZILCH
A BIG FAT BUGGER ALL!!!
All the news sites and travel blogs were full of the story and yet the company in charge hadn’t got around to telling me. Not that I wasn’t due on the boat in 4 days or anything important like that! So I checked the GAP website and it informed me that the boat had a problem with a slight leak!!!!
Yeah no shit Sherlock! It’s at the bottom of the bloody ocean!
In truth I was half way through an email (it being Saturday night and no phone) asking them what the hell was going on, when an email arrived. It was very informative and helpful......
“It sank. Nobody is dead. Your trip is cancelled. If you are already here with other activities planned tough!”
So now I’m stuck! I know there are a whole heap of boats that go out to Antarctica but GAP isn’t going to help me get on one. So I’m sat in my B&B writing this blog as I can’t call anybody for the next 2 hours until the phone place opens. I can’t go on a trek (as planned) because they all take a minimum of 6 hours! So I’m bouncing off the walls thinking of all the nasty things I’m going to say to GAP when I finally speak to them.
Does anybody have an Ice Breaking boat that they could lend me?
November 22 The final stretch and a quick look in the mirror!Hola It probably seems premature to be thinking like this! I only have about three weeks left of my travels and already I’m getting all sentimental about the things that I have done, the people I have met and the experiences that I have had. Especially when you consider that I still have longer left than most people get on their annual holidays and the greatest part of those weeks are going to be spent fulfilling a lifelong dream and going to Antarctica. Right now I’m on a bus heading to El Calafate, back in Argentina again and I have about a week to run around on the glaciers dotted all over the place. Hardly a place to feel sorry for one’s self, but then I’m sat listening to old tunes and contemplating trying to update my CV so you are going to have to excuse any premature grumblings. It really does feel like the last leg though! The bus I’m on is effectively the tourist bus as there are only Germans and myself on it and I really feel like I’m back in on a tourist highway. It’s all very easy and everybody, except myself is very clean and all their gear is shinny and new. I’m not sure why, but when I jumped on the bus the last point seemed to leap out at me. A couple of grubby trekkers also got on the bus and I found myself thinking (along with everybody else) “They look a right state!” I then caught my neighbour on the bus giving me the same look with an embarrassed, apologetic, yet “why do I always get them?” smile! So I took a look at myself. With hindsight I’m amazed that Kim didn’t turn straight around and get back on the plane when she first saw me in Santiago and I’m even more amazed that Explora Hotel even let me in the door! I’ve been travelling for almost 5 months and my 3 t-shirts, 2 pairs of trousers and now odd pairs of socks have been with me the whole way. My trekking trousers are ripped from arguments with Argentinean Cane. My t-shirts are stretched and faded from carrying too many bags. My rucksack looks like it has been to hell and back via a Pea Soup factory (the latter was courtesy of a clumsy American during a posh Explora picnic in Torres Del Paine) and my boots carry the scars of being trodden on by a donut in crampons! And then there is the tech gear! I place looking after my gear above all else! It gets prime place above me everywhere and I even slept with it every night during the Expedition (this isn’t rude! It kept it dry and the batteries warm!). But despite all that, it has been on the journey with me and it shows the signs. This laptop which was shinny and new, now bears the scars of a thousand near misses, is plastered with stickers and has zero space left on it! The cameras have been lovingly cleaned, yet when you have been strapped to a rucksack, shoved in the bottom of a kayak, left out in the sea and sun on a dive boat, dragged around every Mayan temple going and even had porridge spilt on you then you too are going to feel / look a little bit haggard! Which brings me on to well...me! Oh Dear! It’s the only way that I can describe myself! I