HI there,
It doesn´t seem 5 mins since I left the cold and rain of England for the slightly warmer climes of the equator, but time is moving on, unfortunately faster than I am and the Xmas trees with flashing lights are taking over the shops and houses here making me think it is time to think about where I will be for Xmas and new year - Colombia or Venezula seem to be the very likely answers right now, but who knows.
Since leaving on 11 Nov I spent as little time as possible in Quito (Ecuador) and flew out to Galapagos where I have spent a couple of weeks (several days too long - see later) but then they are a unique ecosystem, infact a whole string of unique ecosystems as each island has it´s own.
The Best Bits
- The whole of the Galapagos is wonderful, its animals, some unique others not, are more friendly than an especially cuddly cat! In particular...
- Dancing with sealions - on the beach they are approachable (within a metre) but most of the time just lie there sunbathing. In the water they are not only agile, fast and curious they actually play games with you. Imagine a torpedo whizzing past, by the time you realise what it was, it´s gone. But it returns, this 1.5m sealion, effortlesly accelerating through the water straight for your mask and veering away when only a metre from your nose, then going eyeball to eyeball with its enormous drugged out bulging eyes, and having it swim round you, do backflips in perfect circles in front of your nose, bubbles pouring from its mouth, squarking 'can´t you do this' before it picks stones from the bottom in it's mouth and tries to give them to you. After a while you realise that it is trying to teach you tricks - just a bit of role reversal, after all we clumsy people can teach them nothing about agility in water. After 20 mins or so with the same animal you begin to understand it, know what to expect next. Then it hangs upside down in the water grinning at you - too close to take a picture as it will be out of focus - somehow I feel it knows that - Just Playing it is. It made my day, I hope I added something to its.
- Blue footed boobies - And yes there are loads of t-shirts on sale with a piture of 2 blue feet and the line ´I love Boobies´ underneath. They really are birds with blue feet and so entertaining they are named after the spanish word for clown ´Bobo´. They look pretty stupid and act even stupidier e.g. showing its blue feet is the way of attracting a mate, whether it washes them first I dont know. They are the best fishers though, zipping vertically into the water with swept back wings at incredible speed and gobbling its catch before surfacing else the Frigate birds (with huge red, heart shaped inflated chests will nick its fish).
- Pelicans - The most clumsy animals I have ever seen. They crash in to the sea with a large element of random precision and rely on scooping out a huge slice of water with their expanding pouches filtering it for small fish. In the air they are flying dinosaurs, and on land waddle awkwardly over each other and anything that gets in their way, usually resulting in them falling over each other or into a hole, constantly using their unweildy wings as surrogate arms to stop themselves or pull themselves up. They even steal the fisheads from the fishermen, store them in their pouches and sit their quite contentedly until they are alone, then having to spit out the fish only to realise it is too big for them to eat. Next to them stands the super efficient heron, bewildered by their antics and losing out to the numbers and brute force of its clumsy competitors.
- Penguins - yes they have penguins on the equator - watching them fly through the water chasing shoals of fish is remarkable. Where their power comes from is not clear, but they are elegant and ..... and they are penguins ... what more do you need!?
- Tortoises of the Giant kind - 1.5m long and living to over 150 years old - the oldest know one was 152 when it died in an accident, but no-one knows how old the current ones are. The are prehistoric, stretching their wrinkled necks out to reveal toothless grins, they rip the grass out by its roots and clamber with painful awkwardness over to a new patch of grass. Each one has a different personality, retracting with a hydraulic hiss, in its mountainous shell or posing elegantly for photos, they are magnificent animals - though why anyone thought it necessary to invent them is difficult to understand...
- Hanging out with the white tipped reef sharks about 10m down whilst scuba diving in the harsh and unpredictable currents whilst scuba diving. More evidence of our clumsiness as we desperatly cling onto the rocks to avaid being swept away, they just hang in the same spot hardly making any movement. They swim within a couple of metres and look curiously at me with their tiny squinty eye. I wonder what it was thinking? I know what I was thinking ... that´s probably close enough... And then a 4m hammerhead shark cruises by with eyes sticking out of its hammer - strange them sharks.
- Getting bored yet, well there was hanging out with the turtles as they fed on the weed on the rocks just below the surface, calmly being swept back and forth in the swell; The yellow, 2m long land iguanas, black marine iguanas unique to here - every few minutes they spit out salt to keep their bodies pH balanced - they are dragons with wry smiles, wrikled skin and spikes along the back and head - punk rock started here!
Enough Enough - we want to hear some bad bits! I hear you, so here they are:
- Missing Englands triumph in the world cup - it wasn´t on tv in Galapagos - England World Champions! (rugby that is, and for all you who dont know the game - its like american footbal witout the padding or the time outs - and more than one team competes in the world champships). And to all those Aussies reading this ...Unluckly mates HaHaHaHaHaHa....etc.
