Matt & Rob's Big Trek

Hey there, folks!

So here I sit in Cuzco, awaiting transport to Lima…and home. This is the end and I wonder…oh, you’re not crying are you? Come on, wipe away the tears; there are still plenty of adventures to enjoy below…

I left you in Mendoza last time having heroically crossed the Andes on foot once more. Didn’t say much about Mendoza but it is beautiful, busy and bright and full of tree-lined streets and plazas and fountains that light up of an evening so it definitely went on the ‘could spend more time here’ list, especially as we arrived just at the beginning of a cold and rainy spell that put the kybosh on the famous cycling-vineyard tour, an apparent must but not in the poxy rain that lasted all the three days we were there.

As we left and walked through the outskirts, noticing that there were odd groups of people sitting around street fires, the sun finally came out. And it stayed out. We were walking 100 miles north to San Juan and had not done an awful lot of research. It was raining and full of lush vineyards around Mendoza so what was going to change? Ha! When Argentina has her way she’ll dry you up quicker than a bad case of the squits. At the second day of walking we could see the landscape changing back into the familiar desert we had seen further south. Technically it might not be one as there was a river about 30 miles to the east and it sometimes bursts its banks as we could see warning signs, but a river 30 miles east ain’t no damn good when you’re not there and need to go north. It was bleak and flat countryside and once again I was loving the desolation of it all, just so long as I could get a drink some place. The first was a stagnant watering hole that was likely 70 parts cow pee but it went in the water bottle with a wincey  ‘hope I don’t have to drink this’ face. Luckily, the next day we hit a border post in between the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan and could refill to our hearts’ content there. So we conquered one more stretch of desert on this trip, just to remind us what it’s all about. Things got better as we approached San Juan, veering right back towards the Andes where the parched bushes turned into vineyards and water flows again. San Juan itself is unremarkable, memorable only for a long, drunken chat with some Argentinians who told me with heads in their hands that the outskirts we had walked through to leave Mendoza were the most dangerous in the city. Well, I had wondered about those street fires…

That was it for our second bite at Argentina. Now we had to get north for our final two countries, first up, Bolivia. We took a 24 hour bus right up to the border at La Quiaca/Villazon.  And ‘up’ is the correct terminology in more ways than just north as now we were on the Altiplano, the high plain between two arms of the Andes that split out east and west and leave this dry and empty mass of land up there at 12,000 feet. As soon as I exited the bus I felt slightly dizzy, and where I had been expecting a cold wind I got hot hot sun with not much atmosphere to filter out the rays. Hats on. Not just for me either, because hats are all the rage in Bolivia. The Cholita women, old traditional market ladies that is, waddle around with small bowler hats perched atop their heads as part of a peculiar national dress, along with wide skirts and great multi-coloured sacks of produce (or infants) draped around the shoulders and carried on the back. It is a fascinating and very iconic look. I felt akin to them as I lugged my bloody rucksack around in the thin air and thanked the stars I wouldn’t have to carry it for much longer. That’s what I thought, anyway.

In Villazon we had noticed a lot of buses parked across roads but not really given it much thought but as we approached the train station we found pockets of other travellers with forlorn faces sitting around in whatever shade could be found. No trains were running and no buses either as we had arrived in Bolivia on the first day of a week-long national strike. Oh goody! We wandered around and tried to corral folk into some sort of escape plan. Taxi drivers came to us and whispered that they could get us out but that there were road blocks. We hooked up with an English couple, Sophie & James, and decided to take the risk and try and get to Tupiza, a larger town further up the road where things might improve. We travelled for about an hour with a jolly fat man until we hit the first blockade, much earlier than expected. There was no way through. They wouldn’t let any vehicle pass and said that there were now 8 further blocks on the road to Tupiza, now 20-25 miles away. Of course, Matt and I were equipped for this sort of thing so gradually, annoying as it was, we settled into a plan to walk the rest of the way. For some reason Sophie & James followed us with virtually no equipment and bad shoes but that’s the English isn’t it, and we thought we could all make do if it came to it, so we set off with about an hour of sunlight left, into the Bolivian wilderness for a night march to Tupiza. We passed roadblocks in the darkness and people were drinking and lighting fires and generally seemed to be having a good time so they were fairly good to us, letting us pass through without much bother (we later heard of people on foot being charged to cross). In between we flagged down willing farmers who lived in between the blockades and would run us five miles or so for some cash, but they were dead scared of the protesters and would only drop us way back from the lines. Scabs were not received warmly and it was a sign of things to come in a few days. Eventually, after a walk of about 12 miles in the moonlight, and after being crammed into the backs of several vans (once I got myself into a 3 foot square space, no word of a lie) we made it to Tupiza. Getting out of Tupiza was another thing.

This was the first real Bolivian town we’d seen and it lifted the spirits somewhat. I had heard about the poverty in poor old Bolivia but my, have they turned to the tourist trade and the Gringo-trail for relief with aplomb. It was full of restaurants and shops and charming old architecture and, naturally, tourists. Stranded tourists, all sharing their stories of how they got here and how they would get out. Rumours of trains and buses and taxis abounded but there was nothing concrete. What we had heard was that a train would run on Wednesday evening and it was now Tuesday so we relaxed and ate and drank planned for our journey the next day. When we approached the train station in the morning a worker met us with a frown. “No train today. Possibly tomorrow but no-one knows.” Bugger. Sophie & James had said they were trying for a 10am bus so we headed across town for the terminal and there, sure enough, we bought tickets for a bus to Uyuni at 6pm. It was exciting to know we would be leaving town that day after all. We hung around at our favourite food and drink place, where a bug-eyed and friendly man brought us slabs of meat and rice and beers while we watched the Europa League final. At the bus station all went as planned but when our bus arrived the fear hit me. It was old and creaky and had no toilet. How I lamented those beers I’d had, but we all got on and started to roll out of town at dusk. The co-driver shouted that we must close all the curtains which seemed a bit odd. Next thing the bus veered off-road and began to climb what looked like a dry riverbed. Was this the way to Uyuni? It seemed unlikely even for Bolivia. The bus was rocking about 35 degrees from side to side as it slowly clambered up the stony valley, and each swing was greeted with gasps from the tourist contingent. I didn’t gasp, I just wanted a wee. Next there was a huge bang and smoke in front of the vehicle, which promptly stopped. On the brow of a hill ahead we could see lights and people. Strikers! And they were throwing dynamite at us to turn us back! The blockaders had it all covered. There was to be no escape from Tupiza. The driver reversed and waited and tried again later but it was no good and we were met only with increased belligerence until, much to most people’s relief, the venture was finally quit and we returned to the bus terminal. I had a nice wee and we returned to our hostel, much to the amusement of the girls working there who mocked our escape attempts.

The following day we were awoken by a glorious sound: a train whistle! We jumped out of our beds tout suite and ran down to the station where a crowd of people were jamming against the single ticket window and a calm station worker sucking a lollipop was slowly issuing tickets. This train was going the other way, back to Villazon, but it would return at 6pm and take us to Uyuni. We got 2^nd class tickets so we could mix it with the Bolivians and prepared for another day with fingers crossed. A large market sprang up that covered a whole mile around the station and the best thing about Bolivian sales technique is that there is none. No harrying or badgering you into a purchase; the women just sit there with their bowler hats  and their knitting and ignore you until you make it very clear that you want to buy something, then maybe they look up and give you a random price. It’s great. I bought a toy dinosaur and a ball.

The train came on time and while the tourists went to their 1^st class carriage we waded down with the Bolivians but it was virtually the same and the atmosphere was really jolly, largely because we were all stranded people about to be moved. The journey was without incident and we arrived in cold and empty Uyuni at about midnight, quickly finding a cheap hotel on the main street. Uyuni is even more touristy than Tupiza and this is because of the vast salt lake nearby, the Salar de Uyuni, largest in the world, and bringer of gringo folk who want to take perspective photos. The salt flat is a vast, featureless white landscape under clear blue skies so there is very little depth perception. We took our tour out there and some of our efforts are below (this is where the toy dinosaur and ball came in). Shout out to Patrick the glass-blowing Canadian, a top man who was with us for the tour and beers later. A dude. And the Fins, and Ben & Joe & Will who we bumped into for the second time, the first being in Mendoza.

We were aiming for La Paz and the following day at midnight we re-boarded our train, stopping in the morning in Oruro to watch the Premiership finale, and then taking a bus for the final leg. I’d hardly slept and it wasn’t a great journey but wow! When we saw La Paz it was an amazing sight; a huge bowl of civilization that looks like an amphitheatre for all South American life to come and fill. Didn’t get any photos as along with the tiredness and hangoverness we were now up at something silly like 14,000 feet and I just couldn’t be arsed to move to a window but look it up on the internet!

