Bussed up

Half a day to kill, and with a bag of fresh croissants kindly donated by Martha, I walk like John Wayne after a sound buggering to the bus stop. That bike ride left me a mess. No more of this exercise gubbins for me. Today Marla's off to cycle 150km round seven lakes or some madness with a French dude that fancies her. Screw that. It's powered transport for me from here on in. Today it's buses and a chair lift up a mountain for panoramic vistas of Bariloche.

The views from the Cerro Campanario were simply splendid. You can see why this is called the lake district. Major and minor lakes aplenty, mighty snowy mountains sprouting right from the shores, the route we cycled yesterday past that fancy hotel, all clear as a bell. I blitz off a few digital rolls hoping to stitch a few panoramic at home anon, and thoroughly content I wander back for my bus..

Now then - Argey buses! As I mentioned, buses here are like an airline service with four classes; Coach, Semi-Carma, Carma and Premiere Executivo. Normally you'll have two classes on each bus, eg. Semi-Carma upstairs and Premiere down.

I arrived with about 3 minutes to spare, find the Andesmar to Mendoza and weigh up the size of the queue; plenty of time to get a take away cheese & ham sarnie from the restaurant. I join the bag queue and spot Swiss Nicole, my translator, and we shuffle to the front. This is my 1st official long bus journey under an Argentinean operator (In comparison, Chilean, Brazilian & Paraguayan don't cut the mustard).

At the front of the queue a man tickets my bag hands me the stub, shoves it into the back and straight demands a tip. Hmm. I'm overcome by the same feeling you get at an American bar where a bartender expects a tip for opening a bottletop. That's not tipworthy, that's basic rock-bottom service. Mr bag thrower stamps his feet a bit, but I stand my ground and board the bus. As I find my seat I wonder if I'm missing some basic etiquette here, but end up thinking he must try it on with all the tourists. However, three things could happen from here:

I) We arrive in Mendoza and I get my bag
II) The spiteful bagman 'accidentally' leaves my pack on the Bariloche platform
III) Mr Thrower man discretely marks my bag for later manhandling

Upstairs in seat 47 I take in the relative luxury of Semi-Carma, with fold down leg rests from the seats infront, cupholders and inbus magazines. Each floor has it's own member of cabin staff, in shirt & tie, who dishes out coffee & grub. He lays down the rules in Spanish. A yankee Seattler in the seat across the bus and I laugh at our lack of understanding, but how we both picked up that only leekio's are to go in the pan, no paper or clothes. He gives the floor a quick mop and on comes 'The Final Countdown' theme on the stereo (!) then we're off. It also seems I have a free seat next to me for the entire journey. Love it.

15 minutes later we're supping on hot sweet coffee and the first of our three-star DVD selection fires up. SWAT: Colin Farrell, a hardman outsider, joins America's finest patriotic flag-wavers to stop some bad Frenchman escaping justice. Distinctly top-heavy explosions to story dross. Blah blah blah. After that it's BINGO BINGO BINGO time!! Much more exciting. Apart from being a bit slow on the uptake. Though I know 'Sesenta nueve, dude!'

Then it's dinner time and time for another mediocre movie: The Tailor of Panama, where Pierce Brosnan tries very hard not to be James Bond, but fails miserably. It should be called 'Bond pulls a scam'. We chew on breaded milanesa chicken and some tasty rooty mash, washed down by a glass of wine and slurp down a caramel cream as night sets in. My Seattle man hand me a 660 of Quilmez beer. Good lad.

Were given cushions and blankets and settle back with the final three star flick, a straight to video about Christmas, chewing gum for the eyes. The Seattle contingent opens a screwcap of Mendozan Red and we classily sup it from the bottle. He says he sleeps better on buses after a few drinks. A few? He brought a four pack of large tinnies and a bottle of wine. Lordy.

Before I know it I'm waking up with the sunrise, seeing miles of vibrant vineyards stretch off up to the base of the giant snow covered Andes lining the distance. This view, in various viney incantations, occasionally broken by a line of poplars, goes on and on for a few hours until we pull into Mendoza bus station. Right, how do I find the wine bodega tours...


