When Mountains Crumble to the Sea

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/emmadick13/latin_america/1170702960/tpod.html - map update

We left the hotel about 6.30 in the morning to get into the queue for the ferry. Luckily we made it, I couldn´t bear sitting looking at the cafe begging it to open any longer. Sunrise was spectacular, strange watching it over a mine field. The Bahia Azul was calmer and the crossing was good. Waiting to board the ferry Bridget (21, student from Brisbane, scarily reminded me of myself at the same age, say no more, big gob but good fun, spoke her mind which rattled a few cages, including mine a couple of times) managed to get her intonation and tenses slightly wrong and suggested to a truck driver that ´we share a hotel´instead of explaining that as a group we shared a hotel. Truck driver looked keen, Bridget became the butt of easy jokes for a couple of days.

The journey to Torres del Paine was okay. Rattling windows, bit chilly but the view of the Torres (towers of pain) when we arrived was pretty amazing. My first night camping was traumatic. Woke around five imagining that I´d be the first UFO spotted over Chile this year, thankfully was still grounded, if a little spooked. Layers of clothing finally kept the cold at bay, not much room left to move in my sleeping bag and boy I wished for my human hot waterbottle to be next to me so I could snuggle and get warm.

I wasn´t fit enough to go all the way to the viewpoint. Managed to walk for a couple of hours but a 3foot wide,max, path with a steep drop on the one side put me off making the hostel and the forest walk. Headed back, got sunbunt arms and took the time to enjoy my surroundings. Felt quite proud as people looked at me and smiled like I´d been up already and was heading down, what they don´t know.... First paddling experience in a cool blue stream, felt at home next to the water and thought of my mum giggling next to me.

If the first night hadn´t been quite so unsettled, would perhaps have pushed myself more. Sunshine and a lolly was a good substitute and I wrote a couple of more postcards, which as usual over 2 weeks later I´ve still to post.

Day 2 in TDP was spent at Lago Gray and my first experience of a glacier. The boat trip was full, but took that as a meanign of saving cash. Walked to a better view point and saw some amazing blue icebergs which had broken off the glacier. Everything looks so close, but an hour later was still walking to what at first looked like a 30min round trip. Was well worth it and I did it with Anna and Roger, who are so lovely. No gooseberryness was had and enjoyed my time with them walking.

Day 3 I ventured onto the back of a horse. First time since I tried it in Cleethorpes about 15 years ago after helping at a disabled horseriding session. All went well, fell in love with Safido and his big brown eyes (horse not gaucho before any rumours start). All was well until on the way back down the hill Safido decided to show me a short cut. Stop in english didn´t work, panic set in, heart pounded and thank f@#! the gaucho behind me at the end shouted something at Safido in spanish whih stopped him short. He turned round, gaucho blocked him (us) from heading straight over crest of the other hill and a slightly panicked little dick made it safely to the bottom. Ached a bit the next day but not massively.

Following day set off for El Calafate, a touristy town further up Ruta 40.

We left Ushuaia at 6.30am, travelling through Tierra del Feugo. The scenery was pretty spectacular, heading up a pass to look across the national park. I can never really find the words needed to express the feeling of seeing such amazing views, photos don´t do it justice either altho I´m trying my best to capture them. Getting them online is a completely different matter.

The plan was to drive to the Bahia Azul and get the ferry crossing over so we could spend the night in Puerto Natales. I experienced my first wee in the bushes, and first border crossing as we headed into Chile. It is 7kms between the Argentinian and Chilean border, a bit of a strange no mans land where we wondered who would look after us if we crashed and if Neryl murdered Michael would she get away with it (I´ll introduce you slowly to my travelling companions, we´re an odd bunch and I think locals possibly think we´re family due to the age range)

All went reasonably smoothly apart from the fact that the Chilean border guard stamped my passport way at the back, I mean c´mon, it´s my first passport and I want all my stamps in order, correct way round and neat. After a quick passport comparison on the truck - mine has a cool uk watermark, much better than the ozzie kangaroo one it was on to the Bahia Azul to catch the ferry.

The queue of cars and lorries at the bay told us something wasn´t going to plan and it turned out due to the windy weather the ferries had been cancelled. There was a possibility the ferries would start again at about 8, but with a 3 hour drive ahead of us until we arrived in PN it was decided we would head back to the small town we had passed called Cerro Sombrero. It took us 9 hours to cross Tierra Del Fuego altho it looks relatively close area on a map. Our truck ´WAMM´(which stands for What a Mechanical Mess - reassuring eh) travels at a max of 60kph.