What can I tell you about La Paz? Not too much as it turns out except that it’s brilliant, wild, crazy, full of pleasure-seeking travellers and it is hectic. Spent most of the time in clubs, coming out squinting into the daylight hours to sleep at our hostel, called Loki (which gives you some idea), a kind of a super hostel with a huge bar, great atmosphere and nightly partying. After 3 days we were exhausted and glad to be heading away to lake Titicaca and Copacabana, a beautiful and peaceful lakeside town where we spent 5 days recovering. All except for the Champion’s League final day that is, when much beer was had in a crowd of Bayern Munich fans whilst watching Chelsea squeak through to glory. Good stuff. Shouts to Kyle of NYC and Matt & Tracy of Dublin for the good times there!

From Copacabana we now had to get back on with the walk. The delay of watching the big game meant we had just one more stint in store, from there to Puno, the next city on the Peruvian side of the lake. It was tough. I had come down with a horrendous sore throat and a cold and Matt was gradually coming down with something quite severely wrong with his stomach. These ailments along with the altitude meant that every slight incline felt like climbing a huge hill. It got worse when we crossed into Peru which, to be brutally honest, looked an absolute dump compared with the prettiness we had just left. Straight dusty roads and half finished buildings everywhere; it was horrible walking. The next day Matt was even more ill and was really struggling but at least the scenery was getting better, and lines of cholita women were leading laden donkeys along the roadsides and waving to us, while men worked in the fields and looked on at these two gringos with curiosity. We made it to a pretty village called Pomata by the evening and booked the only available hotel. It was rubbish. Matt was too ill and could not go on and so we agreed to part ways because I still had it in me to finish this. He went off in a taxi that night as our place had no hot water and no flush on the toilet, not great for stomach trouble. I was excited and nervous but I was determined to set out alone the following day, despite feeling like dog shit myself.

I bought some supplies and aspirin from a jolly lady in the town square in the early morning and I left the village. Virtually everyone I passed gave me a wave or stopped to ask what I was doing. The landscape had been improving and was by now rather pretty as I rounded the lake and fishing boats and green hills. My throat hurt but my breathing seemed better. Spirits were high. They were so high that I barely noticed the large dog eyeing me from across the road; didn’t notice him running to cross the road behind me either. No, I only noticed him as he clamped his jaws around my right calf and then began to bark at me ferociously from a few feet away. Christ! I thought, and drew my hand up to my pouch where I kept my knife. He really looked like he had it in for me so I snapped myself out of the shock and switched to aggressor mode, knowing that you’re not supposed to show fear. My angry shouts of “fuck off!” appeared to work as he gradually backed away across the road. The owner was staring out from under some kind of porch so I shouted that his dog was dangerous but the gormless berk did nothing. I looked down at my leg to see blood running down into my sock and lumps in my leg where the flesh was already reacting to the bite. I hate dogs. Always will, but I wasn’t angry or scared so much as pissed off. I walked down the road to a safe distance and spent half an hour trying to make the blood stop, whilst also coming to terms with the fact that this was it, the walk was over, mostly because I knew that I now had to get to hospital for rabies shots pronto. I did consider risking it but the leg just kept on bleeding and rabies is fatal so I had to give in to practicalities. I jumped on the next bus to the small town of Juli where I stopped for a morning beer, you know, for the shock, and then hopped on another to get to Puno. My thanks to my anglophile friends from Chigago who kept me entertained on that journey. Matt had been expecting me in four days but there I was on his doorstep after only one. Having had the pre-immunisation shots in the UK I only had to have 3 back up vaccines in Puno but was stuck there for 4 days having anti-biotics and shots, all very well handled by the staff I have to say. Hats off to that particular hospital.

We finally escaped Puno for the lovely city of Cuzco and from here Peru gets beautiful. The city is full of shops on cobbled streets and is lively and full of energy, energy that is juxtaposed with beautiful old cathedrals and stately colonial buildings. From here we took a trip to Machu Picchu, the old Incan city perched up in the mountains. The trip is full of staggering views and rides up and down deep valleys and into jungle river passes; the climb up the Inca steps to the city in darkness was epic; the city at the top a thing of beauty, as much for the location as for the historical significance. It was a fitting (and knackering) finish line for this long, long adventure.

For this is it. It’s over. We’ve walked across deserts and snowy mountains, through forests and along shorelines, in rain and sun, wind and sand and thunder and lightning for 4,452 kms/2,766 miles (Update – missed out a chunk so this is 4,492/2,791 miles). I have not enjoyed every minute of it; loads of minutes I’ve really hated, but the special moments, all the views and exciting places I’ve seen, all the people I’ve met, all the enchanting forests and nooks I’ve peacefully slept in with my gradually deteriorating body and equipment, for those I wouldn’t change a single thing. It has been magical, the greatest adventure of my life and I am thankful for it, exhausting as it has been.

But my hope has also been to raise some money for charity and to the above left you will find a link to our justgiving website set up for donations to the Association for International Cancer Research, funding projects here in the UK and across the world to advance the fight against cancer. If you have enjoyed this blog and the photos then please do make a donation, it doesn’t matter about the amount.

I’d just like to dedicate this blog and this adventure to my brill friend Li, top gal! x x x (I hope you’ve looked after my Battlestar Galactica. Not a scratch!)

That’s it folks. Cheerio and all that. Hope you’ve enjoyed it and see you all real soon.

Much love,

Rob x x x x x x

Hey there, peeps. Last time out we were in Santiago. Took a bus up to Los Andes as A) we’d been in Santiago a long time and B) it is all motorway between the two and often it is forbidden for us to walk on them. Think this one would probably have been alright in the end but it would have been shit so hey-ho and nothing much lost there. From Los Andes it was a different story…

DAY 1: Last night we’d sat and watched one of the biggest storms of our trip from the safety of a hostel. Raining big fat cats and very angry dogs plus thunder and lightning flashing and crashing like it just didn’t care. Our guide says if it’s raining then the mountain pass will be closed for snow so I’m pleased that today there are blue skies overhead. We head off directly for the mountains, fresh snow on the top of them. Los Andes is soon behind us and we begin to weave closer to the great rocks. I’d been apprehensive but now I’m stamping my feet with excitement to get up there. Not much of a rise today though. We find a kind of stony tip area just off the road to set up tents. Nice. Think about using one of the discarded mattresses lying around…but nahhh.

DAY 2: It was warm last night so no need for Big Orange. Starting to rise up a bit today as the road sews it way around the sides of the mountains, heading up the river valley which is awash with muddy waters (not the musician – he wasn’t there) from all the recent rain. Got to use the water filter for some of it but it’s good to see so much running water after some very dry spells in north Chile. Trucks are our main company but a coach load of oriental gentleman are taking pictures from a viewpoint and come rushing over to have their photos taken with us. Nice to think that I’ll be part of someone else’s album and experience. The road is getting better, a gargantuan snake of a thing that curls on as far as we can see, and now always rising…We pass a sign that says thanks for your visit to Chile. I hadn’t properly considered the fact that I’ll be leaving for the last time. I go to say the same to Matt but I choke on the lump in my throat. It’s been fantastic here; a wonderful four and a half months. Thunder and lightning again now. I HATE being out in a tent in this. Just hate it. It’s hard to cook in my porch with all of my fingers crossed.

DAY 3: Happy birthday to me! And it is a glorious start. So sunny and clear after yesterday’s storms and there is a random portaloo just near where we’ve camped. Ace! But the day gets better. Soon we hit las curvas, 27 curves in the road that take you right up into the mountains. The climb is amazing and the view just wonderful. Half way up and the air is getting really cold in the nose when I breath. After the curves is another 3 hours walking right up to the paso and tunnel Cristo Redentor at something like 9,000 feet up (3,100 metres). We’re leaving Chile now and the view back is magnificent. It gets cloudy again but it can’t diminish the experience of getting up here. The woollies come on. At the tunnel two custodians take us through in the van as it is dangerous to pass through on foot. He asks our nationality and laughs when we say English: “On the other side there is a sign that says Las Malvinas are Argentinian,” he says. “That’s fine by me,” I say. And then we’re through and into Argentina. A stunningly miserable chap stamps a bit of paper and says customs are 15kms down the hill. It is bleak up here but a little shop sells us birthday wine and we camp just down the road. I am shaking with cold as we cook and for the first time ever my rice is freezing cold by the end of the bowl. Time for Big Orange!! Yay! In Los Andes we both bought extra sleeping bags, the last the guy had, and now it comes into play. I can see why the chap still had mine unsold; it is enormous. “No one’s that big in Chile,” Matts says. “Who would he sell it to?” It’s great. Later on I am awoken by an earthquake and rocks falling. Just a short ten second affair but brilliant and a great way to end a very memorable birthday!