Barn

Bariloche saddle soars

"Perhaps one day, tired of circling the world, I'll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean Lakes" El 'Che' Guevara

It didn't quite work out like that for Mr Che. But in all our infinite wisdom, French Fred and I decide to go on a bike ride & see what Che was on about. Stocked up with a bag of tasty pastry (80% filled in novel ways with the ubiquitous, supersweet Dolcé de Leiche), some water and two strong Café Cortados we bused to the bus station to arrange respective tickets North. Fred to Chile to pick up a motorbike & rag about the Chilean Altiplano, and me to Mendoza to get some wine tasting in. I arranged my tickets IN SPANISH all on my tod! 6 our of 10 and a big smiley face for effort.

Monsieur Frederique, a Parisian Lawyer is taking a career break to let his hair (and mainly beard) grow. He looks about 15 years younger than his passport photo and smokes like a powerstation. E az ze fantaztique French accent when E speakz ze Engleesh and has a good spirit. I keep mistaking his name for Franc, so to avoid mental strain I call him French Franc.

Today we've decided to go for a bike ride in the lakes. It is possible to hire bikes in Bariloche and start there, but it's far more fun to throw logistical complications into the mix and bus to the backwoods and hope they've some bikes for rent.

We stand on the joined train & bus platform and await the no. 10 bus, for what feels LIKE A FREAKIN' ETERNITY! At least eight number 22's rumble past while we waited. It's like standing at an English busstop. While responsible Frank took watch I filled time playing like a child on the overgrown, derelict railway tracks photographing old wagons and station signs in the baking sun. It seems Argey has given up on the old railway network. The buses operate better than their airlines (ask anyone who's flown with Aerolineas Argentina) and the equivalent of a 1st class bed seat costs relatively jack. So trains have sadly gone to rust. Shame really when they put so much effort into gouging the mountains and scaling the Andes back along.

A shout from Fredfranc and we on the ten, destination Collonia Suiza, heading back through Bariloche and out the other side. Bariloche fancies itself as 'The Switzerland of Argentina'. It sports nuffty pseudo-Swiss wooden buildings, is nestled in mountains and lakes and is the chocolate fountain of Argentina. In fact it's Chocolate Month, or 'Easter' as we call it back home, a great time to be here. The shops seem to be running a 'Who-can-make-the-largest-egg-and-display-it-in-their-window' competition (some proudly display eggs the size of, er, really massive eggs). The wooden interior of one of the larger chocolate shops is disturbingly like a Church. A veritable shrine to Coco. The Inkas would heartily approve.

The Bariloche chocolate is divine too; hand-made, badboy stuff in all sorts of wacky variations. Fancy a raspberry caramel choc truffle? The best thing is that you can sample before you buy. They happily chop a piece in half to be sampled. and a shrewd shopper can leave with a nicely wrapped box and the equivalent weight of samples in their stomach. For the Swiss, who it's fair to say, do like to big up their own shit, there are imported Lindt truffles and bars sporting the purple Milka cow available also.

Anyhoos, Franked and I potter through the countryside, skirting lakes and scaling steep hills on our bus. Like all Argey bus drivers, our driver has pimped the interior of his bus, with many tasteless fur-lined mirrors, twinkling lights and tasteless and various cheesy stickers of Jesus. After a stoney road we finally alight in Colonia Suiza; a charming little place with emphasis on the little. There's a restaurant, an ice cream shop (which hand-makes mouth watering fruity sorbets), a footy pitch, possibly 6 houses and a Swiss Pub that brews its own brews and also rents bikes. And there are two left. Bikes, not brews. And they're pretty good.

The lady running the show, a laid-back and altogether welcoming pregnant thirty something blonde, lets us take the bikes without necessitating any paperwork (cos we look like trustworthy boys (WITH THESE BEARDS?! YOU SURE MOTHER??) and we're off! The games begin...