- Rice, rice bloody rice. Asia is the home of rice and South America the home of the potato.... so why do they serve rice with everything? Potato comes with rice, spaghetti comes with rice, and if you are nieve enough to just ask for rice you get a double helping. Rice twice a day really is too much of a (cheap but) indifferent thing.
-The Galapagos cost a fortune, over US$1,000 to: fly there from Ecuador, national park entry, 8 day boat trip, so l will have to survive on the delicious rice they serve here from now on!
- Taking the round trip to the airport twice and failing to get on a plane (7 hours each time inc the 4 hours waiting at the airport). Third time I was lucky.
- The equator at sea level. It's got to be really hot right. No. Its cloudy nearly all the time and there is a slight chill in the evening. I mean it´s not like an english chill, but this is the equator - I had to wear long trousers in the evening, how ridiculous is that ... But the water must be warm? Sometimes - but then sometimes the cold Humboldt current from Antartica suddenly rises to the surface and it is like having an ice cold shower! BBBBrrrrrrr.....
- In a protected area of the Darwin Research station there is Lonesome George - a giant tortoise just hanging out. He is lonesome because he is the last of a species. They very last tortoise from a particular island, all the rest have been killed by man. They dont know how old he is, but he wont mate with similar species of tortoise from other islands at the moment, maybe he will in 50 or 100 years time, who knows. Imagine being the very last of a species .. now that´s tough.
Heading off to learn a bit more spanish in Banos and then into Colombia - maybe then it will get mote interesting - for you at least!
Bye for now
LuvPete
Showing posts with label Penguins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penguins. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 December 2003
Thursday, 4 April 2002
Where 16 Puerto Natales, Chile --OR-- Why I Camped for a Week in Freezing Rain just to See Ice
HI Guys,
Since Buenos Aires a month ago I seem to have travelled on a lot of buses and seen loads of stuff in Patagonia (which consists of the southern
parts of Chile and Argentina).
Starting with a 22 hour bus journey down to Puerto Madryn on the east coast
and then travelled for 34 hours to reach Ushuaia, the most southerly place
of any note on the planet and only 1000km from Antartica which proudly
proclaims that it is ´the end of the world´ and the town itself looks like
it.
From there the only way is north (Antartica will have to wait for another
time when I have loadsa money) to the wonders of the Patagonian Andes - to
El Calafate and El Chalten in Argentina and then across into Chile to Puerto
Natales.
The Ups
- Magallenic penguins at Puerto Tombo on the east coast. It was easy to get
within 1m of them as they just stand or lie around on the path. If you get
too close they start shaking their heads from side to side as a warning and
then they will attack with their powerful beaks.
- The armadillos - Cute but different to how I imagined. I thought they
would move like tortoises due to the weight of their armour, but in fact
they scurry like hedgehogs (and are about the same size) - but they are not flat like
most hedgehogs seen in UK.
- Moreno Glacier - This huge glacieris about 160m high at the face although
a max of 55m is above water, and the face is 6km wide. Not only can you get
within 250m of it to see the detail of the cracking ice under huge pressure,
but because the lake suddenly gets very deep and the glacier is moving at 2m
per day at the centre, it calves (huge chanks of ice up to 40m high break
off and crash into the water). The noise is deafening as it cracks and
tonnes of ice hit the water. A spectacular blue ice giant, a random ice
sculpture in motion - it easily lives up to all the hype.
- Trekking in the FitzRoy Range - spent 3 days doing day treks around a
group of incredible spikey snowcapped mountains with a few glaciers and
corresponding lakes thrown in. There was also a load of rain and some
extremely stong winds when it was only just possible to remain standing. It
throughly tested my wet weather and wind proof gear , not to mention my legs
and made for an interesting few days.
The Downs
- Trying to see Orcas (Killer Whales) snatching seal pups off the beach. We
spent a whole day at the only place in the world where they have learned to
do this successfully but despite appearing the previous 2 days they didn´t
show up.
- The Welsh towns in Argentina are a big tourist draw. Colonised by the
Welsh in 19th Century because they felt oppressed at the English not allowing
them to speak Welsh in Wales, they moved here and now all speak Spanish !
The Welsh teas are famous and expensive except no-one from the UK had ever
heard of them. The only things that these towns really have in common with
Wales are the surrounding hills which look like slag heaps and the very high
unemployment rate.
- After 34 hours travelling to Ushuaia we arrived 3 hours late due to
roughweather on the ferry crossing to find that our reserved hostel places had been
given to other people. Since it was already 1am by this stage we ended up
spending the night sleeping in a corridor.
- Trekking in Tierra del Fuego National Park I got snowed off a small mountain. Strange to think that England must have had snow in March and here I was at the other end of the earth getting exactly the same weather - and it´s only early autumn here.
