South America - Chile

The start of my latest adventure - after long flights and a bit of a melee at the airport, finally I get to the appartment booked for the first night. This is on the 15th floor and I  make note to self - when coming back after a beer, "Stay away from the balcony!". There is a pool on the roof just above, so a nice start to the next day after a long sleep. It won´t all be like this though. In Panama I once stayed in a tiny room with an awful bed over a petrol station, spending the night listening to the musical sound of large trucks pulling in and filling up with diesel :-(.

A new day, out for a wander, a beer and a bit of lunch.  Some people met up in places like this for their midday work break, "Not a bad idea" me thinks. Beats a sandwich in front of your pc.

I´m on the other side of the planet now, but life is not so different.

I need a haircut, so I find a small barbers near the hostel. When I get it done in Petts Wood it takes about 5 minutes and costs 9 quid. This chap carefully tucked my collar inside my shirt, put a towel around my neck, then a cape and then tucked bits of cotton wool inside the towel. Then each time he made a cut with the scissors he clicked them thre times, making me wonder how many times he´d done this - millions at the minimum.

He worked on my hair like it was a masterpiece, took over half an hour and then tidied up with a razor. Cost - 3800 pesos, or about 4 pounds.

He then proudly showed me a sign on the wall with some dates and a picture of himself when young. - He had had the shop since 1950, i.e. 64 years. He then explained that he was 82 years old! Lovely man!

Took a trip into the centre on the metro, green line - number five. Red is one, orange is two. What happened to three and four?

Some views of the city and the tour guide demonstrating the Chilean national dance - not the Samba(Brazil) or the Salsa(Cuba), but the Cueca.

That is the the statue of Virgin Mary, top left.

Statue for the Mapuche, native people.

Now back to the hostel - this is Ivan cooking the barbeque. Great food, conversations and fun with people from France, Norway and Brazil. Topics included the frustrations of travelling - such as the problems when lost and asking directions. Quite often you will get the answer - "Two blocks". This does not mean the junction one after the next, it means that the person you have asked doesn´t know, but doesn´t like to admit it. After two blocks you could ask again. However you might get the same answer!

Not exactly a highlight - 15 hours and a thousand odd miles to the south, on a bus. Bus stations are not theraputic at the best of times. When transporting a bicycle in a huge box, even worse.

Finally we have got to Puerto Montt and a new hostel. Not a bad view - that is the Andes in the background, at least I think so - they look quite hilly!

Now time to unpack my new bicycle "Fiona" and check that she has survived the trip - all OK except for a small bend in the rear rack. Put the handlebars back on pump up the tyres and so on - fortunately I had some helpers, though they didn´t do very much. Except for the kitten who liked attacking my tyres!

Argentina

Yes I've escaped for a little while - after my trips in the USA, Mexico and Central America the logical next step was South America.

The original plan was to cycle the Interamericana in Chile, but due to the problems there I decided that a change to Argentina was wise.

Arriving in Buenos Aires with no research I spent the first couple of days getting my bearings and deciding what to do.

Also with a last minute change of footwear I needed my shoes stretched a bit and found this little shop in the backstreets where the shoesmith worked out what I wanted after showing him my shoes and pointing to my toes! 'Mi espagnol is poquito' is still my most used phrase.

I stayed in a hostel in the business area, so quite a few sites were in easy walking distance.

The view out of one of the hostel windows. As the flags indicate hostels are very international, it is always great to talk to people from all over the world - unless you're really unsociable you'll soon be discussing all kinds of things with people from Europe, Mexico, Brazil, USA, and Canada and others, or sport and beer with Ozzies.

The Casa Rosa - the square in front has been the scene of large rallies in the past in some of the unhappier times. The balconies are where Madonna sang from in Evita - the choice of actress was not universally popular in this very Catholic country!

BA is pretty hot and humid - as you can see from the palm trees. A lot of the buildings are very impressive - though the economy has had ups and downs, historically Argentina has been a wealthy country from the export of well, beef!

Of course a town in the region, 'Fray Bentos' is globally known for pies and OXO cubes, but of course, as anyone who had been diligent about doing their geography homework would know - 'Fray Bentos' is over the border in Uruguay!

This trip was intended to be partly a cycling tour - but a large percentage of Argentinians live in BA and most of the roads out are highways with no cycling lanes.

I was a bit worried that the pedalling experience would be less than safe and definitely not really enjoyable so took a bus to Bariloche, I think about 1000km to the South West.

As you get close to Bariloche the scenery improves!

My first ride - here you can see the town surrounded by its backdrop of mountains and froggy wih his new quetzal colours. After the log journeys FQ was plased to be out of his box!