The 25km hilly lap of the lakes, called the 'Circuit Chico' (small circuit), proves a mission from the offset. I spent a good while glad we didn't brave the 'Circuit Grande'. Fred admitted early on, wheeling up a steep hill in 1st, that "I.. probably smoke... too... much" No really. A truly cosmopolitan Parisian chimney, he makes the Marlborough man look like a wuss. Perhaps a whole 1km in I realise I'm shafted and that carrying my full 6kgs of camera gear plus 2 litres of agua was possibly a mistake. For a while I fear this trip might end at a spinal injuries centre.

On the fanatically beautiful and tiring two and a half hour ride we pass a film crew making some period drama (who cheer us along like we're on the tour de France), skirt the golf course of the super spendy Hotel Lao Lao and bezz through a national park. Various viewpoints come as welcome breaks after spending a lot of time swearing at long hills. Just as much ups and downs

Towards the end, I stopped to take a photo (of a pretty view that turned out to make a crap photo) while Freddy battled on. I played catch up all the way down the dirt road back to town, but back in town was no French Bred. And the last bus for hours was leaving in 10 mins. Hmmm. It seems Fred missed the dirt road and is taking an extra 5km way round. I could go back out and check he's not taken a tumble off a cliff or is hugging the front of a bus somewhere, or I could sample this Swiss home brew...

Delectable. Weaty. A bit cheeky even. Light on the hops and ... "Oh hey Fred! What took you? 25km wasn't enough?! You've got to try this beer." We laugh as he sparks up a firetube. The bus left half an hour back, so we settle back in the sunset and savour a few beers and gratis crisps. Our cordial renter asks us if we'd like to join her, her pal, kid and knackered volvo half-way back to town to collect 'Chico' the dog from the vets. Result.

So with Mathias, an excitable unsecured (read: 'loose' or 'wild') child, between me n Fred in the back we set off. This cheeky 3 year-old kept on elbow dropping or stamping on my balls, and when he offered me a gift of leafy rubbish from the floor, I gratefully pretended to eat it. While this amused him very much, he proved difficult to stop when he started eating any leafy rubbish he could find. Kids eh?

We hop out right in front of the bus that takes us back, bid farewell to mum and the little liability destined for diarrhoea and twenty minutes later we're cleaned up in the hostel wondering if we'll ever be able to walk again. I thought my own saddle would've offered protection, but them bike saddles could've had more.

Further reinforcing the Swiss theme, Franc, Nicole (I can't help saying papa when her name is mentioned), Yankee Marla & I head (for me read 'hobble') out for Fondue! Much to Swiss Nicole's horror we shat on ancient Swiss social norms and order both a cheese and meat fondue! Heaven forbid! What colour wine to drink?? I believe we went white. Joined later by the lovely Sandra and an Argentinean amigo of hers, a cool looking dude with no English and a serious truck, we drink and eat heartily till our tongues loosen and belts follow suit.

I can see why El 'Che' would like to settle here.


Barns

Like Austria but more Chile

There was a hazily organised plan at the end of last nights mix and match drinking sesh to meet at our hostel in Puerto Varas some time to go for a walk on some nearby volcano. Although we stayed in different hostels and arrived at the volcano on two different local buses somehow we manage to all rock up in one place at roughly the same time.

Puerto Varas marks the beginning of the Chilean Lake District, and sits on the opposite end of Lago Llanquihue to Volcano Osorno. The road round the lake had a hugely Alpine meadow feel, supported by the large snowy mountain background and the old wooden pointy roofed chalet style homes and farms.

After Sandra asked directions at the police station, we lazily strolled along roads and paths, down to lake viewpoints and munching on blackberries by the side of the road. Occasionally we had to dive for cover as a dripping truck hurtled by or a car screamed down the hill leaving the smell of burning breaks.

Bored of stomping along paved roads we take a trail off through the forest and find ourselves walking across a mile wide luna lava field. The trail completely dissolved and we kind of mad the rest up, arriving back at a main road where a bus driver succeeded in charging us twice what we'd paid on the journey out, cos we were 5 minutes further drive down a tourist road.