tried to make an effort when Kim was around, but she cleared off with my only hair brush (which I didn’t use anyway) and well soap is heavy so not a lot of it is around to be honest! I haven’t had my hair cut since Sydney and it is now a scraggly mess of tangled knots with assorted gray and bleached highlights. As a long lost friend pointed out, I have a great “Stig of the dump” look :) But I don’t care :) I’m going to drag this shabby Scooby Doo Shaggy facsimile onto the Moreno Glacier then down to Ushuaia and onto Antarctica and have a wicked smelly blast the whole way! I might buy a hair brush in Buenos Aires on my way back home, but then we’ll have to see :) paul A guest blogger from Torres Del Paine
Hello from the end of the world!! We thought we’d drop you a line and send you a few photos to let you know we’re ok and having an amazing time :). There’s no mobile phone reception here, so if you’ve sent us text messages, we can’t pick them up! We heard that there was an earthquake (7. something!) a few days ago in the north of Chile and thought that if you heard about it too you might be worried about us. We are far far away from where it happened at the southernmost tip of Chile and its true what the hotel web site says, you feel like you’re at the end of the world! In fact we found out during the geology lecture last night that Torres del Paine, Patagonia (the glacial national park we’re in right now) is on the same latitude as London but in completely the other direction – and the landscapes couldn’t be more different...... Monday – flew from Santiago to the Chilean Lake District at Puerto Varas. We didn’t arrive at the hotel until 11pm (because we had to change our flight from 10am to 8pm due to the whole embassy shenanigans). Paul booked a gorgeous Austrian looking hotel and a fab room overlooking the lake and with a view of the famous volcano, Osorno. Tuesday – Paul arranged an action packed itinerary for our stay in the lakes. On Tuesday we kayaked 21 kms through a fiord with mountain views to our side and dead ahead. We had our own private guide and the three of us paddled upstream taking in the spectacular scenery and stopping half way along for a picnic lunch. Luckily Paul and I were in a double kayak which meant I could squeeze in a couple of crafty breaks and let him do the hard work! (Paul’s note! Luck had nothing to do with it :)) We passed salmon and shell fish farms on the way. The water started off very calm, but as the afternoon wind picked up the water became quite choppy and I was glad when we got to the end to jump out (and take off the smelly, oversized wet suit!). Wednesday – was the big hike over the Osorno volcano ‘saddle’ and down the other side to the lake. The hike was 18 kms and we had the most gorgeous day you can imagine with not a cloud in the sky (apparently they only get about 4 days a year like that!) and just amazing views of the volcanoes. It started off quite cold and blowy, so I had lots of layers on, but by the time we got down to the lake, I’d stripped down to a strappy t-shirt! Quite an amazing contrast. Thursday – we spent the whole day travelling to the park. Our flight got in at 10.30am and we were picked up and shuttled to the park which took 5 hours with a lunch break in the middle. All we passed in the 5 hours was 1 town – this place really takes remote to a new level!! We passed wild Guanacos (like a lama) and Rhea (like an emu). We arrived at the hotel a little after 4pm. Paul was handed a letter from head office offering us complimentary 30 minute massages because of the hassle we were caused by their office trying to charge us twice and hence Paul’s bank account being frozen for a week! Paul very succinctly told the hotel manager that wasn’t good enough and we expected a room upgrade or equivalent. (Paul’s note! Ie: threw my toys out of the pram!) After speaking to head office the hotel manager came back to us and moved us into a superior room with direct views of the lake and mountains! The view really is breathtaking, dramatic and spectacular - even from our jacuzzi bath you can see the mountain view (there are portholes from the bathroom into the bedroom and out of the window!). And that really is as far as she got :) Unfortunately the weather descended on us on the last day so we had to abandon our attempt of the 3 towers and opt for a couple of smaller hikes fuelled by the poshest BBQ (or Asado if you are a local) I think I have ever been too. So more stuff on glaciers to come :)