On a day trip to the Black Glacier we were lucky to have to Condors fly low over us and land on a rock nearby - sadly my shots weren't 100% sharp - must read the manual for the digi-snapper again!

On the side of the road you often see shrines to 'Gaucho Gil' a Robin Hood figure who was sadly executed for his 'crimes'.

After another day ride, (this time to Llau Llau, pronounced 'Shau Shau' as the language here is Castiallano ('Shano'), though in Chile the same thing would be 'Yow Yow' - these variations on Spanish not making it any easier!) I booked a trip to the deep south of the country of famed Ruta40. This takes two full days on the bus with an overnight stay en route. Though they are slowly paving it, most of the way is gravel and thus less than relaxing.

The jouney is epic, especially in the absence of just about anything. A game of 'I spy' would be like Q. R A. Rock, Q. AR A. Another Rock. That's it! Though we did see an armadillo scurrying across the road.

On the second day though we had one of the best sunsets that I have ever seen. Like Montana, you get what is called a 'Big Sky' in these remote regions.

One of the reasons for heading south was to see this - the Perito Moreno glacier. This is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen - it is about 2km wide here and an exquisite blue - every so often it 'calves' and chunks fall off with a large echoing crash.

As part of the trip we spent an hour and a half trekking on the ice, and at the end a surprise measure of Scotch on the Rocks with the 400 year load ice freshly chipped from the glacier!

Got it - very pleased to catch this moment!

On another trip to 'Torres del Paines' in Chile we saw these guanacos. Similar to llamas and related to camels, they could possibly be called camas, cetainly they looked very peaceful. But it is not all plain grazing as they are predated upon by pumas, which can be a bit of a, well, drama.

These are wild, but famously the Welsh came to Patagonia to farm sheep, but other reports say it was just to get away from the rain!

These are the famous towers of the park, unfortunately partly in the clouds.

Whilst treking in the park we all nearly got blown into the Pacific by the sudden huge squalls. It really was difficult trying to stay on your feet.

Some pretty impressive waterfalls in this country!

Back in Bariloche I've been planning the next step.

Last night I got chatting to an Austrian girl called Lisa. Notably she decided three years ago that she wanted to spend some time in Peru and spent a year living with a Peruvian family and going to school there under a scheme with the AFS. (http://www.afs.org/afs_or/home) She said her parents hadn't been totally delighted at the time when she announced it. Now 18 she is doing a bit more travelling before going back to Austria to go to University.

I was more than a little impressed and surprised!

Apparently the daffodils are out now in the UK, so things look to be looking brighter at home, but I´m pleased to miss the train strikes!

Chris

Into Honduras and Back to Mexico

Some more pictures, and mostly in the right order!

First one is of a volcano - you go and see it when it gets dark as sometimes you can see the glow of the lava just a little bit below you, but when I was there too much stuff was coming out and we had to wear gas masks as it´s pretty toxic - sulphuric acid and lots of other noxious fumes.

It last erupted in 2002, so definitely regarded as active.

I spent a few days in Granada working out what to do next. It´s a good time of year to see whale sharks at Utila, one of the Bay Islands in the Carribean off Honduras.

It really wasn´t realistic to cycle there in the time available so I rode a little hop of about 40km to Minagua, the capital of Nicaragua, where I took the bus to San Pedro Sula (12hrs) and then the next day another one to Ceiba on the coast nr the islands. Due to a big storm - very high winds and torrential rain the ferry wasn´t running so I splashed out $50 on the plane there.

Unfortunately I didn´t get to see any whale sharks which was a big disappointment. But I did a PADI rescue diver course - which was very good. Lots of dive schools in Utila so prices are cheap. Training was quite hard work as you spend a lot of time in the water in scuba gear doing various exercises and practising different scenarios. Then when you´d finished for the day you´d pack your kit away and sit down for a rest.

Pnly thing was there would then be a scream from the water and the instructor had fallen off the quay. "Help, Help, I´m drowning, I can´t swim". So off you´d go again, going through the steps you´d been taught and sort out how to rescue him. So then you´re in the water giving him a floatation aid, and there´s another scream from the next quay. The Canadian guy also doing the course has now fallen in. "Help, Help, I´m drowning". So you go to try and help him, but he´s panicking so he makes a grab for you to try and drown you too. (You´ve stayed out of reach for this very reason). So finally you´ve calmed him down and trying to work out what to do to svae him, when the instructor starts screaming again "Help, Help, I´ve been bitten by a shark".

Oh dear oh dear - this never ending crisis is a bit like being back at work!