DAY 4: Oooh, it was cold. The two sleeping bags were just enough though. We drop down through customs and everyone there is smiley and nice and so I am finally glad to be back in Argentina. Even more so soon as the scenery turns truly magnificent, the Rio Mendoza trickling down the right of a vast valley through the mountains. It is epic. We see Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes, looming over the others, its top encrusted with snow and ice up there at 18,000 feet or so. After condensed little Chile the scale of it all is overwhelming. Fantastic!

DAY 5: We’re running low on food and there is a road sign that points to a place not even on the map about 18kms away. We have rice but nothing for lunch so decide we can make it there before then. Matt says it’ll be a nowhere place, like those we passed yesterday; outposts and Gendarmerie huts only, but I hold out hope. We get there, to Polvaredas, and find a tiny restaurant. Wahoo! Have the first milanesas (stewing meat fried in bread crumbs) in 5 months and they are delicious and well needed. A man next door sells us big dense loaves of bread from a sack in his shed. It’s not bad. We eat dinner on the mining railroad tracks that have followed us right over the Andes. It’s a shame they haven’t got it to work again yet as it is a feat of engineering. The giant, red mountains stare at us as the evening star starts to glow back over Chile.

DAY 6: A long day in the hot sun. The scenery remains as magical as ever. So big. A crazy cyclist going the other way lifts his fist to us and shouts a glory-filled “Wahooooo!” as he speeds down one of the few uphill slopes we have to go up. as we descend. “Good luck to him,” I say, as the rest of the way he’ll be pushing that bike uphill. No towns or anything today, just tunnels and precipices and that old Argentinian friend the wind. In 5 months we’ve not really had to deal with it but back here it is simply always windy. It sucks for pitching tents, especially as pegs don’t go too well into rock.

DAY 7: My inner tent zip is broken. What an arse. It’s been threatening to go for months, one fastener having already snapped off. It stays a third zipped up but that’s it. Will have to get clothes pegs the same as Matt has had for a month or so. Happily we seem to be out of mosquito season, or it’s too cold or high. We soon hit Uspallata, the first real town in Argentina on this road and it is charming. I remember why I liked this country so much when I was here before. They have just pretty places to eat and drink and the grill man is cooking away on a huge parrilla at the back of a restaurant. We have a beer to celebrate the return then regret it as all the shops shut before we can buy more supplies. In Chile they work all the time. No siestas for shops so we’d stopped thinking about it. Now we have to wait 4 hours for the store to open again. Boooo. It finally does and we head out of town, south now, and still descending through the mountains.

DAY 8: Not much happens today. More descending through the valley. It still looks nice but not so epic now. It’s bloody windy, though. Stupid wind.

DAY 9: Walk down the river valley which soon opens out into a great lake and a small town Petrorillas. They normally sound the ‘ll’ as a ‘sh’ over here so try and say that town’s name. Go on; it sounds silly doesn’t it?

DAY 10: Finally the Andes spit us out onto the great plain of Mendoza. As we look back they look huge and I’m proud to think we just climbed through them. The plain is dry and seemingly devoid of any towns, only vineyards and you can smell the delicious Malbecs in the vats. Gorgeous. We have no food though, and no drink. Argentina is very large when you’re on foot. Because of the water situation we decide to make this our biggest walking day of the whole trip and finish 23 miles or thereabouts, only to find that the town we are heading for is still an hour up the road and it is already dark. We find a trough with some water in it for filtering and sleep right next to the busy road, vowing that tomorrow we are going to eat and drink a lot.

DAY 11: We take the old road to Mendoza, shops and little outskirt towns all the way. The city is wonderful, as is the all you can eat meat buffet and wine and beer and a warm bed. But I miss the icy cold mountains and Big Orange…

We’ve now walked 2,628 miles folks and these were some of the best! Off to San Juan next.

Cheers.  Love you, byeeeee!

Rob  x x

Yo-ho folks! Over 2,400 miles walked but the full smiley face is back on now so this one comes with 87% less moaning about walking.
Firstly, a little backtracking: Last time I’d talked about Constitucion and its Star Trek links. These were not true facts. I know, I know, you believed them and I’ve abused some trust there but that’s just the way it works, okay. But Consitucion is famous for its earthquake history. Earthquakes are part of the culture here. There is even a national drink named for them, the ‘terramoto’ (it comes in pints and is made from half a pint of wine plus pisco and rum with pineapple ice-cream so it does to your brain just what the quake does to the earth) and back in 2010 Constitucion was savaged by an 8.8 magnitude shocker. It destroyed many old buildings, the whole seafront and river area were decimated and it claimed many lives including 80 people at an end-of-summer festival on the river island, where now there is a memorial to those who were swept away by the resulting tsunami. The effect on the town has been dramatic and it is etched into every story and every life there as everyone we spoke to would talk of it unprovoked, particularly the charming lady who, when seeing two gormless backpackers standing in the street not knowing how to get out of town, came over and gave us a guided tour out of plain good-naturedness and Chileno hospitality. Thanks lady! So, no Star Trek, but much of the town is now made with stickle-bricks and lego which is another interesting fact.
We escaped from there without a shake and continued up the coast, looking for our next destination, the surfing town of Pichilemu. When people told us it was such I thought, ok, so it’s popular with surfers, but literally everyone there surfs. The road signs are surf board shaped and we were constantly asked if we were there to cruise the big blue. “No, we’ve walked from Buenos Aires,” got either a jaw drop or a look of mistrust : ) It’s a terrific little town, though, and very friendly, especially if you stay in the Hostal Atlantis. More of a shared flat than a hostal, this place was brill skills and was made especially so by Tom and John, NZ and US chaps always keen get on the beers and indulge in some aromo-therapy. Aromo is cheap wine that comes in big bottles; doesn’t need much more to be said than that. Carlos & family plus Lulee the cute foot-biting puppy run the place from downstairs and leave you right alone except to throw delicious barbeque nights. Lulee mostly just bites feet but it’s an important contribution, don’t you think?
Because of the above Pichilemu was hard to leave but we finally managed it after 5 nights. Our route took us all over the place in a half successful bid to stay off main roads and asphalt, going way inland in search of trees (it is getting drier and drier and forests are fewer and further between these days – doesn’t help that they’re always chopping them down) and back to the sea at Matanzas, this time the windsurfing centre of Chile. It looked like the centre anyway: there were 20 or thirty shiny plastic shark fins out there on the silver sea, dodging and tracking in and out and left and right and over the waves and slap! Wipeout! It was nice to just sit there and watch for a while, especially with sand blowing in my face. I’d missed that.
Eventually we left behind the unspoiled areas for the developed coastline, starting at Santa Domingo. Santa Domingo is nice in a ‘Demolition Man’ sort of a way. This is where the rich folk live in their designer houses and green green lawns and parks and quiet little supermarkets. They don’t have camping though so when we got down to the bay at the edge of the conurbation we had to sneak into a big wasteland/tip to sleep, luckily coming across a bunch of trees with a cool, hidden patch for pitching up. As we sat there we could hear the noise from San Antonio across the bay, an entirely different city of industry, engine parts and huge tankers leaving the port. Something that sounded like a machine gun went off followed by shouting and screaming. Glad it was far away. What was not was the ground. That was under my bum and suddenly I realised it was shaking. We were sat around our stoves just cooking away; I turned to Matt and, a little earnestly, asked, “Er…why am I shaking?” It took a while to sink in but we were in a quake! It is the most peculiar experience: there is nowhere you can move that isn’t moving, and it is actually moving! I probably hadn’t given it much thought but I’d lazily considered that the big camera shake in the movies was some kind of exaggerated effect, but you’re sitting there and everything in the world is suddenly jerking from side to side under you. It’s amazing. It went on for about 30 seconds and we heard some days later that it was about a 5.5 so not so bad and no damage done but at the time we were right next to the sea with virtually nothing to stop any following tsunami. When you’re lying there in a feeble little tent that ocean seems to sound louder and louder by the minute. I’d said to Matt before we went to bed, “If you hear anything then make like Wham!” Cue puzzled looks…” Wake me up before you go-go.” But we was ok wasn’t we : )
Valparaiso was next and it sure is lovely. It’s a big port city that spreads up from the ocean all over the steep, local hills and the architecture and feel of the place is like nothing we’d come across so far. At sea level the streets are lined with big European styled buildings, all shops and restaurants and banks, but as you rise up the hill you enter a maze of tiny, curling streets that are packed with beautiful old wooden houses that perch right out over rock faces below. The narrowest of narrow stairs can take you twisting and turning between the levels in true M.C. Escher fashion; there are murals and colours everywhere and every building looks different. It’s great. Because it is a big university town there are also stacks of good bars and there is a big buzz around the streets at night time. Have to say we were pretty restrained considering.
We did a short walk day to neighbouring Vina del Mar which is the big beach resort but we’d hit a couple of rare cloudy days after weeks of the bluest of blue skies so we didn’t even bother with the beach or explore much. We needed a proper rest as Valparaiso had demanded we walk around for hours amongst big hills so probably all to the good. Had a really good night in a hostel there though, so thanks to anyone and everyone concerned (and thanks for the mille pesos, Sean. The beer has been bought and drunk).
Inland towards Santiago was the next leg and inland means hot and hilly. The road we took had us climbing up one mountain for nearly four hours straight. It gave me a shitty headache and when we stopped for lunch I nearly puked in the bushes I felt so feint. And this was nothing. From the top we could see across to our old friends the Andes but up here they are enormous compared with most of those we have walked in so far. These are the big boys coming up, many of them up in the 17-18,000 feet range and the road we have to take is nearly 12,000 feet high. I’m not sure who the planner of this trip is but when I find him I’m going to land one right on his face. The temperature is also set to range between 2 degrees in the daytime to -5 at night so that’ll be nice.
But first was Santiago, right where we are now. I hadn’t been looking forward to this one as pretty much all I’d heard ranged from “I don’t like it very much,” to “It’s just a city like any other.” I was almost happy to leave it alone which goes to show that you should never take someone’s word over matters of taste because it’s been wicked. The place totes rocks. The Bellavista barrio is the bohemian heart of the city’s night life and there are bars and bars and bars, especially on Pio Ninio, packed with revellers almost every night. In the centre is the San Christobal mountain with a cool rail-car that you can take right to the top and get an amazing view of the whole city. Sounding a bit tourist-boardy, aren’t I? Well, we’ve witnessed brawls; we’ve drunk shed loads of booze until dawn; I’ve ended up in a dodgy club where I lost everyone and was miles away from home, only to find I hadn’t and I wasn’t, I was just off the planet. It’s been grand, but mostly because of the company (yes Dee, that does mean you…mostly…well, definitely some ; ). We’re in the Hostal Dominica which is great and I would recommend it to anyone if you like to party but not if you ever propose to leave. It is proving difficult. We were only meant to be here three nights but coming up is our sixth. Should be off tomorrow, though. It’ll be hard as my memories of this place are the best of the whole trip but I think some freezing mountains’ll take my mind off…Here I come, you big shits!

