Hi, Brutos here,
The Master is asleep and so is Eusebius so I have decided to write this blog. Why should he be the one that gets to write everything?
We are in Queenstown now. And the master’s brother is here, Joseph. We’ve all been feeding on extremely rich hunting grounds. I’d be hard pushed to recall a time when so many kills have been made in such a short amount of time. Preys are everywhere and are easy to, pin, wrestle and bite your mental morals into!
Queenstown is Kerry on steroids. It’s green, really green, one hundred greens, with massive multi coloured, multi-sculptured, mountains, clear, blue, round, oval, egg-like, splatted paint-shaped pristine lakes and forever skies with mesmerising cloud formations and memorable multi-coloured horizons that seem to whisper at you some kind of secret song that only mother nature knows how to sing. The song is everywhere down here. Dogs can here it sometimes but humans can’t. In this part of the world the euphony is all around the land. I have heard it on more than one occasion. Eusebius told me that he did too. It is unique and special.
Something Queenstown has that Kerry doesn’t have is glaciers and massive ranges of snow peaked mountains, long, wide, deep gorges and ravines with acres of ripe, fertile, rich soil speckled in carefully manicured lush vineyards of Pinot Noir. Eusebius is more of a Melbec dog and the Master is into Merlot. But no sweat, each dog to his own tail, each dog makes his own whale. We dogs only can register three tastes unlike a human tongue, but, I’m happy with my lot. You can only imagine the smells we can get with our big wet sensitive noses that you humans can’t. Let’s say we’re even.
In the adventure capital of the world there is too many activities to choose from. If you were here for two months you could do a different activity every day. And have loads left over for a return visit. On offer is: the famous AJ Hackett bungy jump, the biggest being the mighty Nevis leap which is 143meters high, there are 3 jumps in total; sky-diving, heli-hijking, heli-rides with drop off mountain bike descents, parachuting, hang gliding, speed boats, glow worm cave explorations, plane flights to the nearby famous Milford Sound fiord lands, world class fishing, rally driving, 6x6 and 4x4 mountain tours, clay pigeon shooting, a variety of horse riding extravaganzas, white water rafting grade 5 rapids, awesome body board sledging and oodles more. The place is made for adventure. And doesn’t fail on delivery. It is the first city in the world that I have ever been to that seems to be dominated by sports. It’s great… I love it here.
Let me give you an example why. Today was sledging with the aptly called Serious Fun Company. A crowd of lu-la, crazy, cool, thrill seekers. This is white water rafting without the rafts. Instead you use a body board… sound strange, it is… The way it works is you lash on a helmet, kind of like one of the ones that you’d see in an inter- county hurling match. Next, is a thick 5mm wet suit, flippers, shoes and gloves. After that comes the shiny board. The trip I went on was in total about 12km, a two run, one and a half hour riot down grade 3 rapids. Grade 3 mightn’t sound like much when you are in a raft but let me tell you, first hand, that when you are in the water without the protection of a raft, when you are at the mercy of dangerous whirl pools, jagged rocks, rips, curls, waves, rushing foam, branches, other boarders, sharp flippers and strong currents, travelling at up to 40km an hour it’s a big fat, crusty based adrenalin pizza your taking a few slices from. For me one of the highlights of this brilliant trip was getting a chance to take on some whirl pools. When you a hit a whirl pool its very easy to go into one, and if not to strong to catch an eddie (a nearby current, usually in the centre of the river) and kick your way out. However, if you lift your board vertical, instead of horizontal, place both hands on the top of the seam and hold it close, parallel to your body in a standing position you catch the whirlpool and spin around super quick and then eventually get spitted out. I caught two really good ones with three full spins inside. I also caught a good wave, paddling against the current and also threw a few mouth filling 360 pipes.
At one point in the second run, it started to rain. It was a beautiful site. 12 people rushing down a roaring river, multi coloured helmets bobbing in the water, boards tossing and turning, legs kicking hard, teeth clenched in wonderful smiles, shouts for joy filling the air, high-fives and index fingers pointing for the heavens and a thousands exploding drops smacking the river’s surface forming thousands of miniature bouncing hollows followed by a thousand more .
A serious work out, serious sport, serious fun, serious hunting.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004
The Cloud Piecer
Today I took my first helicopter ride. My brother and I and the dogs flew around the 70,000 hectares, Mount Cook National Park. For the last three weeks there has been bad weather here. Again, like te sky dive we were blessed with azure blue skies, sparse cloud cover, a high sun and minimum wind. The park consists of 140 peaks over 2,100m, 22 over 3,000 and the centre piece: an impressive 3695 Aoraki Mount Cook. The direct translation in Mauroi being "Cloud Piercer". Fortunately, we also got to see very clearly 3 captivating glaciers: (1) Franz Joseph (2) Foxes and (3)the 29km long largest glacier outside the Artic, Tasman Glacier.