That night we had a fantastically bilingual meal flowing with good chat, red wine and bizarre white jelly sauced steaks and super salty fish. Later we went to another place for cake and Nescafe coffee (Chile don't do real coffee). In fact, it began to dawn on all of us that a prevalent overriding theme in Chile was that a rock bottom, basically sour-faced, unfriendly customer service. Who knows if this town was representative of Chile, but the country appeared to me to be the grumpy, expensive, lanky sister of Argentina.

So the next day it was a delight to be bussing round the fantastic lake views and towering mountains en route to Argentina, destination Bariloche: A ski town set in idyllic mountain lakes with infamous chocolate, real coffee and dem bad bwai bife steaks. Two passport controls, a check-in and a shower later, and French Fred & I are sinking the Quilmez Beers and all over the steaks and Spanish chorizo omelettes. Though I won't lie, it is becoming possible to eat to much beef, irrespective of girth and calibre. Bring on the place that sells Llama steaks...


Barns

Navimagging (part iii) Pisco'd up...

Day 4: Back in the protective pategonian fjords, under a clear sky and baking sun the vibe has improved. A swell sleep (double entendre?), a toilet that flushes again and brownies for breaky (I take 5) - what more could one want. Valerie, my long-suffering travel comrade and designated Spanish speaker, thinks she has bed sores from 3 days in bed. I feel bruised inside, but around the dining room spirits are high.

It looks like the day held up in Jurassic Park has put us about 10 hours behind schedule. For some that means a bonus, extra value cruise; for others missed flight and bus connections. While the crew help those affected reschedule, the unaffected rock up on deck and catch rays. People mill about over coffee, discussing where they've been / are heading & why the hell you'd even think to cycle the Andes. I spend a good while photographing new friends and mountains and hold a photographic Q&A for all. Folk play guitar & cards on deck and before noon the Kunstmann's out. The atmosphere couldn't be any more different to the day previous.

Faces appear that I've not seen all trip. The crew organise a game of Patgonian Bingo in the dining area. It becomes more and more rowdy down there as the bar puts the traditional Chilean Pisco Sour cocktails on special. A quid a pop, these cheeky lemony, egg-white headed badboys have that magic way of slipping down real smooth, leaving you thinking they ain't stong, when all of a sudden number 5 rips you of your dignity, balance and any control of the volume of your voice.

I join a gang of miscreants in finding a sneaky way to the prow of the boat and put away lager & Pisco Sours. Sandra, French Fred (who I took to calling French Frank) and Christoph fell particularly party to the power of pisco. A few bevvys in and I'm pretending to be Rose from Titanic. Aussy Davo, a weather beaten, wealthy miner, mumbled away in broad outback Australian. Difficult to age, well read and well smelly, even the two Aussie pilots could hardly understand the guy, but he was a legend. Sally, Charlotte and Paul, like good Brits, take on the logistics of extending the piss up on terra firma. The plan was to meet at 10pm in a bar in Puerto Varas, the next town on from Puerto Montt, where we disembark.

The sun gently dropped as Puerto Montt came into view, backed by the most archytypal, triangular Volcano a child could draw. Mount Osorno, the spitting image of Mount Fuji, sat bathed in a pinky orange glow. By the time we pull in, 14 hours late, it was dark. Fond farewells went round as people packed up and shuffled toward the cargo lift. In the hustle and bustle of disembarcation, enveloped in the oily ship smells, truck fumes and sheep shit, I somehow manage to bid Valerie a brief goodbye. It's strange splitting after travelling with someone 24/7 for a solid 6 weeks. Who the hell's gonna speak Spanish for me now?!