I’m so sorry folks but the net is not letting me add photos. Will try and edit in later.

Ciao for now. Love you, byeee. And get well soon, Chad! Thinking of you.

Rob x x

Yo! I’m back, folks! Back from the brink, and by that I mean I no longer wake up wishing that this was all over but have reached a numb acceptance that it will be in the not-too-distant future and so I can drag myself through the sweat and the dirt and the fatigue for the remaining months. Trust me, it’s a big step. But the show must go on and there are always treats and remedies…

First a quick hello to Remy and family from our stop in Curacautin. I hope the wallet is being looked after now, folks : )

At the Chilean-Argentine border we were told by the police that we could not have new tourist visas unless we actually went to Argentina, a two day walk, but that we could renew our existing ones for free in any large city. I had my doubts but we went along with it. So there we were in Los Angeles, waiting to see a little chipmunk lady who was every bit the civil servant; she had that bureaucratic air of authority that the school secretary or the lady at the doctor’s surgery has. She listened to our tale and said we had to pay $100 U.S. We explained we’d been told by the border police that it would be free and she said we had to pay $100. She phoned the border police to check and then said we had to pay $100. We paid $100. Apparently paying $100 still takes two days to process but that was no bad thing because, as I later realised, we were in a city (I realised it was no bad thing, not that I was in a city. I knew that I was in a city). Los Angeles is not filled with dreams like its Californian counterpart, nor is it pretty or a stop for tourists but it is full of people going about their business and it has that perfected mix of worn out yet vibrant that this country does so fantastically well. Mostly though, after 16 days in the wilderness, it was a city. As much as I came out here to be in the middle of nowhere, and as much as nature’s works here can astound, it turns out that the hum and thrum of humanity doing its thing is also necessary for my sanity. Not a big shock seeing as I come from a pretty big one but yes, sometimes I need to be in a place what man has made. Seems I need you monkeys more than I thought : )

Still, out to the back of beyond it was to be again because the smaller the road the more fun (sic) this walk is. Tarmac is rough, it has many cars and it causes blisters. Trouble is, the smaller the road the worse our map is at recognising it. What we have, courtesy of Shell, seems to have been drawn up by Maddo the Cat and his friend Oinky the Forgetful Pig: half the roads that are actually there are not shown, making every split in the road (there are few if any  signposts in Chile on the back roads) a possible two hour excursion to nowhere, and we took plenty of those; that plus many of the ‘towns’ shown on the map turn out to be nothing more than half a shed, or a donkey’s hoof, or a bale of hay etc. We were in the mazes. But even though at one point we were ten minutes away from drinking yellow puddle water due to a non-existent map river it remained a pretty cool leg because of the road itself: pine forested to the hilt and for the most part a gliding, rolling, snaking and eminently hikeable (i.e. not 1,000 metres high) series of lanes and tracks on which you could never see more than 100 feet ahead. It was part two of the healing regardless of a few miss-turns. We’d gotten lost on the Bio-Bio ‘road’ (which I should say was largely spectacular), most notably on the day we walked 20 miles under the baking sun and over plummets and climbs that make your average rollercoaster look as tame as sitting in Sainsbury’s car park, only to camp at the very same spot as the night before. THE VERY SAME! That was the day my brittle spirits shattered into a thousand pieces, stranded in the sand like a thousand baying turtles on their backs (bear with me, this analogy fulfils itself)..

The pine forests mean that we now share our natural habitat with spiders. Big, mean spiders. My first real encounter of the whole trip was a couple of weeks back: I’d woken in the night gagging for the loo and so popped outside to have a nice wee out of my willy, lazily leaving my tent undone.  As I fumbled back into the tent in the darkness I felt suspect legs on my foot and flicked them away thinking it was no more than a insect but switching on the lantern just in case: Nothing to be seen until…over the crotch…one leg, two legs…no more than that as I bashed at my own nob to get it away. When I chased it into the corner and saw it for real…”Christ!” Angled front legs like the arachnids from Starship Troopers and great yawning jaws like a Predator were staring back at me. The flip-flops were drawn and they cannot be sheathed until blood is spilled. It was his. Happily though, he was not one of the chaps we nestle with now. No, now we see daily the man’s-palm-sized tarantula-style whoppers that should I find in my tent I would happily die rather than face the situation any longer. Big. When I first saw one from across the road (he that is photographed below) I was intrigued and impressed with my resolve when close; when Matt pointed out that one was just under my feet I screamed like a girl and bounded away, my nerves in tatters for the remainder of the day. I believe this is the textbook response.

What we have done though, is made our way to the sea; the real sea. I said we’d seen her before at Niebla near Valdivia but in truth that was just the mouth of a big river. Sure, we could see out but not like this: unspoilt, rugged bays and coastline with the Pacific waves simply pounding in like thunder at all hours of the day. It is wonderful. In truth she is the thing that has brought me round on the walk (you see, the sea…it came in and rescued the turtles..oh, nevermind). It’s like being in a different country and every time the road strays close it is akin being able to breathe after a bad cold. I’ve adored the mountains but I belong next to the sea. You see, I was born in the sea, the issue of two shipwrecked but randy lovers who clung unto that plank for nine months until I could be raised by the noble porpoises. I can still speak a little porpoise (eh? Clever, eh?). Our first real coastline town was Cobquecura, a place which a friend googled and said, “looked pretty desolate,” and she was right but we camped there at a smart site with a pool and hung out with a brilliant salt of the earth Chileno family who roped us in and treated us to anything they had. I’d like to think that we English would react so well to random foreigners at a campsite but I doubt it.