- Took a very cheap flight from Ushuaia to El Calafate but because of rain
at the destination airport it was closed so we were diverted and then got a
bus the rest of the way. We were supposed to arrive at 6.30pm but didn´t
get there until 3am by which time the hostel was closed and so we had to
sleep in a bus station until 6.30am when the hostel opened. Then I was stuck there for 2 more days as the rain poured down and the roads to both my possible destinations had been washed away. It doesn´t help when the locals say "It´s very unusual
for this time of year".
The Trek (Ups and Downs) - Torres del Paine, Chile
If you want to eat 0.75kg of chocolate, 1kg of nuts and raisens, loads of
pasta and rice and still lose weight, with a free leg muscle tone up thrown
in then this is for you. 7 days hiking and 7 nights camping around ´The
Circuit´ which circles a group of improbably shaped spectacular mountains -
strangely eroded sedimentary layers pierced by hard volcanic plugs which now
stand high above their surrounds. The whole area is a birthing place for
glaciers which dangle down steep mountains and sweep through valleys.
The Torres (towers) themselves are spear shaped granite plugs thrusting vertically 1.8km (over 1 mile) upwards from our viewpoint at 1000m. Well worth the 30 minute dawn race in freezing weather, from the campsite up the scree to see them change from purple to pink then orange and yellow in the first rays of the sun before it gets fully light. Just below them there is a glacier which crumbles into a lake full of icebergs. An incredible sight.
There are downsides however. Apart from the climb up with full pack
(weighing over 20kg) there was camping in sub-zero temperatures - I left my
water bottle outside on the first 2 nights and the water was distinctly
lumpy the next morning. I hardly slept for the first 2 nights as my feet
were freezing despite me wearing all my clothes in my sleeping bag. It is
also difficult to keep your hands clean as washing them in freezing water is
simply not a good idea in the morning or evening as they simply never get
warm again. And as for wearing the same clothes for 8 days without a
shower.... well .... everyone does it so no-one notices !
All round the circuit (we walked 6 or 7 hours a day) the views were
amazing, snowcapped jagged peaks were the norm, spectacular summits were
always there (if only that cloud would move !) and there were glaciers around
almost every corner. If you were looking at an incredible view ahead of you
then there was probably one at least as good behind you as well.
The best view of all is when you trek up through areas of snow and rise to
a height of over 1200m to go over ´The Pass´. From here there is not only
an almost aerial view of the huge Glacier Grey 1000m below but a view up to
the source of many of the glaciers in the area - the huge Southern
Patagonian Ice Field. A huge sheet of ice stretching across mountain tops,
over 320km long, covering an area of over 13,000 square km and hundreds of
metres thick. Vast is too small a word - it is a sheet laying across
everything, smoothing out what would otherwise be a mountainous landscape,
stretching further than the eye can see, emitting glaciers at every possible
opportunity down every valley, flowing like rivers, colliding smoothly in an
ever increasing mass and constantly restucturing to fit the valley´s width.
A No. 1 sight - perhaps the No.1 sight in an incredible part of the world. It rained for days 7 and 8 but by then we had seen so much we weren´t so bothered - although camping in the cold rain is not particuarly recommended.
Tonight I am catching a boat up to Pueto Montt - a 3 day and night trip
through some incredible scenery - that is if the weather holds good.
Bye for now
Luv
Pete
Since Buenos Aires a month ago I seem to have travelled on a lot of buses and seen loads of stuff in Patagonia (which consists of the southern
parts of Chile and Argentina).
Starting with a 22 hour bus journey down to Puerto Madryn on the east coast
and then travelled for 34 hours to reach Ushuaia, the most southerly place
of any note on the planet and only 1000km from Antartica which proudly
proclaims that it is ´the end of the world´ and the town itself looks like
it.
From there the only way is north (Antartica will have to wait for another
time when I have loadsa money) to the wonders of the Patagonian Andes - to
El Calafate and El Chalten in Argentina and then across into Chile to Puerto
Natales.
The Ups
- Magallenic penguins at Puerto Tombo on the east coast. It was easy to get
within 1m of them as they just stand or lie around on the path. If you get
too close they start shaking their heads from side to side as a warning and
then they will attack with their powerful beaks.
- The armadillos - Cute but different to how I imagined. I thought they
would move like tortoises due to the weight of their armour, but in fact
they scurry like hedgehogs (and are about the same size) - but they are not flat like
most hedgehogs seen in UK.
- Moreno Glacier - This huge glacieris about 160m high at the face although
a max of 55m is above water, and the face is 6km wide. Not only can you get
within 250m of it to see the detail of the cracking ice under huge pressure,
but because the lake suddenly gets very deep and the glacier is moving at 2m
per day at the centre, it calves (huge chanks of ice up to 40m high break
off and crash into the water). The noise is deafening as it cracks and
tonnes of ice hit the water. A spectacular blue ice giant, a random ice
sculpture in motion - it easily lives up to all the hype.