Nicole - that's who! Another Swiss Spanish speaker - result! We sort two taxis, pack them with packs and muchachos, wave goodbye to the Navimag and Peurto Montt (the dirty navel of Chile) and zoom off into the night. In Puerto Varas, the start of the Chilean Lake district, we all find a fart sack each and within ten minutes of the arranged meeting time, we are 9 in El Barómetro toasting Charlottes Birthday over bock beers, Pisco Sours and empenada platters. Bonza.


Barns

Navimagging (part ii) Seasickness Pills and Ills

Cresting a particularly large swell, I'm sent headfirst into the wall by my bunk and woken by a sizeable headbutt. There are nicer ways to start the day; a smoking coffee and a fresh blueberry muffin in bed perhaps. The clock says 7am and we're out in open sea again. For a good hour I bemusedly watch our room rock from side to side. Cupboards creak open and close; the sink gurgles and water bottles freely explore the floor. I already feel a bit ropey, but try to put it to the back of my mind; I'm a great advocate of mind over matter and all that jazz. There are varying methods of avoiding seasickness and I've heard mixed reports of being bedbound in a rocking room. Nautical wisdom suggests a steady horizon and taking in fresh air.

Once the roomies rouse, with varying degrees of tinto headaches, we tentatively take the stairs down for breaky. Marginally less fishy eggs, bread, ham, pineapple yoghurt and coffee. In hindsight, if you put these ingredients in a blender and you're more than halfway to making vomit.

The boat was being bullied by the sea now and folk were struggling to walk, let alone carry trays of food. I mistakenly overfilled my coffee and pour a good half me brew over me tray. Upping the ante however, to a comedic degree, was a member of staff mopping the dining area floor. Talk about adding insulting lawsuit to injury. Several slipped, recovered and maintained their dignity, but one girl straight dropped on the ol' coxics. Good timing mop man.

Breakfast is served with a sickbag, which I make into a fetching hat. It turned out that at 6am the crew went round offering seasickness pills to guests. But it seems our room was missed or we slept through. Shortly after starting my meal, we're slammed by another wave and French Juliet's grim powdered peach squash tips itself over my eggs and bread. Excellent... just peachy. I continue to eat and almost finish, when all of a sudden I'm overcome by a wave of nausea. I take my leave and step outside to take in the fresh air.

Staggering about on deck it dawns on me that I do in fact get sea sick, cos I feel terrible. It's my first time, and the sea ain't being gentle. The horizon offers no assistance whatsoever, the mouth wets, I cop my hat and moments later get to see my breakfast again, this time in Technicolor! Today was a bad day to be wearing the afghan scarf, tassels blowing everywhere, catching every fleck. Hanging over my vombag I distractedly sniff, (I can't help it, I'm a sniffer) and the aroma is surprisingly unvomitey. Probably good for those around me. There's nowt like the smell of spew to set folk off.

They say no valuable travel experience comes without a dose of hardship, and I concur. It adds colour to events. Though I couldn't escape the irony that this hardship was to be found on a hard ship. However, akin to taking a drunken drive on the porcelain bus I felt surprisingly chipper after a good hurl. So I join the bright eyed, slightly mental German named Christoph up front. Fresh air and horizon. Fresh air and horizon. Together we ride the storm and admire the impressive girth of the waves. Again they're wave systems on giant wave banks, apparently up to 6m top to bottom. We ride up one and smash down into the front of the next, sending a massive shower over the bow.

I take a few photos of the bow being battered and watch ghostly folk chunder over the portside, splashing on victims downwind looking less than amused. Less amused than I anyway. Staff rock around helpfully distributing sickbags and tending to the sick.

It's not long and the bell strikes again for round two. Me vs. Seasickness. Not only are the odds not in my favour, but the fresh sea air is flecked with the smell of vomit and the faeces of a hundred head of cattle, horse and sheep. A second bag gets filled, this time with more precision and with the scarf tucked away. Not so many solids this time. Soon I'm retching on bile, which is never fun. This time, while making torturous noises over a plaggy bag I absently wonder if cows get seasick.