Two days we stayed there and each night we could hear a roaring sound from the sea. “It sounds like jet-skis,” I said, knowing that a surf comp was on about five kms away, “but sometimes like herds of cows?”

“Cows on jet skis,” Matt concluded satisfactorily, but journeying north we came across the source, a huge rock out to sea that was crammed with sea-lions, the fat bastards simply shouting as much as they can at the sky, the water, each other; pretty cool unless you live close by. We’d actually heard a chap lose it and start bellowing back at them the night before but what? What can you really do shouting at 100 sea-lions. If you spoke porpoise then maybe…Next up was a cool church made out of a massive rock and a hundred miles of mostly nice coastline but a whole new breed of super mosquitoes that are just too fast to catch and leave me with bites that feel like gunshot wounds. Nice.

Some way over 2,000 miles now folks. Pessimistic mathematicians (great fun at parties) will have worked out that our original target of 3,650 is unlikely to be reached and was likely a little ambitious for two novices. This is probably because of a few too many (well-earned) long stops in the good towns but I can’t say enough how simply knackering this walk has been so don’t be too hard. I’m going to get one of those little motorised carts when I get back. Haven’t always spilled the guts on the miserable times as it doesn’t make fun reading or writing but they do stack up. We’re now doing a full 15 miles each day to catch up and definitely hope to hit something over 3,000 miles which I hope you can all still consider A Good Effort.

We’re now in Constitucion, so named for the class of starship that the original series USS Enterprise is of. The city was built in 1968 after the first series aired and the people here generally dress in Star Trek uniforms, idly wandering the streets and re-enacting their favourite scenes from the show. I’m just off to watch a man (as Kirk) fight his Nan (as Spock) in a mock-up of the transporter room from the classic episode ‘This Side of Paradise’. You should check it out. See you there…

Hey, congratulations to John & Mel for getting married in January. Yay!

Ciao for now. Love you, byeee  x x

Rob

Los Angeles. I don’t see any angels. Perhaps they’re up there on the rooftops looking down at the mess. Perhaps one has me in its sights, waiting to skewer my heart and commence judgement on its dark purpose. Down here there are only people. They flash a glance but keep their eyes on their own affairs. They’re too cautious for the familiarity that small towns foster. It suits me. In Curacautin they looked too long into these eyes. They saw the flickering shadows and the violence. A man couldn’t hide there. Whispers crept from shop doorways to pantries to parlours: ‘the strangers are hiding. The gringos have a secret.’ We gathered our things in the dark and slipped east towards Lonquimay and the border. The way was high and though dark clouds were forming behind us we could see clear all the way back to Argentina. That place. Would they have found the bodies now? In the recent heat a rotting carcass’d be smelt leagues away. It wasn’t wholly our fault. There’s a fine line between hero and dead. If you want to play one you’d better prepare to perfect the other. I hoped the borders weren’t too close.

Resupplied in Lonquimay we trudged on but the rainclouds continued to build until like a sinner on Sunday they let loose every foul tale they had to tell. I hate to be wet. With the sun blocked by a featureless grey blanket it was cold and every raindrop had a price tag, the sum rising fast to match and negate my resolve to go on. We lurched from shelter to shelter cowering from elements that didn’t even have the good grace to be fearsome, only miserable and relentless. Night was falling, or at least the clouds were getting darker. We put up the shelters next to the roadside. There was nowhere else. The road would be quiet; virtually the only thing at the end of it was the mountain pass to Argentina and the border gangs would let no-one approach after nightfall. Ash said we should turn back; to hell with legit permits, but I knew that without them any contact with militias would lead to arrest and investigation. That’s when things would get ugly. I’d gut and shoot them like pigs rather than face a noose. We’d never leave South America alive without permits.

Sleep was a blessed relief from the damp, all the more irksome that it should be broken by the loud crack of a gunshot in the early hours. It was close. I could hear the rattle of some kind of engine. It grew closer. Bang! Another shot, this time only twenty feet away.

“What the fuck? Did you hear that?” Ash murmured from the other shelter.

Even given the situation I had to laugh. “Yes,” I replied succinctly and shuffled through a pile of clothes that smelled like wet dog to slip my revolver from the holster. Just stay calm, Black; you’ve gotten out of plenty of jams without gunplay before. I heard Ash cock his piece in the other shelter. True, not recently I haven’t, I thought, as I did the same with mine. They could be shooting at wild animals from the road; they could be robbers or pranksters out to take two travellers. Men come to kill didn’t generally let off warning shots. I wanted to jump out. I prickled to face them down, turn the threat on its head and watch the fear in a man as he realises he’s facing his end. The seconds grew more pregnant. Now. Come now. But they turned away. A third shot rang out further down the road. I eased the hammer back to its resting place and slumped back to a surprisingly settled sleep, the gun nestled in my palm for the remainder.

In the morning the blistering sun had returned. In this Chilean summer you could only count on a day or two free from its burning, scouring eye but today it was welcome. We saw no one on the road all day save for two Germans carrying guitars. They were happy to see anyone out here and bounced across the road towards us. I prayed there wouldn’t be too many questions. They were happy to do the talking: Yes, they’d been to the border and with a little paper bribery they’d been given permits to remain without engaging the Argentine border. I asked to see one. To get a look would be useful but they became hurried. They had to attend to some business in Victoria. We bade them good day.

At Liucura, the border post, armed members of the so-called ‘New Arm’ slunk around and idled on rooftops, eight or nine of them, waiting lazily like so many fat alley cats hoping for a winged bird to land in their laps. They were gang members. Hoodlums with machetes, rifles and uniforms, there only to exact whatever tariff fear would bring them. Usually, but not today.

“I can’t grant any permits unless you’ve come from Argentina,” a fat, greasy-faced man smiled. Parasite. His gut and his uniform were the only difference between him and a fungus. I wanted to turn his smile inside out and shove it up his fat ass.

“You gave two yesterday, to two Germans…We have money.”

“What money?” He flicked at a gold tooth now revealed as he grinned.

“Paper. No one carries gold around here,” I lied.

“Life is complex here, Senor. Gold smoothes so many of its wrinkles. Paper? I take your paper and I draw you a map to Argentina…You want to go there, gringo?” He laughed in an unsettlingly knowing manner. Had word spread this far north? It could have done. Argentina could mean a swift execution.

“Is there another way?”

“You see El Capo in Los Angeles.”

“That’s a long way north,” I said as I moved the water battle hanging at my waist so that my holster showed. I wasn’t spoiling for a fight, just testing the waters. They quickly came to boil as a lean man in the corner of the room slipped out and cocked a revolver without even shifting his eyes.

“Yes. It is,” the fat man said and pointed to the exit.

“We could have taken them,” Ash lamented as we trekked back, a carnivore’s taste for blood never subdued. It was useful.

“You may still get a chance,” I replied. “He knew about us. He was testing us. Chances are we’re being followed and we’ll do what we have to, but this Capo fella may be useful; he won’t be if we arrive just after a border slaughter, that’s if we didn’t get dead in the process.”

“We could blame the Germans,” Ash laughed. He scoured the skyline. “Central roads gonna be too dangerous.”

I nodded. “We’ll have to find another way.”

In the store in Lonquimay I pointed to a map, specifically to a road nearby that disappeared as it turned east. “What’s this?” I asked the store owner.

“That’s Bio Bio. No one takes this road any more,” his brown wrinkled face cracking into a thousand-line grin. In the corner a man soaked to his gills in the local drink ‘pisco’ began a high pitched screaming. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter at me or plain madness.

We spent two days hacking our way across mountains. We were drenched in sweat and its salty tide marks. Through a rare low valley we came across a village but it was dead long ago. Ended by the virus. Wiped clean by the ingenuity of man. I’d killed before; I would do again, but to have something of that scale on your conscience…nice work, boys: Skeletons, long since picked clean by decomposition and opportunistic grazers, were scattered, dead where they lay as they’d dropped to their nears from the pains. One family had clearly been sat around the table, awaiting the grace of God with a bible in the centre. Too bad, folks, He doesn’t listen anymore. At least you won’t be wanting those tinned goods.

On the third day we were lost. Every direction seemed wrong and rivers flowed every which way they could. “We’ll have to go back the way we came,” I said, shaking the compass in the vain hope it would show something other than south. I’d found it on a dead salesman. Seems it hadn’t brought him any luck either. A desperate fatigue was breaking my resistance and, worse than that, the bullet hole my bank guard friend had given me in my left leg had opened up from the strain of the climbs.