The helicopter ride was a maganimous 40 minutes long. We all had to wear headphones to drown out the deafening propeller sounds but also to listen to some facts from the informative pilot. Half way through the flight we had a landing on Tasman Mountain, and a photo opportunity. Jospeh was like a gunslinger on the photo draw and ample time was given us to get some mighty snaps. Little diamonds. Also on show was a one man hiker. I don't know what he was donig up there but he was pulling his slay along industriously on his way to somewhere. Would have liked a night or two there with a good book, a log fire and a hot port.
Tomorrow is an 8 hour drive to the adventure capital of the world: Queenstown.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Hurtling at 200km
Today I took my first ever sky dive. One of the best experiences of my life. At first we didn’t think that we would get the chance to do it as the forcast the night before was threatening all day rains which would have prevented the plane from taking off. But thankfully when we woke up, the sun was out and the jump was on. The jump was in Toupon, half way down the north island, on the mainland, over the spectacular lake Toupon (the biggest lake in the country). It was a 12,000 tandem drop with a 15 second free fall and a 4 minute whirling parachute descent. The way it worked was you turned up on the day and got measured up very quickly and then put on your Beasty Boy jump fit. You got a Biggles hat with goggles and got introduced to the instructor you would be tied on to. Unexpectedly, that was it before we got into the microplane. I thought we would be told what to do when jumping out of the plane and what to do when landing, but none of this happened. All of this either took place in the tiny plane or in the air when the parachute was opened. Overall, there was little to do, the instructors almost had total control of everything. All we had to do was bend our knees back and lift them up to our chest and then start running when we landed.
The moments before the jump were good viewing. Its amazing seeing peoples reactions before leaping out of a plane: fear, trepidation, excitment. The free fall was the peak. All I can remember is a sense a joy and excitement mixed in with a cold sensation on my face and hands and the rushing of air all over my body. A bit like when you stick ypur face out the window of a car going 100miles an hour. Try it if you want to know what a free fall feels like. I shouted all the way down before the parachute exploded open and made its ways to the stars. At 200km an hour you feel like you are being shot out of a gun. The force is tremendous.The skin on your face lifts and you clearly sense that you are hurtling to the ground in a surreal situation. For me there was also a moment of smiles when I thought of what I was doing. Flying. It was a feeling of happiness. A feeling of appreciation and respect. Man through ingenuity and creativity has learned to defy its environment and learned to conquer it in many ways. Some day we will live on another planet. Of that i have no doubts.
After the jump we all made our way on a six hour car ride to Wellington. Next stop is all about ferry rides to the south island and making our way down to the Franz Joseph Glacier and the formidable and striking Mount Cook. If it is anything like the last two days on the north island it will be heaps of fun.
The moments before the jump were good viewing. Its amazing seeing peoples reactions before leaping out of a plane: fear, trepidation, excitment. The free fall was the peak. All I can remember is a sense a joy and excitement mixed in with a cold sensation on my face and hands and the rushing of air all over my body. A bit like when you stick ypur face out the window of a car going 100miles an hour. Try it if you want to know what a free fall feels like. I shouted all the way down before the parachute exploded open and made its ways to the stars. At 200km an hour you feel like you are being shot out of a gun. The force is tremendous.The skin on your face lifts and you clearly sense that you are hurtling to the ground in a surreal situation. For me there was also a moment of smiles when I thought of what I was doing. Flying. It was a feeling of happiness. A feeling of appreciation and respect. Man through ingenuity and creativity has learned to defy its environment and learned to conquer it in many ways. Some day we will live on another planet. Of that i have no doubts.
After the jump we all made our way on a six hour car ride to Wellington. Next stop is all about ferry rides to the south island and making our way down to the Franz Joseph Glacier and the formidable and striking Mount Cook. If it is anything like the last two days on the north island it will be heaps of fun.
Clouds, Legs and Baaahs
Getting to Auckland involved watching Spiderman 2, The Terminal, knocking back a few Chilean beers and 13 hours. I didn’t sleep. I tried but simply couldn’t. I left on the 17th of November but arrived on the 19th. The date line is guaranteed to throw your biological clock in a head spin. The first two days in Auckland were all about chilling out and acclimatising. The jetlag was the roughest I have ever experienced. I might try the tablets the next time. Home was one of the biggest backpacking hostels on the planet - the massive, 600 bed, recruitment agency, travel agency consisting Auckland Central Backpackers. The place was so big it even had its own massive backpacking bar. For those that go beware of the elevators. They are nearest thing I have ever seen to a mechanical Venus fly trap. I almost lost a leg and an ear. You have two seconds to get in when the doors open if you want to avoid injury. Weird. The staff thought it was hilarious. In Auckland I hooked up with Lisa and Ann, my friends from Sweden, Jason and Yvonne my Scottish mates from Dublin and my bro, Joseph, who decided to pay his little brother a two week flying visit from the Emerald Isle.