Feeling less chipper this time, and more beaten up, I find a bench outside to rest my weary bones. Throwing up takes it out of you, in more ways than one. I join French-German Sandra, who's sporting the same tell-tale bloodshot eyes of a spewer. We joke that we don't remember reading about this in the promotional material. Then I duck off again for strike 3. Pulling hard on nothing I almost put my shoulder out of joint. A biley concoction somehow finds its way out of my nose, leaving me with the opposite of an air freshener up my conk.

Lunchtime. No mate. Sandra and I, dressed in everything warm we have, share a blanket in the adjacent lounge and watch crap movies. The boat continues to be knocked senseless and diners plates plunge off lipped tables to an explosive doom. I hear one of the Aussy talk about an "ugly trip to the dunny" where he found the waves have stopped the bogs flushing.

That night, after 12 hours in rough seas and tentatively putting dinner away, I decide to stay away from the sauce and take an early night. At least until I get a beer. Beer's ok. And a cup of red Carmenere from Andrew. Then surprisingly I feel fine. Gather round peeps and get the cards out. Lets play Shithead... Leeds rules.


Barns

Navimagging (part i)

Gaucho gaucho man, Johnny Callaghan, took us to his local store to purchase cheap but tasty wine. On the way he informed us with a twinkling eye, 'I'm 45, single and happy, but don't know how many kids I've got!' Interesting. Val & I stock up with four litres of red Conch Y Torro vino and a load of snacks, thank JC for his trouble and push on to check onto the Navimag.

The Navimag is a cargo ship that sails up and down the Chilean coast from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. Back in the 80s & 90s adventurous travellers used to backhand shiphands to stow away on cargo ships up the beautiful uninhabited Fjords. The company Navimag entrepreneurially saw an opportunity and created various pokey passenger cabins (sleeping approx. 300) and offered tourists expensive 4 day 'cruise' options up a maze of channels (sometimes only 80m wide), past snowy peaks, waterfalls and heaving glaciers.

We checked in, dropped our bags, left the crew to load the big old ship with livestock and trucks and wandered back into town to kill a few hours. In a bookshop café I perused various Pategonian photo books (look up the work of Pablo Valenzuela Vaillant, for he be bo) and (on my freshly movified gadget) watched my very first episode of the Mighty Boosh and the 1st of 24 season 6! Damn it, if Jack Bauer ain't the coolest man alive I dunno who is!

Aboard the Navimag vessel my first impression as we're herded onto a greasy hydraulic lift in the main hold is that this really is a cargo ship, and it smells of cow. Orange clad crew help us find our cabins. Our bags are on our respective beds and fortunately the 1.5 litre bottles of red are in one piece and haven't tie died my clothes. Due to unavailability in the steerage 12 berth 'D' dorm, we're in a pimped 4-berth A-class room (US$420 per bunk instead of $355).

It's still a shoebox of a room, clearly not designed for four grown ups to move in at any one time, but room 108 is home for 4 nights. Along with Swiss Valerie, we're joined by English Nick (a London photograph fan with a quality camera and almost see-through hair) and French Juliet (oo az ze outraaaageously Fwench accent to go wizz eat, but doesn't really like chocolate, wine or cheese!). We unload our alcohol and see we're on the same page, with stacks of biscuits, crisps and a shed-load of red. We fill a cupboard with booze and at the safety video in the common room we smile at one another when it suggests 'Not to consume alcohol to excess'. The video also says 'Sitting on the board is very dangerous'. Not a clue what that means, so I might spend four days standing just in case.

After the meeting on goes the movie 'The Motorcycle Diaries' about the local South American hero, Che Guevara. Over the course of the journey they play 'apt' films. 'March of the Penguins' (Antarctic), '8 Below' (rubbish snowy dog film) and 'Pirates of the Caribbean 2' (sea theme). I was surprised when they didn't play 'Titanic' or 'The Poisidon adventure'. Though instead of laugh at 'El Che' fall of his bike, as I'd done before, I unsociably slipped back to the cabin for my 24 hit...

