Suzi's hen party and wedding

More catching up!  Suzi's hen party in Bude in September 2012 saw me taking on my first ever surf lesson - which was excellent, even if I couldn't stand up on the board.  Of course, we all had to dress up in the evening and make complete fools of ourselves, or it wouldn't have been a true hen party!

Suzi & Ben's wedding took place a few weeks later in Lancashire.  The frocks were posher, but it was just as much fun, complete with dressing up box for the evening party.

Lake Constance

Catching up with past trips!  While the rest of the UK celebrated the Queen's Jubilee in June 2012, we took the opportunity for a long weekend at Lake Constance on the German/Swiss border.  Robin, Tim, Claire, Suzi, Ben and I met up with Claire's friends Krista and Hans Jurgen, who live close by and were generous hosts, lending us bikes and showing us some of the sights. 

Snow, glorious snow!

 

 This year's ski trip saw us in Morzine, the gateway to the Porte du Soleil ski domain which spans a huge area of the French and Swiss Alps.  Its main attraction for us was the proximity to Geneva airport - a 75 minute transfer - and a flexible hotel that didn't demand a Saturday to Saturday booking. This meant that Robin, Tim and I could fit in 7 full days skiing, while Claire joined us on Monday night for 5 of those days.

The French Alps have had their best snow for 40 years and there was plenty of the white stuff to greet us in Morzine, though the temperatures in the village were pretty springlike on our first day and after a great morning's ski - with the lovely Ed from Simply Morzine showing us round the Morzine and Les Gets slopes - the snow was quite heavy and cut up during the afternoon.  Fortunately the clouds gathered and the temperature dropped overnight and we woke to 10 centimetres of fresh snow and another great days skiing on the local slopes.  The temperatures hovered around freezing for the rest of the week, keeping the piste in great condition, and we were treated to another light dump of snow on Thursday morning.  With clear blue skies the rest of the time, giving great views of Mont Blanc and the surounding mountain ranges, we couldn't have asked for better conditions.

As well as skiing most of the Morzine/Les Gets slopes, we ventured up the Super Morzine lift to Avoriaz on three days, which gave us more fantastic skiing both in the trees and above the tree line.  On our last day we crossed over into Switzerland and had some excellent skiing on beautifully groomed pistes - so well groomed that we mistook a black run for a blue!

Thanks to Simply Morzine for arranging hotel, transfers, ski passes, hire gear (at Felix Ski) and three days of hosting round the different ski areas and excellent recommendations for lunch.  Big thanks to Michelle and Franck, the delightful and helpful owners of Hotel la Chaumiere.  Final thanks to Tom at BASS for three afternoons of ski lessons designed to perfect my parallel turns, which left me visualising squished tangerine smoothies all the way down the slopes!

Journey's end - Palermo and Colonia

Back in Buenos Aires and this time we stay in Palermo, a little outside the centre, but the area I’d choose to live.  We spend a chilled morning walking the tree-shaded streets, window shopping in the local designer boutiques, admiring the grafitti – I’m sure I saw Banksy –  stopping for a coffee every now and then and checking out the best parillas for steak and malbec later that evening, when Robin chomps his way through the biggest bife de chorizo ever seen.

In the afternoon we check out the botanical gardens, Japanese Gardens and the Parque Tres de Febrero – all of which get rave reviews in the guide books.  Hmmm.  I guess they were written when the city council could afford to employ gardeners.  But at least we get out of the park and into another nice café before the heavens open.

On the last day of our holiday, we can’t resist collecting a few more stamps in our passports – including 3 at the end of the world, I net 12 stamps this trip!  We take the fast ferry across the river to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay.  The Rio de la Plata is 60km wide.  It’s like the sea.  Travelling from Argentina, you can’t see the other side. Coming back, on the other hand, you can see the skyscrapers of Buenos Aires, and a great sunset.  But it is definitely a river.  To start with, it doesn’t smell like the sea.  Nor does it taste salty.  Weird.