We headed back to Cerro Sombrero with the aim of beating any other travellers with the same idea. The town was having some kind of disco for army cadets, so our arrival was met with lots of smiles waves and looks of bemusement. We got a few supplies from the shop and walked back through to the hostel, the only other guests being local workers. Tea was palm hearts, potatos and salad. The bed was comfy, showers warm and clean but apparently I snored and Bridget declared she´d never share a room with me again...the trip had begun and we had to be up to leave for 6 to try and get the first ferry across in the morning.

Didn´t really know what to expect having read blogs of people being disappointed by the travellers stop en route to the Antarctic. There were some massive cruise liners docked and rumour had it that Bill Gates was there. Tried to get a message to him that I had arrived but guess he had left before he got it.

The hostel was fine and did the job. Got the first flash of travellers who are not from Britain and get out the shower without minding flashing all. Am getting better as I go and by the end of it will no doubt be singing naked in the changing room as I comb my hair and decide what to wear for the day (I don´t think).

Highlight of Ushuaia was a boattrip down the beagle channel to Martillo Island. It´s an island shaped like a hammer, hence its name is the Spanish for hammer. However residing on this island are tons of penguins and the boat stopped for 20 mins for us all to gawp at each other. To see the penguins dart through the see catching fish was amazing. It was also pretty funny the way some of the penguins toddled down to the front of the catamaran and looked up at us. Magic moments were had, magnificent memories created. It snowed a bit and my fingers got numb. I left with a glow in my heart and photos of a bit of a strange young penguin, the only one with bright orange feet who looked very out of place. Photos will appear here very soon.

I enjoyed my time here, it gave me chance to find my feet a bit and i met the other 8 people and 2 crew who are my travel companions for 3 weeks. We left early in the morning - 6.30 to be precise to begin our journey up through Tierra del Fuego and into Chile. To be continued.....

Sorry for the gap between planning and arriving updating. I´ve got 30 mins to see how far I can get so may have to come back and update to date later.

The trip to Argentina was pretty much ok. After lots of hugs managed to let go of Rob and head through to my plane to Madrid. BA obviously were having a quiet day as there were a max of 10 passengers and 5 off work crew on board. Was cool to stretch out and reassuring to know if the pilot dropped dead there were two other pilots on board.

Had a bit of a long 5-6hour wait in Madrid where I managed to get my main backpack covered in yards of clingfilm so they would let it on board as it was. Not feeling very comfortable about this did try and get it off in one piece in Ushuaia in case anyone wanted to use it to wrap their sandwiches in but confess to getting slightly frustrated and taking that frustration out on it by ripping it off in a crazy cling film frenzy. Ate a tortilla sandwich at the airport as couldn´t remember if we got dinner on the overnight flight to Buenos Aires.

Wish I hadn´t as we did indeed get dinner and surprise suprise, got tortilla for my veggie meal. Felt a bit self concious seeing as I got my meal first and had to sit next to strangers, scoffing my burnt peas while they waited for theirs. Veggie option was def best as got fruit for pudding and a small salad for starters which was great.

Arrived at Buenos Aires to 20degrees at 8.00am. Thermal t-shirt and fleecesx2 didn´t ease my stress when I was told that I would have to collect my luggage for my late flight. Lucky flight was late else would have missed it waiting for my luggage, which had already been sent through for loading. By this time was tired and stressed, close to tears at the thought of having hat, scarf, gloves and some books to wear for a couple of days. Living wild didn´t yet appeal. Man who I spoke to (declared he only spoke a little spanish to make me struggle further I think) looked at me in despair as I said I couldn´t find my luggage tag and my luggage was missing. Looked at me in scorn when told me it had been sent straight through.

Finally found next terminal and had to wait a couple of hours for flight. Security was a man grinning at everyone and putting a bag through an x-ray machine whilst I walked through a metal detector. Strangely they had this amount of security to get onto the pier in Ushuaia for the boat trips....Good to see terrorism isn´t such a worry as in the UK or Europe where I set the alarm off by forgetting I had my special travel sickness bands on. Funky bracelets? I don´t think so.

The landing in Ushuaia was the only time I´ve felt the need to grip the seat arms. The airport is out of the town and coming down you start to make a steep decent over the Beagle Channel. Somthing I didn´t like and begun feeling for my life jacket for. I love the way that the latinos cheer the pilot on safe landings. For the first time I let out a whoop of joy to have landed.

Hey guys,

Welcome to my blog. I've got 12 days to go before I head off to South America.

It all seems quite unreal and I'm running round manic. I've got lists everywhere and each time I cross something off, I seem to add another two or three things.

Lets see how things are in a couple of weeks when I'll be 8300 miles away!

Em