***

We wake up to an excellent sunrise and take the breakfast buffet at 8am. Dining in shifts, by room number groups reduces the pressure of 300 gannets hoping to get their 400 dollars worth of passable food. After the fishy scrambled egg breaky the ship shows off it's super manoeuvrable 'manual automatic' steering system (oxymoron much?) to navigate through tiny passes. Having loads of thrusters all round the boat means it can even drive sideways. We're all allowed onto the bridge at any time to watch el capetan do his thang, cruising round the misty fjords.

Later on we pass a bizarre shipwreck that looks like a ghost ship. Apparently, the story is thus: The captain of Greek ship 'Coto Baxi', loaded with a cargo of sugar bound for Chile, decided to pull an insurance job on his boat. So he sold his sugar early in Uruguay and when he hit the Chilean Fjords he deliberately ran aground to sink it. In doing so he destroyed his ship, but accidentally parked it on an underwater shelf, so it wouldn't sink. Insurance came to have a looksy and got suspicious when there was no sugar, so he ended up going to jail for 3 years. Denied! Now, 18 years later, his ship has become an important lighthouse warning other ships not to park there. Being open to the elements all that time it's rusted to hell, it's full of holes and the turret has fallen forward, but yet it sits above the waves and looks like it's moving. Very bizarre.

Lunch at noon. Food on top of food, with no real exercise in between to promote digestion (hours of 24, exciting as it is, doesn't count). We pass a mammoth glacier, one of the visible tongues of the hidden and unimaginably vast Southern Pategonian Ice Field. The spitting rain, cold temperatures and grey cloud all felt terribly English, wot. Jolly shame I didn't bring my brolly. Bad form.

The 'informative seasickness meeting' in the common area was informative. We were warmed that round fourteen hundred hours we leave the protective fjords and spend the rest of the day cutting round the Golfo de peñas mainland, through open Pacific where waves range between 2 and 6m high. All are offered complimentary seasickness pills and advised not to lean against windows, not to look at the floor too long, and to move slowly slowly. If things get real bad we're advised to take up the foetal position on the floor 'like you was when borned'.

I've never been seasick in my life and I ain't takin no medicine. I'm like a child on a rocky boat. I tend to get over excitable and run about. So come 2pm when we literally hit the open sea (or it hit us) I shuffled up to the front and rode the bow with a bright eyed German named Christoph. The waves were indeed massive, more like a bank of smaller waves piled onto moving hills of water. The massive ship was pitched and dropped over these, causing the front to smash down into the sea sending a shower skyward.

As much fun as I was having, I won't lie that it came somewhat as a relief when we were informed that we had to turn back and find shelter in a natural harbour and wait for the bad weather to pass. The natural harbour we eventually anchored looked like something off Jurassic Park. A beautiful misty inlet surrounded by waterfalls and fading blue grey mountains. A smiling Brit couple and I decide to try and spread bogus rumours that we overheard the captain saying we'd probably have to stay here a week, and we'd run out of food well before then. But it was difficult to keep a straight face.

After the sun had fallen, 24 all watched and dinner put away, the red wines and cards came out. Aussy 'Asshole', Brit 'Wist' and Argey 'Mau Mau' were the games of choice. The local beer for sale at the bar, 'Kunstmann' caused much tittering. For example, 'I love the Kunst Man' was heard more than once.


Captain Barnacle

I'm a Gaucha!

The 6 hour bus ride from El Calafatte was real boodiful. Stamped out of Argey and into Chile (yey another badly applied stamp!) in desolate border towns surrounded by rolling scrubby hills and dark lakes. Every once in a while in Chile the driver honked his horn to alert what looked like dopey Llamas (but may also be Guanacos, the local equivalent) and large birds of prey, sunning themselves on the toasty tarmac.

Eventually the bus heads down a deserty highway with the mighty Torres Del Pine mountain range spiking the background to our right. A grand set of dark granite towers piecing the clouds. This national park is the main reason folk visit Puerto Natales. Although watching dawn turn the towers a firey red was pretty much in my top three things to see in the American Subcontinent, 'logistical complications' (read Argey monkeys cocking up my plans) left me with only two half days before the departure of the Navimag ferry I'm booked aboard.