We traced back and took a new trail across the river at an old bridge, hacking through the foliage until through blood and sweat we came across what appeared to be a tunnel. We hadn’t seen the like down here. It looked hewn by human hands. Ash fired a low crescent of shots into the inkiness, like as not hoping he’d hit someone.“Must be this way,” he grinned and disappeared. I followed, my own gun facing back. The path grew less visible and veered over even higher peaks but at least it was northwards. A day passed and then at dusk we saw tin roofs glinting in the half light, maybe a day’s walk away across a breathtaking valley. Life was there, you could tell it.

“Shangri-La?” I pointed. Chenqueco was its name but in the scorched ruins of Earth as is now Shangri-La would have fitted. A place that time and history had left unscathed. When we arrived there it was market day and bright stalls of exotically coloured fabrics and smuggled foods crowded the small village as smartly dressed families paraded proudly on horseback. This was the secret of Bio Bio: not doom but a new prosperity. It was bewildering and invigorating. They were wily folk and would not be outdone in a trade but we managed to get rice and stock. I had a flash thought to stay here, up in the mountains just as other folks had, away from the pestilence of the real world, but I am a cold man with a cold purpose and I had blood-soaked gold to move. I couldn’t pollute these people with it. My place was down in the grime. Added to that I needed a quack for my leg. They weren’t happy to let us leave but these were peaceful folk. The smart ones recognised that our foul stench was better away from them and their children. They gave us a guide to take us out of the mountains to the river road and help keep the trail concealed. A funny chap, he babbled as much as spoke and referred to us as ‘the dumb outsiders’. After two days the trail hit hard road and he left us, making us swear a tenth oath not to reveal the village. I meant it. If I could help keep one place of virtue safe then maybe some of that would filter into me.

The river road was long and hard and my injury was getting worse. Walking was hard; blood seeping into my boot. Had to get somewhere but no civilisation until Ralco, a small town that seemed to be emptying onto crammed westward transports. No quacks. We picked up a few supplies from a woman too glamorous for this place. She had dreams of old Paris in her eyes. Shame it was no longer there.

We carried on under the scorching heat, the nights spent surrounded by disease spreading rats, until we hit Santa Barbara. I had to rest. Quack fixed me up, even brought me wine. It had been fourteen days since the last drop had passed my lips. It felt good.

That was two days ago. Now we sit here in Los Angeles in a sweat-filled bar and wait. It’s still hot. El Capo’s man watches us and cackles when I make eye contact. I hate pricks who know more than I do. Just stay calm, Black…

Hey folks! Just wanted to do something a bit different this time but it’s all based on fact, even the gunshots outside our tents! If it’s slightly dark then that’s because it actually was a bit. Been pretty homesick. Of course, the Chilean border police aren’t a gang and are very professional but they did refuse us new visa stamps if we didn’t leave so we wait to see the office in LA (not that one). My compass has brought lots of luck and was in permanent use in the mountains so thanks Shel, Paul, Becky, Jacob!  My ‘injuries’ were bloody blisters and a calf strain : ) We’ve done something like 1,880 miles now.

Adios. Love you, byee x x

Rob

Hey there! How are things in the northern hem? ‘Hem’ is part of my new travelling lingo. I like to annoy myself with it.

Last entry we were in the town of Osorno and had five days to get to Valdivia for our Christmas hostel booking. We made our way via a mix of motorway trekking and rolling gravel roads. Away from the more touristy areas the back roads of Chile are full of dozens of small-holdings and tiny farms and the pretty houses of the lakes give way to a collection of ramshackle DIY makeshifts that you could easily mistake for garden sheds. Bits of corrugated metal are bashed onto ill-fitting planks of wood and one would guess that the spirit-level had been banned some time ago. They did look very cosy, though, with the chimneys puffing out wood smoke and kitchen smells, especially when we couldn’t find anywhere to sleep. Argentina is so vast that we could easily skip onto someone’s land and they might not find us in two months of looking. In that part of Chile there was always a window and a beady-eye to thwart our trespassing ways.. Sleeping on the side of the road is a term often used figuratively but we’ve now done the literal night on the verge and had the complete experience of dodgy drivers reversing to check us out and yobbos shouting as they passed (okay, I probably would have). We haven’t done it since. Next day and an old lady, seemingly mad as a cartful of monkeys, appeared from the bushes as we walked and started babbling something about robbers and making the throat-slitting sign. Thanks, old lady! My nerves weren’t jangling for the rest of that day at all. I’m presuming she works for the tourist board…

But we made it to Valdivia. Beautiful Valdivia. It is known as ‘The pearl of the south’ and it really warrants the name. Bustling high streets, a lovely river and quayside with a noisy fish and veg market, complete with sea-lions basking in the sun awaiting the off-cuts…and lots of bars. Much of the city was destroyed in the early 1960s during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded at 9.5 richter so they had a good chance to do something good and they did. It was also scorching hot with bright blue skies all the time we were there which certainly helps. However, all was not perfect for Crimbo…

In Chile, as with many countries outside our own, Christmas Eve is a time for families, so when we went out looking for the buzz we found mostly deserted streets. Quite cool in a way, and the odd drunk wobbled a ‘feliz Navidad’ to us, but not what we’re used to in England. We did find one bar open at about 1:30am by which time I’d had the amount to drink it takes me to do a sudden disappearing act and Matt enough to wind up in a field with people he didn’t know on Christmas morning. Christmas Day and neither of us had had enough sleep so after our roast dinner and a few Christmas films Matt was through with it and I had crashed, although not entirely. Rumour has it that for about 5 minutes I sat bolt upright and was babbling in tongues like a madman. I think I was seized by the spirit of Christmas. Matt thought I was mentally ill.

The other thing was our hostel. It was a lovely place for a family or some box-tickers there to see the sights but if it was fun we were after we’d have been better booking a wound-cauterising class. We started to get funny looks because we’d slobbed in our beds all day; at breakfast we had to sit at a designated table and were asked to move rather curtly as though we were imbeciles (rather than just very hungover) even though we’d never been told; and the oven grills and trays were always taken from the oven and hidden in another room. Why? For the people who like to cook all their food at the bottom like a nutcase arse, hmmm!? An oven without trays is just a hot box you clean-freak wallys!! Grrr…

We scuttled down to the beach at Niebla for a few days and on the grey sands we finally saw the Pacific for the first time. We really had crossed the continent then which was pretty cool. But Valdivia is so nice we were certain we had to be there for New Year’s and we soon returned but to a hostel we’d heard good things about, ‘Aires Buenos’, a rather nicely transposed name from that of our starting point on the Atlantic. NYE was excellent and the atmosphere assisted by a terrific bunch from all over the world.. It was what hostelling is all about. I awoke like a tramp in a park on New Year’s Day about an hour’s walk from the hostel and the town which was pretty bizarre. I thought I’d been rolled or something but all money was intact. I guess I just can’t stop these wandering feet. I should clap them in irons before venturing out next time.

I’d have rather had raw eggs poked into my cheeks and been smacked around the face with slippers than leave but, weirdly, that was never offered as an option, so back to the hardship it was. And wasn’t it just. The first hill made me nauseous and that wonderful blue sky and sunshine became a wretched curse of pestilent sweat and bloody insects. We soon had to re-order our walking day to miss out the late afternoons as it was just too hot. The rains eventually came and after two weeks of glorious sunshine Chile let us in for every drop that had been saved up in a torrential 36 hours that was easily the worst since our big storm back in July. We got caught fairly roundly and ended up stranded in Conaripe to wait it out. Wet socks are crap. Been bloody hot ever since, though.

I wrote most of this a while ago and much has happened so I need to compress. I haven’t much time to tell you about a 25 mile wrong turn that took us back almost to Argentina, save that there was one; I haven’t even much time to tell you about the hippy gathering we subsequently found atop a nearby mountain, save that there was much hugging and kissing and singing and chanting around the cooking pot (veggie, of course). We didn’t stay too long as we hadn’t the time, there was none of the expected psy-trance, and a Leader dressed as a clown told us that alcohol was not permitted. What she didn’t know was that we had already shared a bottle with some folks right next to the ‘sacred fire’. Ha! In your face, hippy! We won!

