Day: 210
Location: Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina
Temp: 5c
Tierra Del Fuego, or the “The Land of Fire” is located at the tip of South America, down from the Falkland Islands, past the straits of Magellan and a mere two day freight boat away from the penguins in Antarctica. It earns its name from distant shoreline campfires the indigenous Yagan people tended to. These infernos were ogled at by mesmerised explorers sailing the surrounding, channels and straits in years gone by. These days almost all the Yahgan`s are gone and the archipelago is owned mostly by neighbouring Chile, though the biggest cities of Rio Grande and where the dogs and I are, Ushuaia, belong to Argentina. The last few days have consisted of cable rides to Glaciers and climbing mountains in the country’s first coastline National Park. But hold the husky ride for a moment. Let me back pack (I`m getting so used to that name now), I mean back slay a bit for a moment. Let’s tie up the dogs and let me tell you what’s been happening since my last blog.
Here is the abbreviated and censored version:
My good friend Alex Martin decided to pay me a whirl wind, “high-rolling” week long visit after learning that he had been accepted to do his MBA in Sydney. For a period of 10 days we went mad. First in Sao Paulo, at my farewell Brasilian party which was a hell raising, drunken, hugs, kisses and champagne affair that became very messy at about 8am in the morning. And let’s not forget emotional. I now consider a part of my heart Brasilian. I love the people. I love the culture. And I love picanha, Corinthians and Guarana! After my Sao Paulo exit we headed to Buenos Aires where Alex was swiftly introduced to my ever smiling Scotish friend Yvonne and her ultra sound and ultra cool boyfriend Jason. Over the space of a few blurry days we hit some of the nightclubs: Club 69, Pasha, BA News and the 8am to 3pm Kaix club which is the craziest club I have ever went to in my life. You got to check this place out. It’s situated on the River Plate, which gives it a dramatic watery affect, and at 8am the sun makes its way gently into the sky and hits the small circular dance floor with some of its dappled yellow and golden rays. The club holds about 2,000 people. About 2,500 people were there when we made our introduction, 95% on drugs, 99% out from the night before, all taking part in a clubbing marathon. When we arrived ther were 5 bodybuilder gay lords commanding the dance floor with flamboyant multi-coloured spiked haircuts, squeezing their pecks and tensing their biceps to every beat in the excellent uplifting house tunes and 80s rifts. Beside them were two 6ft 2 or 6ft 3 giant transvestites that danced languidly with the lissom grace of one of the incoming waves in the bay. Speckled all around them were a corpulence of banging ravers jumping, shouting, whistling, biting, hugging, jaw chewing, index finger firing, pill dropping, sneaker wearing dancers all seemingly having the time of their life. Alex and I got home at about 11am. Eusebius never saw anything like it in his life and spent most of his time jumping up and down and taking mental notes of everything he saw. He mostly stood on the periphery. Brutos on the other paw got stuck in there in the middle of the dance floor and gave as good as he got. As the morning progressed and the tunes kept spinning he introduced himselfs to loads of people. By the end of the day he must have shook tails and barked friendly at least half the people there. He slept for 24 hours afterwards.
Unbelievably, after 3 days, Alex decided a visit back to Brasil was in order, this time the River of January. And in a scene reminiscent of Snatch, our passports flashed by us, were quickly stamped and our metal bird hit the sky and before you could say “Polar Bears are actually very dangerous and not to be petted” we were taking snaps of Christ the Redeemer, body boarding in Ipanema, and knocking back more champagne then you can imagine (on one occasion 10 bottles in one night).
After all that madness Alex headed back to London in a heap and I was sent in individual parcels down to Buenos Aires and put back together by the beautiful Meire and Beatchie, friends from Brasil, who decided to visit me.
One of the highlights of my entire trip was a wonderful meal we had at an amazing Tango show called “Senhor Tango”. A two hour, amazing extravaganza with the best dancing I have ever seen, and, a rendition of “Don’t Cry for me Argentina” at the end which had Eusebius in tears. Fantastic and highly highly recommended. A must see in my books if you get to Buenos Aires. And at US$50 for the show and a top notch meal well worth pushing out the budget. The next few days were spent lazily strolling around the highly sophisticated, beautifully adorned, cosmopolitan capital. A wonderful city. A cross between the old town in Stockholm and Paris. The city seemed to be a never ending pall of thousands and thousands of chic and classy indoor and outdoor cafes and restaurants all surrounded and intertwined with a variety of elegant older buildings. In our short trip we got a chance to visit the beautiful district of Rocoleta with its unforgettable cemetery, take in some weird and wacky markets in Boca, on the port (the home of the famous Boca Juniors team, where Diego Maradona applied his trade and is revered as a demigod) and loiter around the widest main street in any capital in the world, Av 9 del Julio (and impressive 8 lanes, 56m wide).
After their whirlwind visit the Brazilians returned to their homeland and I hung out for a few days with Yvonne and Jason. This was complete chill out time. With plenty of rest and plenty of good food. They’re now in Mendoza and more than likely slugging back some fancy red wine, that came from a fancy rare grape variety that was stored in a fancy oak barrel wine. I’m looking forward to swirling, spitting and downing some of it myself in a few weeks.
Okay, where was I… Oh yes, glaciers and national parks… I am presently leaning on the keyboards of my laptop in a cool hostel called Torre al Sur looking out into the heavily snow capped mountain surrounded bay in Ushuaia. There are two English women and an Irish woman across the table from me debating whether or not they have the time, money or equipment to take on the 10 day trip to the Antarctica (so far I’ve gleaned it costs 2,000 US dollars for 10 days [more expensive in high season Dec-Jan], it takes the big freight boat 2 days to get over and 2 days to get back and that its cold), and I`m loading some of the photos from the last two days` excursions on to my hard drive. The first trip was a cable car ride to the Martial Glacier, which took about 2 hours and boasts one of the most spectacular views of the city and bay. Truly beautiful. Today was a visit to Parque Nacional Tierra Del Fuego which consists of numerous hikes, the most southerly operating train in the world, cascading rivers, giant lakes, tall dense forests, blue pink glaciers and sporadic beaches. I decided to take on the hardest trail which was an 8km hike up and down to the very steep Cerro Guanaco through a heavily meandering, forest path, which took me a demanding 4 hours to wrestle and conquer. The site from the top was even better than the Martial Glacier. Luckily enough I got back to my base station and a warm fire just before a huge downpour of snow, sleet and rain hit the park. I`m tired now but enthused. I`m sleepy but ready and waiting for tomorrow’s adventure. Hopefully I’ll be clapping flippers with seals, studying the foxes and beavers and staring at Andean condors and black-browed albatrosses.