Like any big brother should do he is splashing put a little on his little bro and the life of the Irish Rambling Vagabond and his hairy hounds has gone up more levels of comfort then there is stairs in the classy Auckland Sky Tower. Alas, it has all been top hotels, Sky TV, big booted, rented, fast cars with U2s new album banging a tune or two (like tracks 1,2,3, and 8).
Today was all about grade 5 water rafting. An excellent, high octane, adrenalin water roller coaster. Highly recommended. We went for a tour company called Kaituna Adventures. A serious crew of guides, all looking like something out of Point Break. Dreads, mochicans, six packs and tattoos everywhere. And all with cool names like: Clunk, Wade, Knarl and Fang. One of the guides was a massive 16 stone, body building, blond mochican wearing, hulk-like giant Mauri. Absolutely huge. I can only imagine was John Alomo and Jake the Muck looks like in the flesh.
The rafting expedition we went for was the deepest immersion rafting experience in the world. 1 hour, 3 waterfalls (one of which was a massive 7 meter drop) and 14 rapids over steep, narrow, canyons of brown water. We started off with a Mauri prayer asking the ancient warriors that were buried in the river’s banks for safe passage. In each raft was two guides and six or seven others. To start with we passed the tree of death successfully, we then had to clunk oars off the lucky tree and then after learning a few life saving techniques headed out into the rapids. I was at point with one of the instructors which was great fun. It meant a little more paddling and a little bit more water in the face. But to hell it with it, I was up for it. The highlight of the trip was a massive 7 metre drop which immersed the entire raft. Check out the photos to see how difficult it was. The raft directly in front of us capsized when they went over but fortunately we got through it upright. Amazing feeling going over the top knowing that you're definitely going to be submerged and not knowing if the boat is going to land on you. It was one of the quickest hours of my life. Really enjoyable and well worth the sixty odd euros we coughed up to do it. The vagabond recommends it..
Like any big brother should do he is splashing put a little on his little bro and the life of the Irish Rambling Vagabond and his hairy hounds has gone up more levels of comfort then there is stairs in the classy Auckland Sky Tower. Alas, it has all been top hotels, Sky TV, big booted, rented, fast cars with U2s new album banging a tune or two (like tracks 1,2,3, and 8).
Today was all about grade 5 water rafting. An excellent, high octane, adrenalin water roller coaster. Highly recommended. We went for a tour company called Kaituna Adventures. A serious crew of guides, all looking like something out of Point Break. Dreads, mochicans, six packs and tattoos everywhere. And all with cool names like: Clunk, Wade, Knarl and Fang. One of the guides was a massive 16 stone, body building, blond mochican wearing, hulk-like giant Mauri. Absolutely huge. I can only imagine was John Alomo and Jake the Muck looks like in the flesh.
The rafting expedition we went for was the deepest immersion rafting experience in the world. 1 hour, 3 waterfalls (one of which was a massive 7 meter drop) and 14 rapids over steep, narrow, canyons of brown water. We started off with a Mauri prayer asking the ancient warriors that were buried in the river’s banks for safe passage. In each raft was two guides and six or seven others. To start with we passed the tree of death successfully, we then had to clunk oars off the lucky tree and then after learning a few life saving techniques headed out into the rapids. I was at point with one of the instructors which was great fun. It meant a little more paddling and a little bit more water in the face. But to hell it with it, I was up for it. The highlight of the trip was a massive 7 metre drop which immersed the entire raft. Check out the photos to see how difficult it was. The raft directly in front of us capsized when they went over but fortunately we got through it upright. Amazing feeling going over the top knowing that you're definitely going to be submerged and not knowing if the boat is going to land on you. It was one of the quickest hours of my life. Really enjoyable and well worth the sixty odd euros we coughed up to do it. The vagabond recommends it..
Mecca Mendoza
Mendoza is one of Argentina’s biggest and most elegant cities. It is inhabited by over one million Argentines, is located half way down the country, on the western border, almost touching Chile and is closely linked to Santa in the north, Cordoba in the east and Bariloche in the south.
Mendoza is a backpackers Mecca. The city is interesting, expertly planned out and adorned with a very low sky line with a mixture of modern and colonial architecture. Prices are extremely low and tour, food, transport and accommodation quality is high. The people are friendly. Smiles are as obvious as the clouds in the sky, they're the common currency of welcome everywhere you go and are high and wide as the massive 7000m Aconcagua only a few hours bus journey away. I fell in love with the place. Sometimes you just get a feeling! After making my windy way through the multitude of serpentine hair pins from Santiago and across the Andes I got that feeling when entering the city: wide side walks, tree-lined streets with hanging branches and oodles of cool restaurants, bars and Internet cafes. Also on show was a healthy selection of markets selling all types of handmade objects: blankets, hats, key rings, dolls, dog belts, hacky sacks, stones, face masks, the lot. The parks were very cool. Inside were soccer pitches, steam boats, marble statues and excellently tendered flower formations. And let’s not forget the cities justified reputation as having some of the most beautiful people in the world!!!