Dropped by the Church in Puerto Natales, Val, myself and James, a new addition Brit fellow with a geetar and a plum accent, make our way downtown to the recommended Erratic Rock hostel. We plod on down trying to figure out how this new currency works (still Pesos, but everything is now in thousands) and roll up at the ER to find an enthused yank inform us they're unfortunately rammed. But he sends us on up the road to a 'cute' place called 'Alma Gaucha', run by a cowboy mate called Johnny Callaghan. This should be interesting.

Outside an innocuous looking corrugated metal house stood the Alma Gaucha sign. Johnny answers and lets us in, a rotund Chilean donning a beret, cowboy booitz and sporting an impressive moustache - the archetypal 'Gaucho' (the name for South American cowboys). It's common practice for Gauchos and wannabes to rename themselves with something more fitting to their cowboy status. Their mothers may call them Sanchez, Julio and Carlos but their boys call them Johnny Callaghan, Tom Wayne and Wild Bill Westford. All these names sound better if you slur them in Texan drawl. Puerto Natales has loads of 'em knocking about, and I bet there's a Clint in town.

The walls inside this mainly one window lit establishment are dressed in a definite 'Gaucho' theme. Saddles, ponchos, lassos stirrups, Marlborough posters and random strips of leather. A tin shed in the corner houses the kitchen area, next to portable a gas heater and a long heavy wooden table set with doilies and a carved wooden duck. Four quid a night. Done. We fill our mismatched floral sheeted empty 4 bed dorm with bags and hit the town for some meat.

Opposite the church again, we wander into an equally bizarre establishment for lunch. A pokey little restaurant that resembled the bastard child of a Victorian dining room mating with a wild west ranch, with records & covers nailed up all over the walls. A record called 'Nasty Sex' sits on a gramophone ready to spin. But instead they have a badly compiled 80s and 90s megaamix playing, dropping no more than 20 seconds of each 'hit'. Michael Jackson, Peter Gabriel, Wham, Queen, Madonna, Hot Chocolate. A veritable overdose of 80s pop. A short fellow in a tiny bow tie brings us 3 hits of the local Austral beer. An old ornate standalone cast-iron stoves warms a blackened kettle and its immediate area in the corner.

Over tortillas and steaks con fritas we find out Jimbo's been cheffing a couple of months at a Gaucho restaurant and hotel in the back of beyond down the end of some Argey dirt road. He found a cheffing position on the net somehow and pretended he had experience ('I've worked in a restaurant... just as a waiter') and with his GCSE Spanish he jumped aboard, armed only with a good knife. From what I can gather he spent the next 3 months learning how to kill and carve up animals for Gaucho consumption. His Spanish is mint too - though he confesses he speaks kitchen Spanish; which is pretty much a knowledge of different food stuffs, swearing and saying 'Bueno' at the end of every sentence (sometimes twice). He worked long days with only one westerner in town (a dutchy) and spent late evenings chilling with the Gauchos over red wine and coke. When he finally got fired (!) one of the Gauchos hand-made him a knife sheath out of fresh cow hide.

Sounds cool eh readers? An authentic travel experience. That ain't in the Lonely Planet. Though to keep his head straight he had a Mac iBook full of music & movies. He kindly transferred a full series of Family Guy, 7 hours of the latest season of 24, Anchorman & The Big Lebowski all onto my 80gig media player gadget. Looks like I ain't gonna be the most sociable fella on the Navimag ferry.

That night the Valerie, Jim & myself make our own chorizo and mozzarella pizzas and park a few bottle of Chilean vino tinto over some suspect Argey card games and a few too many Marlborough reds (or 'Cowboy Killers' as James calls em). Rumours spread around the hostel campfire was that ol' Johnny C has never in fact ridden a horse, and that he's actually a 'Pseudo-Gaucho' (GASP)!!

Happy days.


Wild Barn