November 18 Santiago a go go...gone!?Hola What’s happening? Since I finished the Patagonia trek time seems to have decided that it wants to get to the end of the year, so it cracked the whip and doesn’t appear to be sparing any horses! I’ve already been in Chile for over a week and a chaotic scramble of things, some good, and some bad seem to have flown by. Taking things chronologically, things started off well! Firstly I survived the night in the freaky hotel without Jack Nicholson breaking through the door with an axe and I spent the morning on a mini horse riding trek. Horses are bigger and far more intelligent than me, so I have a kinda nervous (OK scared silly) approach to them. Fortunately Patagone and I got on like a house on fire (he knew where he was going and I let him) and we even managed a number of pretty serious river crossings on our three and a bit hour trek. After this we were rejoined by the next boat load of old age pensioner and Japanese tourists and we were off across All Saints Lake, fighting for space on the top deck to photograph Mount Osorno and its other neighbouring volcanoes as we glided past. By this point I had become something of an enigma for both the tourists and the tour guide. “Who was this strange smelly individual travelling on his own?!” So I hid away from all the guides trying to drag me on to their tours (ie: their hotels and their back hand commissions) by hiding behind the cargo deck on the boat with my MP3 player. This worked great until I realised that I had missed the briefing on how we were getting to town once we had docked so I wondered around a bit before I found somebody prepared to take me and my smelly rucksack into town. Town was Puerto Varas and I was here for 1 night before catching an overnight bus to Santiago where I was to meet Kim. The jumping off point for the Chilean Lakes we were heading back down this way so I spent the time organising guides for treks and kayak tours and spent a really wonderful night in “The Guest House” a wonder hostel / B&B complete with its own famous chef Vicky Johnson. The next day I leapt aboard the best sleeper coach yet and before I knew it I was pulling into the outskirts of Santiago. It was about then that things decided to go a bit pear-shaped! Kim was flying in for 2 weeks so we were treating the time as a holiday rather than travelling. Basically, this is an excuse for ditching the hostels and checking into some nice hotels. J and as a special treat I had booked us into Explora Hotel, the only Five Star in Torres Del Paine. Unfortunately the Muppets on the reservation desk tried to charge my bank account twice! Fantastic! This promptly caused HSBC (THE WORLD’S WORST BANK!) to have a melt down and freeze my account! Of course I was oblivious to this. I was in Santiago having a wicked time running around finding all the cool spots to take Kim (including Etniko...best restaurant in town) and got up early the morning of her arrival to fire off a few emails, the first version of this blog (which didn’t make it) and have a chilled breakfast. All of which went horribly wrong at the Cash Point (ATM). Request denied! What? Request DENIED!!! You must be bloody joking! Back in the hotel I called HSBC and the above mess was revealed to me! Now you would hope that the World’s Local Bank, would be really understanding and do their utmost to help me. Here I was in a foreign country with no ability to get any money. Surely they would help me out! Yeah right! I got the banking world’s equivalent of the finger and continued to get it for the whole week! HSBC! Without doubt the most useless, unhelpful, arrogant, disrespectful, inconsiderate and hopeless financial institution on the planet! Fortunately I had enough cash in my pocket to get me too the airport to meet Kim and the first thing I had to ask her to do was get a load of money out, otherwise I would have been down on the street corner with the other down and outs in Santiago. Guess what bank i’m leaving when I get home!