Mendoza also equals wine. Fine wine. World acclaimed wine. Melbec. I’ve decided I won’t tell you about the vineyards and the excellent conditions and techniques that they have for producing their world famous produce. To do so properly would take many hours. All I shall say is for those that like their wine I can assure you that for a strong, full bodied, oak tinted bottle of red that would do justice to a good spag bolo or a nice medium rare fillet of steak try one of Argentina’s Melbec range. I personally can recommend some of the bottles from the excellent Lopez vineyards.
Home for the 10 days in Mecca was Campo Base. The cheapest hostel I have been in on my rambling at an embarrassingly cheap 2.50 euros a night. Also the only hostel I have ever been where the have triple beds. Forget bunk beds. On these things you climb up that ladder another notch. Fortunately, I got the second bunk so the climb wasn’t too high and just about manageable at 4am in the morning after a day’s hike and a bottle of top notch vino. The place had great staff, a cool lounge and a more than adequate kitchen. Beside its mixture of tranquillity and ostensible beauty, Mendoza also offers a wide variety of adventure sports. In Campo Base they had an activity organised for everyday. On offer was (1) trekking rappelling and hot springs (2) the high mountain hike (which was a vast to Aconcagua Park and the old town bridge) (3) mountain biking and hot springs (4) vineyards tour (5) rafting (grade 3) (6) hitting the town and get absolutely hammered on Melbec wine and vodka, and (7) hitting the town and getting absolutely ossified on Melbec wine and whiskey. I tried them all with the exception of rafting as it was only a baby grade 2/3, and the mountain biking, which I had done my far share of in Bariloche.
On the sports front the best day for me was the day that myself and a very cool Australian dude called Patrick went bare hand sheer-cliff rock climbing. The type of rock climbing where you see a wiry, brave semi-clad soul setting off at the end of a mountain, harness on, hands free and a pouch of white chalk hanging from his hip. I’ve never tried it before. It was exhausting and physically very demanding but I loved it. The climbing was a grade 5-10 which s basically a mid range cliff face with average difficulty. The pros I believe do up to a grade 7 and novices like me should usually start in the 4s.
The face we attempted was a 30 metre high granite wall that ranged from between 80 degrees to 120 degrees in curvature. It had sparse hand grips and only a modicum of foots rests. It had little are no vegetation and was quite slippery. Patrick went first. He had done it before in Canada and had all his own equipment so it was a great help for me watching how he approached the cliff. We were not alone and our guide for the day was there to hold the fall rope and offer us advice in broken English and Spanish.
Climbing is a mixture of flexibility, power and cunning. It lends itself highly to problem solving, something I never appreciated until I was facing a foot-hand grip conundrum at 20 meters up. You literally have to think on your fingers not your feet! When hanging on your fingers you quickly learn how to access possible routes up or down. There s always the knowledge in the back of your head that you can at anytime give up and sit back at your ease in your harness and either have another go at a certain grip or swing to another side of the face to try another route. But there is also the knowledge that to do so is failure. While comforting knowing that the safety harness is always there, the primal animal in me, resigned itself not to use it unless absolutely necessary. The challenge for me was going as high as I could as efficiently as I could, slowly if necessary - but without assistance. To do so I visualised that I was alone, without equipment, without anyone, completely on my tod, in a must find out situation. What proved to be very helpful was I imagined that at every impasse I met, Brutos and Eusebius had been kidnapped by a heinous fiend who had taken them away from me, muzzled them, and was dangling them menacingly over the cliff head above me. Just about to throw them to their doom unless I could get to the top to rescue them. This nightmare image drove me forward and pumped the necessary adrenalin into my arteries to make thinking on my fingers a little crisper and sharper than thinking in my feet. It also gave me superhuman strength. After about 30 dogged minutes of climbing, multiple hand and foot grips and tons of contortions, screeches and reaches I met a stubborn cliff face with an impossible one hand grip to far to my left and a foot grip that a Anakin Skywalker would find hard to get to. I thought of the dogs and used all my powers to try figure out a solution. Nothing. I called on the force. Nothing. I asked the Gods for divine intervention. Nothing. After thinking for a minute or two and after careful recollecting of months of Brasilian meat and beer and a far share of Argentina wines I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t do it. In that resignation there was a kind of strange calm, serenity. Almost 20 metres up I felt peace on the side of a Argentinean granite face. I had tried, and tried well. But no biscuit. Not even a dog bone. I decided enough was enough. If it was my destiny not to see the dogs again until I saw them in the big white puffy kennels in the sky, so be it.
After the sheer face climbing our guide brought us to a 8 metre high suspension bridge that looked something straight out of an Indian Jones movies. Dodgy rods holding it together on each side. Really shaky and squeaky planks of wood for footing and a big copper wire to place hands. For about 10 minutes we got the chance to hang from the bridge and jump into the ice water before. We gathered quite a bit of attention from some of the passer bys. Some of which couldn’t resist taking a few snaps of us in action. It was great fun and reminded me of jumping off the rocks in the Guillemene cove, near Tramore back in Waterford, Ireland. Happy days.