As part of the course you also have to do an "Emergency First Responder" course as well, where you learn what to do with people who have been injured in an accident or had a heart attack or similar. You learn about checking airways, giving cardiopulmary massage and so on. Also giving oxygen and using a defibrillator. I think you have to do it as part of a driving test in some European countries which seems quite a good idea.

On the last day we had some luck to make up for the whale sharks when we ended up with about 100 spinner dolphins around the boat so got to see them jumping out of the water and living up to their name and also went in the water and saw them hurtling around beneath us whistling to each other! Around the quays I saw this eagle ray one night.

So after this there was another storm when I wanted to leave so I had to get another plane, but this time it was going back to San Pedro. From there I again flew up to Mexico and did a 5 day intensive yoga class. This started at 5am so I had to get up at 4.30 to walk down the beach to the school. Lovely under the moon and the stars.

First was an hour mediation (or the development of compassion) where the Yogi would give some instruction and some readings from Hindu philosophy, then an hour of an Indian breathing technique. After breakfast (fruit and nuts) three hours of physical yoga, doing a lot of work to do with increasing mobility of the vertabrae in the spine. Very hard work, but very rewarding and Briggitte was a super teacher.

I stayed at the other end of the beach, but most of the 14 people stayed at the school as well. On the last day I discovered that under the veneer of calm, anger was rising and rebellion was brewing.. Yep coffee was banned until after the morning´s work was completed. But people were not happy, and on the penultimate day one hardened criminal snook out and bought a cafe con leche at the local cafe.

Probably from the spirits, Brigitte found out about it, but didn´t know who the culprit was. "Don´t worry" she said, "This is a very small town and secrets don´t last long here"!

Pretty much coming to the end of the trip now. Had thought about riding down to Guatamala City, but think I might rest a little now. It´s been quite tough really, and now it´s Santa Semana here (Easter in English!). Big thing in these Catholic countries and lots of people come out of the cities to the beach. Fortunately Mexico has a lot of beaches.

My cabana here is lovely, so everything can be manyana for a few days!

Thanks to the people who have added to the David Shepherd thing, I´ve got some other promises so we should be able to get it up a little higher!

My heart goes out to Sylvia, friend of the family who is now very ill. I´ve still got the book you gave me a couple of years back "100 Great Trips". Done some of them, but a few more to go one day I hope. Hope you get a chance to see these pictures.

Chris

Into Nicaragua

Hi again

First thing is I have set up a page on http://www.justgiving.com/froggyridesagain
to see if I can raise a bit of dosh for charity.

Please have a look and .... if you can.

So we´ve crossed over the border into Nicaragua (agwa it´s pronounced at the end over here - and it is their country!).

In Costa Rica I did some diving, but failed in my mission to see Bull sharks, apparently not the right time of year and also the visibilty was terrible. Where the vis improved it was due to currents which were freezing. That´s not on at all!

Met a couple of Austrians, 2roadrunners-on-tour is their blog, who started in June last year at Anchorage, Alaska and are aiming to get all the way down to the tip of South Argentina. They were looking forward to getting further south as it would be a little cooler.

Spent some time at the lovely beach spot of Montezuma, chilled out hippy style spot. Lovely beaches, lovely swimming, all in lovely. One night there went to a nearby town where there was a fair. Some of the guys went on a spinning shaking, twisting platform which would be so banned in UK, Health and Safety people would be aghast. The Costa Rican guys had a whale of a time on it though!

Saw some more crocs from a bridge, one guy´s hat got blown off - he didn´t seem too keen to retrieve it though!

The crossing into Nicaragua took three hours queuing in passport control, not easy in the mill of people trying to hang onto the bike. Further not helped by the computer for the queue I was in crashing when I was 8 from the front, had to go to the back of another queue.

First stop here was at Isla Omatepe, beautiful island in Lake Nicaragua made up of two volcanoes, on of them a very volcanesque near perfect cone. Cycled all the way round it one day, apart from 5km where a pickup offered me a lift - the road had deteriated to volcanic rubble. The girls in the back were really friendly - they have such lovely natural smiles it warms your heart.

I´ve now got to Granada, very pretty colonial city built by the Spanish. Had a nice meal looking out over the central square and cathedral.

Tonight it´s planning where we are going next, I want to get to Utila, an island in the Carribean off Hoduras, where there is a chance at this time of year to see whale sharks. But it´s quite a distance and I´ve got to work out if it´s realistic to ride it all.

Now the plannig will be tomorrow - it has taken 4 hours to do this post and the Justging thing!

Pura Vida

Chris