We made our way up to Pucon, easily the most touristy place we have been to and a mecca for rich Chilenos and adventure travellers. A nearby volcano for climbing and the beach on the lake bring the summer punters in droves and the place is almost wholly hotels, hostels, restaurants and bars. The 2012 Chilean Iron Man competition was on and there were promo girls as far as the eye could see. We thought we’d enter to show of our new endurance skills. Matt placed 5^th and I finished 8^th which wasn’t bad.*

You get dazzled (and sloshed) in the touristy places but it’s out in the middle of nowhere and passing through little towns where the real deal is. People just minding their business and being bloody friendly. We’ve been invited into houses for beers and are offered a ride approximately every 5^th car that passes. We needed some real wilderness so headed across a park where sits the big volcano Llaima, which last erupted in 2008. We’d met some Aussie chap, Shane, who has been hitch-hiking around the world for the best part of 37 years and had 1001 stories to keep us entertained as we set off over the volcano. And we needed them. The trail started brilliantly but the markers fell away and we were virtually rock-climbing to the summit before realising we must have made a mistake. We turned back, found the trail and soon entered one of the most stunning landscapes I’ve seen in my life. Paths cut their way through old molten rock which then gave way to an amazing sea of black, gravelly dunes. Low cloud had shielded us from the sun all day but it suddenly sunk like a bad sponge cake and we were buggered. Visibility was down to about 20 feet and it was all incredibly eerie. It felt like a totally alien world. We couldn’t see the next markers because of the fog so each time we had to fan out and shout out to the others when we’d found it. We were all alone. It was great! Eventually time caught us and we had to camp up there on the dunes at 5,000 feet in the chilly fog. Our universe was about 30 feet squared and it was cold and silent and weird and brilliant beyond words. Next morning all was clear so we made our way to the top, way above the clouds, where I sat on my own for half an hour and the tears flowed from the sheer beauty of the world I could see below me; our planet from above (almost). The silence and solitude were immense. I understood everything. Part of me will always be sitting on that volcano.

In Curacautin now and heading right back into the cordillera to walk up the rio Bio Bio in the wilderness. It’s a four day trek from Lonquimay to the next settlement so should be brill.

Thanks for reading. Sorry it’s a bit long. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Love you, byeeee!

Rob x x

*Lies – we just watched the Iron Men**

**Lies – we just watched the promo girls.

Hey folks, merry Christmas to all the folks back home and all the brill people we’ve met along our mammoth walk, 1,426 miles so far..wahooo! For those who miss my face, which I’m sure is everybody, here’s a little comic hairy something for the 12 days of Christmas…a tranformation from Hitler, through Bronson, and straight out the other side of mad-ass Santa!

Love yoooooo, byeee x x x

Rob

Ola! Firstly, a big thanks to Mattias, Marquito, the Los Vikingoes crowd and Carolina and the folks at the Condor de los Andes hostel (great place opposite all our favourite bars) for making our return to Bariloche a triumphant one. Somehow, despite the hangovers, we made it to the port of Llao Llao in good time. This side of the Andes it is pronounced with the spanish ‘y’ for the double Ll but in Argentina it is Xiao Xiao, like the panda, or the lovechild of two sexy tellytubbies. We’d been able to ditch our last resort plan to cross into Chile via the volcano road after a little investigation and some haggling booked us passage on the paso de Vincent Peres Rosales, which goes through the Andes across three beautiful lakes, for only $80 U.S. It is normally $230 but we said we’d walk all the non-watery bits (my thanks to the DIT Team Team and all contributors in BTA for funding this part of the trek). In between the 2nd and 3rd lakes is a 20 mile stretch that is something like a mountain island and it was here that we finally crossed the border into the Republic of Chile. At the top of a 2 mile climb was a great wooden gateway. No personnel, no one on either side, just a great wooden gateway. It was very cool to be there all alone and not a little momentous for us. Argentina will be missed but we shall return soon enough!

The walk down into Chile was an agonisingly steep 4 miles and when carrying loads of heavy stuff it is as much a fight against gravity to go downhill as up. I could feel my buttocks for days afterwards. I could so I did. It’s just something I like to do. At the bottom was the office of the Carabineros, a type of state police, where one chap sat, but aside from him there was only us, the road, the occasional tour bus and loads of jungle, for we had left the dry forest of Argentina for a land of rainfall and it showed in a vivid asymmetry of undergrowth, overgrowth, of any kind of growth you can think of. We had two days there during which I taught a monkey to read. We had to eat that monkey, poor chap, but nature faught back. Oh, the tabanos. We’d been warned that they were worse on the Chilean side and for every second on dry land we were plagued. We simply could not stop to sit down for the attacks. Awful. And putting up tents was a dancing, screaming, swatting ordeal. Once inside and secure I could only sit and watch in amazement the assaults from outside and thank heavens they could not get in. That was the first night. The second night they got in. Half way through pitching my tent the first of them breached my feeble defences and in seconds there were 5…8…15…20 all buzzing hedeously and waiting for my blood. I drew my flip flops and did what I could from the outside but even a clean smack between the two would only stun them and whiloe I finished them off with up to four smacks on thew floor more would come in to join the party. It was no use; I would have to finish the tent and go in with it sealed. Matt guarded the door while I went in to do battle. The horror! The horror! Picking up the dead ones was almost as bad as they look so awful and some of them would still buzz when I touched them. Urrgh. Neither of us ventured back outside in those days.

Thankfully the tabano is a mountain insect and the slopes of the Andes soon gave way to rich farmland. And Chile is pretty. My, is she pretty. The dramatic rocks and deserts are replaced on this side by rolling fields and trees and around lake Llanqihue the blues and greens pierce your eyes and come flooding in like you’ve bever seen them before. Pretty wooden-slatted houses dot the countryside in bright colours and it’s all very nice, even a little familiar as it often resembles northern Europe and our own little island. It is also pretty hot. Often cloudy but hot. The south is known as a very wet place but what we did when we changed our plans and stayed in Argentina five months was cannily turn up here for the driest three months. Still, we’ve been wet a couple of times already. Rain makes a change, though. Every cloud…

We’ve skillfully skipped a second run at Mount Doom but we still see it spewing out from across the lake and for Tolkein fans Mount Osorno has been looming on the horizon for days and is very much like the Lonely Mountain. The people are nice, generous and there is a lot of energy and laughter here. At 3am this morning we were hailed as ‘my friends from England’ by a barman we’d met for 5 minutes earlier, and taken to a kind of speakeasy in a big house where we drank with the locals until 8 or 9am. Good stuff. It’s also very Christmassy in the town of Osorno so if that is a sign we should have a merry one in Valdivia after all.

Here’s wishing you all one, and especially the staff and children at Woodingdean Primary who have raised a phenomenal £1,200 for our cause. We can’t add it on the charity page as it had to be sent by cheque but it’s there and it’s amazing.

My official Christmas card will be out nearer the day but apart from that I hope the new year finds you all well.

Love you, byee! x x

Rob

Hey there, folks. It’s been a while but don’t worry, we have not been kidnapped yet.

There is always a fear when booking a long distance journey. Memories of bursting bladders, aching stomachs and sleepless, restless hours abound. In Argentina, however, cross-country travel has become an art form and our 27 hour ride to El Calafate was on board the smartest coach in coachtown. Hot meals, leg room and mega-comfy reclining seats you could really sleep in. If I had a bed anywhere on this planet it would have doffed its pillowy cap to it. As it is, my arse paid its grateful respects.

You arrive at El Calafate from the top of the rising hills above the lake on which it is set and at first glance I thought we had turned up at some sort of tip, but at the second I saw what a brilliantly bats and charming town it is. It is as though a town planner took all the necessary pieces in his hands and, like scattering hotels on a Monopoly board, just threw them up in the air and ordered everything built where it landed. This and the fact that no one house is the same as another give it a really quirky look and I loved it! The hostel we stayed in, the Albergue Mochileria, was a welcome relief from a lot of the lonely hotels we’ve been staying in. People from all aver and bags of energy. Quick roll call for the cool peeps: Martin the liaison at the hostel: knows everything that goes on in that town, globe-trotting, deep fried-spider-eating Mel , lively Essex Keeley, horse-rescuing Brandi and Genevieve and Caroline, lovely French Canadians to whom I mistakenly toasted “vive la France!” Well, you hear the accent…It turns out that the French moved Quebec across the Atlantic at around the end of the dinosaurs and it is no longer considered part of mainland Europe. You learn things when you travel!