Mendoza is a backpackers Mecca. The city is interesting, expertly planned out and adorned with a very low sky line with a mixture of modern and colonial architecture. Prices are extremely low and tour, food, transport and accommodation quality is high. The people are friendly. Smiles are as obvious as the clouds in the sky, they're the common currency of welcome everywhere you go and are high and wide as the massive 7000m Aconcagua only a few hours bus journey away. I fell in love with the place. Sometimes you just get a feeling! After making my windy way through the multitude of serpentine hair pins from Santiago and across the Andes I got that feeling when entering the city: wide side walks, tree-lined streets with hanging branches and oodles of cool restaurants, bars and Internet cafes. Also on show was a healthy selection of markets selling all types of handmade objects: blankets, hats, key rings, dolls, dog belts, hacky sacks, stones, face masks, the lot. The parks were very cool. Inside were soccer pitches, steam boats, marble statues and excellently tendered flower formations. And let’s not forget the cities justified reputation as having some of the most beautiful people in the world!!!
Mendoza also equals wine. Fine wine. World acclaimed wine. Melbec. I’ve decided I won’t tell you about the vineyards and the excellent conditions and techniques that they have for producing their world famous produce. To do so properly would take many hours. All I shall say is for those that like their wine I can assure you that for a strong, full bodied, oak tinted bottle of red that would do justice to a good spag bolo or a nice medium rare fillet of steak try one of Argentina’s Melbec range. I personally can recommend some of the bottles from the excellent Lopez vineyards.
Home for the 10 days in Mecca was Campo Base. The cheapest hostel I have been in on my rambling at an embarrassingly cheap 2.50 euros a night. Also the only hostel I have ever been where the have triple beds. Forget bunk beds. On these things you climb up that ladder another notch. Fortunately, I got the second bunk so the climb wasn’t too high and just about manageable at 4am in the morning after a day’s hike and a bottle of top notch vino. The place had great staff, a cool lounge and a more than adequate kitchen. Beside its mixture of tranquillity and ostensible beauty, Mendoza also offers a wide variety of adventure sports. In Campo Base they had an activity organised for everyday. On offer was (1) trekking rappelling and hot springs (2) the high mountain hike (which was a vast to Aconcagua Park and the old town bridge) (3) mountain biking and hot springs (4) vineyards tour (5) rafting (grade 3) (6) hitting the town and get absolutely hammered on Melbec wine and vodka, and (7) hitting the town and getting absolutely ossified on Melbec wine and whiskey. I tried them all with the exception of rafting as it was only a baby grade 2/3, and the mountain biking, which I had done my far share of in Bariloche.
On the sports front the best day for me was the day that myself and a very cool Australian dude called Patrick went bare hand sheer-cliff rock climbing. The type of rock climbing where you see a wiry, brave semi-clad soul setting off at the end of a mountain, harness on, hands free and a pouch of white chalk hanging from his hip. I’ve never tried it before. It was exhausting and physically very demanding but I loved it. The climbing was a grade 5-10 which s basically a mid range cliff face with average difficulty. The pros I believe do up to a grade 7 and novices like me should usually start in the 4s.
The face we attempted was a 30 metre high granite wall that ranged from between 80 degrees to 120 degrees in curvature. It had sparse hand grips and only a modicum of foots rests. It had little are no vegetation and was quite slippery. Patrick went first. He had done it before in Canada and had all his own equipment so it was a great help for me watching how he approached the cliff. We were not alone and our guide for the day was there to hold the fall rope and offer us advice in broken English and Spanish.
Climbing is a mixture of flexibility, power and cunning. It lends itself highly to problem solving, something I never appreciated until I was facing a foot-hand grip conundrum at 20 meters up. You literally have to think on your fingers not your feet! When hanging on your fingers you quickly learn how to access possible routes up or down. There s always the knowledge in the back of your head that you can at anytime give up and sit back at your ease in your harness and either have another go at a certain grip or swing to another side of the face to try another route. But there is also the knowledge that to do so is failure. While comforting knowing that the safety harness is always there, the primal animal in me, resigned itself not to use it unless absolutely necessary. The challenge for me was going as high as I could as efficiently as I could, slowly if necessary - but without assistance. To do so I visualised that I was alone, without equipment, without anyone, completely on my tod, in a must find out situation. What proved to be very helpful was I imagined that at every impasse I met, Brutos and Eusebius had been kidnapped by a heinous fiend who had taken them away from me, muzzled them, and was dangling them menacingly over the cliff head above me. Just about to throw them to their doom unless I could get to the top to rescue them. This nightmare image drove me forward and pumped the necessary adrenalin into my arteries to make thinking on my fingers a little crisper and sharper than thinking in my feet. It also gave me superhuman strength. After about 30 dogged minutes of climbing, multiple hand and foot grips and tons of contortions, screeches and reaches I met a stubborn cliff face with an impossible one hand grip to far to my left and a foot grip that a Anakin Skywalker would find hard to get to. I thought of the dogs and used all my powers to try figure out a solution. Nothing. I called on the force. Nothing. I asked the Gods for divine intervention. Nothing. After thinking for a minute or two and after careful recollecting of months of Brasilian meat and beer and a far share of Argentina wines I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn’t do it. In that resignation there was a kind of strange calm, serenity. Almost 20 metres up I felt peace on the side of a Argentinean granite face. I had tried, and tried well. But no biscuit. Not even a dog bone. I decided enough was enough. If it was my destiny not to see the dogs again until I saw them in the big white puffy kennels in the sky, so be it.