- Trekking in the FitzRoy Range - spent 3 days doing day treks around a
group of incredible spikey snowcapped mountains with a few glaciers and
corresponding lakes thrown in. There was also a load of rain and some
extremely stong winds when it was only just possible to remain standing. It
throughly tested my wet weather and wind proof gear , not to mention my legs
and made for an interesting few days.
The Downs
- Trying to see Orcas (Killer Whales) snatching seal pups off the beach. We
spent a whole day at the only place in the world where they have learned to
do this successfully but despite appearing the previous 2 days they didn´t
show up.
- The Welsh towns in Argentina are a big tourist draw. Colonised by the
Welsh in 19th Century because they felt oppressed at the English not allowing
them to speak Welsh in Wales, they moved here and now all speak Spanish !
The Welsh teas are famous and expensive except no-one from the UK had ever
heard of them. The only things that these towns really have in common with
Wales are the surrounding hills which look like slag heaps and the very high
unemployment rate.
- After 34 hours travelling to Ushuaia we arrived 3 hours late due to
roughweather on the ferry crossing to find that our reserved hostel places had been
given to other people. Since it was already 1am by this stage we ended up
spending the night sleeping in a corridor.
- Trekking in Tierra del Fuego National Park I got snowed off a small mountain. Strange to think that England must have had snow in March and here I was at the other end of the earth getting exactly the same weather - and it´s only early autumn here.
- Took a very cheap flight from Ushuaia to El Calafate but because of rain
at the destination airport it was closed so we were diverted and then got a
bus the rest of the way. We were supposed to arrive at 6.30pm but didn´t
get there until 3am by which time the hostel was closed and so we had to
sleep in a bus station until 6.30am when the hostel opened. Then I was stuck there for 2 more days as the rain poured down and the roads to both my possible destinations had been washed away. It doesn´t help when the locals say "It´s very unusual
for this time of year".
The Trek (Ups and Downs) - Torres del Paine, Chile
If you want to eat 0.75kg of chocolate, 1kg of nuts and raisens, loads of
pasta and rice and still lose weight, with a free leg muscle tone up thrown
in then this is for you. 7 days hiking and 7 nights camping around ´The
Circuit´ which circles a group of improbably shaped spectacular mountains -
strangely eroded sedimentary layers pierced by hard volcanic plugs which now
stand high above their surrounds. The whole area is a birthing place for
glaciers which dangle down steep mountains and sweep through valleys.
The Torres (towers) themselves are spear shaped granite plugs thrusting vertically 1.8km (over 1 mile) upwards from our viewpoint at 1000m. Well worth the 30 minute dawn race in freezing weather, from the campsite up the scree to see them change from purple to pink then orange and yellow in the first rays of the sun before it gets fully light. Just below them there is a glacier which crumbles into a lake full of icebergs. An incredible sight.
There are downsides however. Apart from the climb up with full pack
(weighing over 20kg) there was camping in sub-zero temperatures - I left my
water bottle outside on the first 2 nights and the water was distinctly
lumpy the next morning. I hardly slept for the first 2 nights as my feet
were freezing despite me wearing all my clothes in my sleeping bag. It is
also difficult to keep your hands clean as washing them in freezing water is
simply not a good idea in the morning or evening as they simply never get
warm again. And as for wearing the same clothes for 8 days without a
shower.... well .... everyone does it so no-one notices !
All round the circuit (we walked 6 or 7 hours a day) the views were
amazing, snowcapped jagged peaks were the norm, spectacular summits were
always there (if only that cloud would move !) and there were glaciers around
almost every corner. If you were looking at an incredible view ahead of you
then there was probably one at least as good behind you as well.
The best view of all is when you trek up through areas of snow and rise to
a height of over 1200m to go over ´The Pass´. From here there is not only
an almost aerial view of the huge Glacier Grey 1000m below but a view up to
the source of many of the glaciers in the area - the huge Southern
Patagonian Ice Field. A huge sheet of ice stretching across mountain tops,
over 320km long, covering an area of over 13,000 square km and hundreds of
metres thick. Vast is too small a word - it is a sheet laying across
everything, smoothing out what would otherwise be a mountainous landscape,
stretching further than the eye can see, emitting glaciers at every possible
opportunity down every valley, flowing like rivers, colliding smoothly in an
ever increasing mass and constantly restucturing to fit the valley´s width.
A No. 1 sight - perhaps the No.1 sight in an incredible part of the world. It rained for days 7 and 8 but by then we had seen so much we weren´t so bothered - although camping in the cold rain is not particuarly recommended.
Tonight I am catching a boat up to Pueto Montt - a 3 day and night trip
through some incredible scenery - that is if the weather holds good.
Bye for now
Luv
Pete
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