We were there to see the great glacier, Perito Moreno, creaking and groaning its way down the local mountainsides and it was cool (chortle chortle). Staring at a big block of ice for four hours is more exciting than you’d think. A) its relatively rapid pace of two metres per day mean that chunks are often falling from the front and crashing into the lake before it with thunderous sound, and the anticipation is wild, especially when you hear a great crack from within. My head was springing round like a cat’s. And B) the walkways are flippin’ brill! Thousands of yards of wooden planks and rails that went all over the place and there was always another bit to explore. When the apocalypse comes you will find me there having a whopping game of paintball. Book now! (hello to Elwin, Evo and Rod – old Bariloche friends re-met on those very planks which was funny)

The next day we happened upon a gaucho festival with lots of sheep-herding, traditional music and, later, loads of rodeo. Cripes, I’ve never seen the bucking broncos in real life and wow! It’s as if the horses don’t want those chaps on their backs at all. Yee, and indeed, Hah. One chap had to be taken away in an ambulance. You simply couldn’t pay me enough.

On the way back north we got off the coach early, in Esquel, as we’d had our fun and needed to embark on stage two (not that stage two, Ted) of this walky thing, and in between there and Bariloche are 200 hundred of the most stunningly beautiful miles you could hope to see in life, and also a couple of places of interest. First up we walked a little south to Trevelin, which if you’re thinking doesn’t sound too Argentinian is because it is one of the places that Welsh settlers built up in the 1800s. It even has the Welsh dragon on the entrance to the town which was nice. Met some folk down on hols from Wales too, which was nice, and had a traditional British afternoon tea with a great big pot, scones, cakes and cold milk. The serving of hot milk whenever I order tea has already resulted in fourteen separate fist fights.

We then set off north to Cholila as I wanted to visit the cabin of one Robert Leroy Parker. To get there we had to walk four days through the Park de los Alerces and it was Eden itself. My favourite park in the world by far. Not even the Preston or Stanmer parks can quite match up to this one. Robert Leroy Parker’s better known alias is Butch Cassidy, and not only were we soon to see his cabin, we were about to sample a little of the life. Just outside Cholila we jumped a fence, for the first time in a while as it is so foresty down here, and pitched up in a cow field that seemed remote enough. In the morning, just as I was packing away and Matt was in his tent, I heard an engine and a toot behind me, and there was a man. With his spectacles and his flat cap he was somewhere between The Squire of Rupert Bear’s Nutwood and Captain Mainwaring. And he was angry. Angry like Mugabe. I offered my apologies and said we were just leaving but was met only with red-faced shaking of the head and unintelligible bellowing. “Private Property”, I did make out amongst what I generally took to be Spanish for, “Get orf moi land.” So we did, but there he was waiting in his car along the road in order to do a drive-by glare and went off to town. We wandered into Cholila like Butch and Sundance to re-supply and get directions to the cabin, half expecting and angry lynch mob. “We might as well rob the bank now,“ Matt said, but we resisted. However, on our way back out and while refilling water from a river we saw our man driving our road with the police just behind him. I was sorely tempted to say, “Who are those guys?” “Christ, what if he’s actually mad?” we both said. All I could think of was ‘trespassers will be prosecuted ‘ signs in England, so like those outlaws of old we holed up under a bridge until at least the coppers had driven back down. Later we put it down to coincidence but they certainly had us there. We made it to the cabin Butch built eventually, a draughty little place that you wouldn’t much want to stay in, but it was terrific to be inside a little bit of history. Here, he and Sundance and Etta Place might have larked around on bicycles whilst playing Burt Bacharach mixes on i-Tunes (although it was 1902/3 so probably still using CDs). The Bandidos Yankees. But if you’re ever down that way and you see a ‘Wanted’ poster with two faces, one a bearded, older looking varmint with a hat, the other a Spanish looking killer, them’s the Bandidos Ingles, meanest trespassers ever walked the south.

Wow, you guys must be winding down/warming up for the festive season. It won’t feel much like Christmas out here with the days now turned hot and darkness at 10pm so I’ll be pining for wet and windy or cold and sharp views from English pub windows for the next four weeks. Not in January and February, though. Mooohahahaha. One thing that the heat has now brought is bugs and we have met our new mortal enemy. I saw Matt dancing around with agitation just outside Trevelin because “this fucking wasp won’t leave me alone,” but we soon found out that it was not a wasp. The cunning fucker has yellow streaks and looks like a wasp so you pay him a little respect but he is an ugly, nasty and persistent biting fly, called a tabano, which is endlessly trying to stick his dirty great nasal protrusion into our now short-clad legs. They make me SO ANGRY! I’ve decided to go into genetics when I return to England and create some form of pathogen that wipes them all out, then we’ll see if the ecological balance collapses or if nature just shrugs its shoulders and says, “Nice one.” We’ve been told that it’s going to get much worse with these gits in the next month or two. Yay!

Anyway, that’s about it. Bit of a long one but lots to tell so hope you enjoyed and like the bumper photo set. Might need to watch Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid for some of the references but that is no chore so go do it : ) On Monday we’re headed for the pass under Mount Doom and back to the deadly ash to get to Chile and the Pacific coast. Exciting!

Ciao for now. Love you, byee!

Rob

Wow, firstly here’s a big hello to all the new followers. It’s nice to be followed, except maybe into the gents’ lavvy. But hello to the old followers too you loveable bunch.

We left the preposterously pretty San Martin, playground for the wealthy and male/female age gaps, and took what is known as the ‘7 Lakes Road’ south, a weaving gem of a mountain route through two national parks which took us past waterfalls, mountains, great tree-filled valleys straight from Jurassic Park and, of course, 7 or more stunningly beautiful lakes that shimmered turquoise and blue…and grey. Grey because there is a spanner in the works down here that is mountain shaped with a deliciously gooey liquid centre. Yep, Mount Puyehue’s snotblast is everywhere.

Just in case you haven’t heard, Puyehue is a volcano in the Andean range on the Chilean side that erupted earlier this year and, we have since found out, has not stopped spewing out ash ever since. Pre San Martin we had found a couple of places with a fine layer of the stuff but as we moved south I looked around…and the sky…was a hazy shade of ash-cloud. Most of our days on the road were overcast due to it and the scene on the ground is one of devastation. On the photos attached everything that looks like snow is just thick grey ash. The grass, the forests, many of the rivers; all are thick with inches of it and it hangs in the air as a haze most of the time. Cars whip it into a frenzy so kudos to all those who slowed down to pass us and Hades for those that still shot past at 60mph on a road that was already merely gravel to begin with and had us coughing and spluttering in plumes of dust each time. Having a load of white powder up your nose is no fun. Anyone who tells you different is a loon. Camping was pretty tricky. One attempt to creep through the forest ended with me snagging myself and snapping an overhead branch that promptly dumped its carefully stacked ash load. As I put it rather eloquently at the time, “Aoow, I’ve got shit all over me.” We didn’t camp there. It does lend the forests a stillness and weirdness that was quite mysterious, though. One spot we camped in looked just like a petrified set from Star Trek or Dr Who, it just needed some polystyrene boulders.

The wildlife has taken a battering and it is pretty upsetting watching the horses and cows trying to eat grass through clouds of dust. I hope they make it through. We’ve seen a lot of dead bees which is never a good sign, unless you’re being chased by the Bee King. I know what will survive; there is a particular type of black and white bird that follows us all day, screeching and squawking loudly and never giving up. They’ll be fine. Things that annoy me go on forever. Actually, I should say that the bird-life down here is pretty amazing. Even makes me wish I was more of a twitcher. We’ve seen eagles, green canary types and the super-huge condor swooping down out of the mountains. Someone should get Bil Oddie down here (John, I had to get him in), he’d practically broil in his underpants.

As for the ‘Proclaimers’ reference? Well, I have walked 500 miles and I have walked 500 more. Yep, we have now topped 1000 miles on the road and I was ready to fall down at any door. I now think back to every flat horizon, abandoned farmhouse hidden behind, starry night, sandy day and mountain hike with immense fondness and pride and already wish I could revisit myself on those long roads. Will just have to make do with the memories!

We’ve been in Bariloche for about 5 days now as it is easily the best place we have been to. The vibe is quite Brightonian and they have lots of bars here, not cafeterias that also sell beer, but bars that serve booze for its own sake and stay open until the morning. It is a bit of a Mecca for travellers so it’s been great meeting lots of new people from all over but especially a couple of Argentinos, Matthias and Pablo, who have been chilling and drinking with us and generally showing us the good places, along with tightrope walking (actually ‘slack-lining’) in the park, which I was particularly useless at as with most things physical. It’s good to know that things don’t change too much. But we love it here and can fully recommend it to anyone. Up next is a 27 hour bus ride down to see the glacier in the south and then the walk into Chile in which all we see on TV recently are riots and police clashes so that should be interesting. Reports to come!

Hey, thanks very much for all the comments. Lovely to hear from folks!

This is Rob Black, journalista with a blister, signing out.