After the sheer face climbing our guide brought us to a 8 metre high suspension bridge that looked something straight out of an Indian Jones movies. Dodgy rods holding it together on each side. Really shaky and squeaky planks of wood for footing and a big copper wire to place hands. For about 10 minutes we got the chance to hang from the bridge and jump into the ice water before. We gathered quite a bit of attention from some of the passer bys. Some of which couldn’t resist taking a few snaps of us in action. It was great fun and reminded me of jumping off the rocks in the Guillemene cove, near Tramore back in Waterford, Ireland. Happy days.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Santiago
Got in and got out as quick as i could. Don´t go there. Reminded me of the smog ridden, claminess and disorganisation of Lima. Spent a couple of nights and then made my way over the amazing valleys of the Andes and into the diametrically oppossed, breath of fresh air -Mendoza. Will be here for a week.
Volcanoes and Vineyards
Last few days have been marked by many new experiences.Ive learned a hell of a lot about the Andes, volcanoes, ice climbing, wine cultivating techniques, french and U.S. oak barrel making and how to spot a good wine from an imposter.
Last week in Bariloche Argentina was all about checking out lakes. Their beauty exceeds their reputation. From there a Fiat Puma was rented and I drove across the Andes and into Chile. The day had all four seasons: gentle but lenghty snow falls to stone splitting sun rays and rainbows.
Chile has the straightest and best roads i have ever seen. You literally could fall asleep at the wheel and keep driving for 10 minutes,at 100 miles an hour, without worrying about hitting anything or anyone(a motorbike enthusiasts heaven). The lansdcape is head swinging and window rolling. Similar verdant greens to Ireland, deep and light browns in the mountains and regularly exposed soils on the ubiquitos farms, vineyards and forests that hug the famous route 5 from south to north, and, also a wealth of lakes with a spectrum of blues that a professional oil painter would have difficulty naming.
After receiving some advice in the hostel patagonia we decided to head for Poucan, a famous sking and hiking village. While 450km away, the road trip paid dividends. Sleepy little fairy town, infested with log cabins, huts and 4x4s bringing ski boards, canoes and hiking equipment around its narrow streets and mountain passes. The show piece of the town for me was not the geothermic in and outdoor hot springs but Volcano Villarrica.
Here´s the conversation and sales pitch that made me climb her:
"Ola, como esta...entra, sentar aquai"
"Ola, que tal?"
"Tudo azul"
"Speak English, iºm still working on the Spanish."
"Sure."
"Cool.Thanks, right, im here about the volcano, can you give me some information about it, can i climb it tomorrow, how much does it cost, equipment? etc."
"Sure, the last four days its been called off due to bad weather but tomorrow we go. Let me tell you a little bit about her. Villarrica is an open system basaltic volcano with a long historic record that includes four fatal eruptions. Its 2847m high and always covered in snow and ice. The first historic eruption was recorded in 1558. Since then, there have been at least 54 small to moderate eruptions. There have been two moderate-large eruptions in 1640 and 1948. Mudfows, associated with eruptions, killed a total of at least 73 people in 1949, 1963, 1964, and 1971. The mudflows of 1971 were caused by lava flows that melted ice. Many homes and agricultural installations were destroyed in the Chaillupen and Turbio Valleys. Concrete bridges across major bridges were also cut. About 350 people were killed in Villarrica village by a tectonic earthquake in 1575. Takes 6 hours to get up in full alpine equipment, and an hour to get down sliding on your ass. We kick off at 7am, and....."
"Hold your pick there boss, is it safe these days.."
"Im holding my what?"
"Forget it. Is it safe to climb now. 2004. Safe. No accidents. No problemmass"
"Sure. No problemmmaaaas. Its active but nothing is going to happen. We have all the necessary scientific equipment to tell if anythig is going to happen. Let me continue, you pay the national park entry fee of....where you from?"
"Ireland."
"Ireand, i love that place. Guinness. U2."
"Yeah."
"That would be euros than?"
"Yeah."
"You pay 30 euros for the tour, 5 euros in, another 3 euros for the 10 minute cable car, and then take the climb..... Are you a big soppy-woppy-fluffy-bunny and [OUT] or you a green, white and gold lion and [IN]?"
"Ill give you 25 for the tour."