November 08 The Shining!Hola I’m always amazed by how quickly things change when you cross a border; whether it’s the people, the scenery, or even something simple like the colour of the buses. When I crossed into Argentina from Boliva it instantly felt wealthier and having spent almost 2 months in the country (even though most of it was in the snow with a Poo Tube) I had really gotten used to it. Leaving Bariloche even felt a bit like leaving home. I had so dreamt of the place when in the depths of a Pate and Cracker sulk or in the midst of scraping porridge of a saucepan that I had grown attached to its coffee shops and restaurants. As a result I was completed unprepared for Chile and the out and out weirdness of my first night here really threw me into a whirl. I opted to travel into Chile via the ferry service from Bariloche. Crossing into another country via a ferry across the Andes sounded cool, so I ignored the Lonely Planet (normally the best way to go!) and queued up with the OAP’s for my ticket. Did you spot the clue to the world I am now in?.........OAP’s Old Age Pensioners! And their suitcases! OH MY GOD is it a different World and I now know who it was eating all the chocolate in Bariloche! To its credit the Lonely Planet warned that the ferry ride to Chile was touristy, but what I didn’t expect was the blue rinse hordes. The chaos at the bus station gave me a clue as to what I had let myself in for. My bag was the only rucksack and there was complete confusion when they discovered that I was wasn’t with a tour but travelling independently! I heard it wash down the bus we boarded to get to the first boat.. “See that freaky haired youngster? He’s travelling on his own!” “What dear?” “He’s travelling ON HIS OWN!” “Sorry dear you’re going to have to speak up” “HE’S TRAVELLING ON HIS OWN” “He’s got a broom! How delightful, this bus could do with a good dust!” And then of course there was the Japanese! During the course of the trek I managed to take over 1800 pictures (but my camera does take 2 at a time 1 RAW and 1 JPEG blab la bla...!), the Jap guy with a Canon bigger than him managed to take about 500k before the ferry left! On board I didn’t even try to get a seat inside, but headed out to the back to hide. This worked for all of 30 secs before Camera Wars started! The ferry sped along and consequently everybody on the open top deck started to freeze in the icy Patagonian wind (errr. DOH like that wasn’t going to happen!) so they decided to join me! At the same time the seagulls which follow the boat everyday started swooping down for the crackers that everybody was holding aloft! This proved 2 things: 1. The phrase “All the gear no idea” is so true. There was collectively about one million dollars worth of camera gear on the boat, most of it a lot better than mine and OK I shouldn’t judge as I’m very new to photography, BUT even I know that to photograph a seagull taking a cracker from your wife’s hand you NEED TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF! 2. GVI really were tight on the food budget. The crackers being fed to the seagulls were far better than those fed to us in the snow! Chaos reigned around me, which was a shame as the scenery was (as ever in this part of the world) amazing! I did manage to find a quiet spot for a while and as we cruised by stunning mountains and huge waterfalls I rammed my head phones into my ears and disappeared into my own World. At the end of lake Nahuel Haupi (pronounced Noel Happy... I wonder why he is so cheerful?) Everybody jumped off apart from 7 of us; me and 3 couples. We were taking 2 days to get into Chile rather than everybody else doing it in a day. This was great as everybody kept themselves to themselves and I had time to do a mini hike to a water fall and around the end of the lake in the forest. We then travelled overland a massive 3km to the next lake, crossed that on another ferry, officially crossed the border, boarded a 4x4 coach and bounced along a dirt track in Chile proper. (I have to tell a side story here J on the side of the 2nd lake was a huge beached ferry, at least 3 times the size of the one we crossed on. All but the very stern of it was out of the water and there was a whole bunch of people watching a bloke in his JCB trying to push it back into the water. Fat chance! It was the equivalent of me trying to pull a 48 wheel lorry by hand! So the question is. How did it get out of the water in the first place? We are in the middle of the mountains. There is no road. There was no crane, no wharf; it is also a lake so no tide to carry it higher.........HOW?) Anyway, after some bouncing around and being forced to listen to everything you wanted to know about Condors and Mount Tronodor (erm hello?) we rolled up outside Hotel Puella. Think Jack Nicholson and The Shinning! Hotel Puella is in Puella Valley, by Puella Mountain, by Puella River and is in the settlement of...you guessed it...Puella. Only it’s not a settlement, it’s all part of the hotel and it is huge. It is a great monstrous building. The sort of huge, ancient faded hotel / labyrinth where the corridors are so long that they have had to put sofa’s in twice on the way down to my room (at the very end of course) just in case you needed a rest! And there are 7 of us staying here! The staff out number us, the number of broken down Steam engines in the gardens out number us! And there is nothing else here! Just huge mountains! If an axe blade breaks through my door in the middle of the night I won’t be surprised I’ll just ask what took him so long! J AAARGH!!!!!!!!!!
Some of the stuff i'v been reading whilst preparing for this trip!
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