"Ha ha ha ha"
"Ok, ill give you 26, right now and im in, cash"
"29"
"26.5"
"Ha ha ha ha... 29"
"27"
"28.5"
"Im a green white and gold, and very cold, 12 pack, supersonic celtic fox, and........ [In]!"
"What?"
"Ask your ice pick"
"Pablo, we have another crazy Irish man going up the volcano."
The climb took 5 hours and was tuff. We put on the spikes on our boots half way up, and dug into the ice and ascended in zig zag fashion. Very physically demanding but exhilorting. Quite a few turned around and decided not to do it. Visibility was poor and goggels were essential. On more than one occassion visibility dropped to 5 meters when the wind picked up, and changed direction and blew the top layer of granular snow in our path. The top was impressive. Big crater with snow running down into its heart and white bellowing sulpher clouds rushing up with huge shouts and belchs of lava thundering into the air from the lava rivers below. The view from the top was non existant; too much sulpher. Very uncomfortable to be honest. After lots of coughing and a few singed faces we quickly headed back 100m from the apex and then headed down, literally sliding all the way on our ass watching the snow baords and skiers doing their stuff. Good fun and a great experience.
After the volcano, jumped in the panda, let out a few obscenities on hearing 56million Americans let Bush get in for a 2nd term and headed another 400km north to Corico and the vineyards. After a very heavy baby-like sleep went to two vineyards. The first was San Pedro and the second was the Torres Estate. My first true education in fine wines. Learned loads and sampled loads while marvelling at the amazing Andes panaramoic background and throwing my eyes across miles and miles of military precision rows of vines. Ended up buying a bottle of Motlin 2002, from Sao Pedro, which i think i will go and open now. Actually, i think thats a splendid idea. Stop the keyboard tapping and start the wine swirling, tongue curling, colour and nose hurling.
Monday, November 01, 2004
The Lake District
Location: Bariloche
Temp: 5 degrees, cold and windy.
I’m writing this blog from the Hotel-Inn Hostel in Bariloche, Patagonia. It consists of a log cabin, 10km away from the nearest city and civilisation, a small pebbled beach (that leads onto one of the coldest lakes I have ever had the pleasure to swim in) and there are two young labradors looking after the giant garden to the rear. One of which has an injured paw and keeps following me every time I set foot outside.
The dogs are loving it here and have bonded immediately with the two incumbent hounds. We are booked in to stay here until Tuesday, but Eusebius has begged me to stay longer. He can’t get enough of the open air, crystal water, snow tinted mountain valleys and the rich variety of flora. I think they both must be communicating freely again ‘cause Brutos came up and asked if we could also extend our stay. I’m travelling with a cool English girl called Claire and we have agreed to rent a car on Tuesday to do the 7 lakes tour, hit Chile for 4 days and then drop the car off in Mendoza, so it might be difficult pushing the boat out for another day. I told them we’ll see. As ever there just isn’t enough time to do everything. It’s one of the rambling conundrums that ramblers have. You get somewhere, start learning about it, want to check it out, and realise there simply isn’t enough time, so you do what you can. It’s usually hit the main attractions and then if you’re lucky pick off one or two of the others. I might be able to wrangle an extra day here. It will be worth it if I can. There is so much to see: hand gliding, canoeing, diving, serious bike riding and a huge choice of hikes of varying difficultly.
Yesterday was different. I set off to conquer one of the local mountains, mount Frey. It is a 2000m high peak with a small lake on top and a very small hostel with a one man cook-electrician-ski boarding-handyman McGuiver-like Argentina legend called Marcus looking after the place. Not only did he bake a lovely fresh loaf when I was there but he also whipped up magical spag bol for 2euros. Getting to the hostel was demanding. 10km up and 10km down. The terrain varied in difficulty and constitution. It started with your normal forest like scenario that you would get back home. After about 2km it changed dramatically into a flat plain with sporadic streams flowing down from the ice cap above. All around the plain was old grey dead trees. Trees that looked as if they had been hit my a merciless pesticide. Very strange when you turned the corner and went from a fecundity of fertile bright green and brown colours to be hit with weak straw grass and grey dead bark. After about 5km the trail started its ascent. It consisted of some wooden bridges over some small but aggressive rivers and waterfalls and then a lot of bramble and open earthed roots from big giant trees. It was difficult to climb but not as difficult as what lay ahead the last 2k. Mostly rock, mud, bog and finally ankle height snow. Because the trail wasn’t marked too well I got lost on the wrong path for half an hour but I eventually got back on track and made it up to the top after a few handfuls of snow to eat.
The night I thought was going to be calm and relaxed as there was only one Italian man and two English girls in the hut. But I was wrong. At about 9pm 50. Yes 50 Argentian students between the age of 12 and 14 popped out of the snow or beamed themselves from an orbiting spaceship onto the top of the mountain. All of a sudden paradise on the top of mount Frey turned into a tent infested school room where yours truly was interviwed by at least 15 curious oogling kids giving me the Spanish inquisition in broken English and teaching me how to name all the utensils on a kitchen table in Spanish. Not exactly what I expected but a good laugh and a strange place and strange way to learn how to say knife, fork, spoon and butter in Spainish.
On the Spanish front, it is pleasantly very similar to Portuguese. Thankfully I didn’t have to start from scratch to learn a new language. I can confidently say that Portuguese is a much more difficult to learn. The phonetics are far more complex and the use of nasal sounds are more prevalent. Having said that Spanish pronunciations are also difficult. So far I’ve learned that the “v” sounds like a “b” and the “j” sounds like a “h” and the unusual double L “ll” sounds like “ya”. While attempting to speak Spanish it has been difficult resisting throwing in the odd Portuguese word. I more than often do and fortunately usually they understand what I am trying to say. I’d love another two months here. I reckon with 3 months here I’d have strong conversational skills.
So there you have, the south Americal leg is almost over.
Temp: 5 degrees, cold and windy.
I’m writing this blog from the Hotel-Inn Hostel in Bariloche, Patagonia. It consists of a log cabin, 10km away from the nearest city and civilisation, a small pebbled beach (that leads onto one of the coldest lakes I have ever had the pleasure to swim in) and there are two young labradors looking after the giant garden to the rear. One of which has an injured paw and keeps following me every time I set foot outside.
The dogs are loving it here and have bonded immediately with the two incumbent hounds. We are booked in to stay here until Tuesday, but Eusebius has begged me to stay longer. He can’t get enough of the open air, crystal water, snow tinted mountain valleys and the rich variety of flora. I think they both must be communicating freely again ‘cause Brutos came up and asked if we could also extend our stay. I’m travelling with a cool English girl called Claire and we have agreed to rent a car on Tuesday to do the 7 lakes tour, hit Chile for 4 days and then drop the car off in Mendoza, so it might be difficult pushing the boat out for another day. I told them we’ll see. As ever there just isn’t enough time to do everything. It’s one of the rambling conundrums that ramblers have. You get somewhere, start learning about it, want to check it out, and realise there simply isn’t enough time, so you do what you can. It’s usually hit the main attractions and then if you’re lucky pick off one or two of the others. I might be able to wrangle an extra day here. It will be worth it if I can. There is so much to see: hand gliding, canoeing, diving, serious bike riding and a huge choice of hikes of varying difficultly.
Yesterday was different. I set off to conquer one of the local mountains, mount Frey. It is a 2000m high peak with a small lake on top and a very small hostel with a one man cook-electrician-ski boarding-handyman McGuiver-like Argentina legend called Marcus looking after the place. Not only did he bake a lovely fresh loaf when I was there but he also whipped up magical spag bol for 2euros. Getting to the hostel was demanding. 10km up and 10km down. The terrain varied in difficulty and constitution. It started with your normal forest like scenario that you would get back home. After about 2km it changed dramatically into a flat plain with sporadic streams flowing down from the ice cap above. All around the plain was old grey dead trees. Trees that looked as if they had been hit my a merciless pesticide. Very strange when you turned the corner and went from a fecundity of fertile bright green and brown colours to be hit with weak straw grass and grey dead bark. After about 5km the trail started its ascent. It consisted of some wooden bridges over some small but aggressive rivers and waterfalls and then a lot of bramble and open earthed roots from big giant trees. It was difficult to climb but not as difficult as what lay ahead the last 2k. Mostly rock, mud, bog and finally ankle height snow. Because the trail wasn’t marked too well I got lost on the wrong path for half an hour but I eventually got back on track and made it up to the top after a few handfuls of snow to eat.
The night I thought was going to be calm and relaxed as there was only one Italian man and two English girls in the hut. But I was wrong. At about 9pm 50. Yes 50 Argentian students between the age of 12 and 14 popped out of the snow or beamed themselves from an orbiting spaceship onto the top of the mountain. All of a sudden paradise on the top of mount Frey turned into a tent infested school room where yours truly was interviwed by at least 15 curious oogling kids giving me the Spanish inquisition in broken English and teaching me how to name all the utensils on a kitchen table in Spanish. Not exactly what I expected but a good laugh and a strange place and strange way to learn how to say knife, fork, spoon and butter in Spainish.
On the Spanish front, it is pleasantly very similar to Portuguese. Thankfully I didn’t have to start from scratch to learn a new language. I can confidently say that Portuguese is a much more difficult to learn. The phonetics are far more complex and the use of nasal sounds are more prevalent. Having said that Spanish pronunciations are also difficult. So far I’ve learned that the “v” sounds like a “b” and the “j” sounds like a “h” and the unusual double L “ll” sounds like “ya”. While attempting to speak Spanish it has been difficult resisting throwing in the odd Portuguese word. I more than often do and fortunately usually they understand what I am trying to say. I’d love another two months here. I reckon with 3 months here I’d have strong conversational skills.
So there you have, the south Americal leg is almost over.
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