Colonia couldn’t be more different to Buenos Aires.  It’s a tiny gem untouched by time and dating back to 1680.  Since then it has been fought over by the Spanish and Portuguese and the architecture of both countries can be seen the single-storey buildings of the historic quarter.  The history lesson continues into the 20^th Century, as the streets of Colonia are full of old cars.  Not the type of old car that’s seen all over Argentina – they are from the 60s and 70s, largely held together with gaffa tape but still going strong.  No, these are pre-war models and I’m not sure if any of them still have engines.  Some have plants growing out of them. Others have tables inside them.  Or fish.  They make great roadside ads for the restaurants and museums they are parked outside.  

We are back in Palermo for supper, hanging out with the locals at a streetside table, drinking in the atmosphere and enjoying a final evening in the balmy night air.  It’s minus 2 back in London, but we’re not thinking about that.

The land of fire, where forest meets the sea

Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire, got its name back in 1520 when the Portuguese explorer, Magellan, sailed through the straits that now bear his name and saw small fires all over the islands that surround it.  The fires were an integral part of life for the Yamana Indians who survived for 6000 years in this area.  They were the main inhabitants of Ushuaia as late as the end of the 19^th Century, but were soon decimated by diseases once European missionaries and seafarers arrived in numbers.

They were a strange bunch.  Darwin thought they could be the missing link.  And given how cold it at the end of the world, I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did. They were advanced enough to have fire and to use guanaco leather as a windbreak around that fire, but they never made the mental leap to wrap the leather around themselves in a jackety, trousery way. They were quite content to smear seal fat over their bodies for protection.  Nor did they fashion bowls or cooking pots, just speared sealions with a bone arrow on a stick and stuck them straight on the fire.  Hey ho.

Today there are no signs of the Yamana’s fire, just green, grassy mounds formed from dumped mussel shells that made up the second part of their diet.  We see several of these as we take a leisurely raft trip down the Lapataia river and then walk through the slow growing lenga and evergreen guindo forests of Tierra del Fuego national park onto the beaches of Lapataia Bay.  It is undoubtedly attractive, this land where the forest meets the sea, though it lacks the drama of the higher Andes peaks we have seen elsewhere.  In fact there are very few peaks here.  The entire area was covered in 1000m of ice during the last ice age leaving the mountains below this height with rounded tops and just a few above this height with jagged peaks..

The end of the world attracts its share of eccentrics, including the man who built a house on one of the small islands in Lapataia Bay, declared independence, pronounced himself  First Minister and now earns a living selling postcards, passport stamps and other tourist trinkets at the “post office at the end of the world” – though you can get your “end of the world” passport stamp for free in the information centre.  

There are couple of eccentric bars in town too.  We loved Almacen Ramos Generales, a café, bar, restaurant and museum rolled into one, with fantastic submarinos – hot chocolate, where you dropped your own chocolate cubes into frothy milk and stirred for a delicious drink.  And it was only place I saw a penguin, though admittedly a meringue and chocolate version, which went very well with the hot chocolate.

The lack of penguins was a major disappointment. Our boat trip on the Beagle Channel gave us a close up view of the southern sealions and imperial comorants native to these parts, but no penguins..  There is an island further down the channel that’s home to a colony of Magellan Penguins, we just chose the wrong boat.  And if you don’t look too closely at the pictures, the black and white cormorants could be mistaken for penguins…..  And we did have a close up view of Les Eclaireurs lighthouse.  I guess you can’t have it all.

And so our trip to the end of the world drew to a close.  We treated ourselves to our most expensive meal in Argentina at one of its best restaurants, Kaupe – king crab, scallops and sea bass like you’ve never seen in England and lemon ice cream with hot champagne sauce – and flew back to Buenos Aires. 

To the end of the world!

Ushuaia is billed as the southernmost city in the world, and that’s where we are heading.  El fin del mondo.  But first we have to get there.  By bus.  It takes a day and half.  The end of the world is a long, long way away.

It’s a funny thing about Argentina – and indeed the small bit of Chile that we visit. Apart from the Andes, which are very steep and dramatic, much of the land is almost completely flat. We seem to have flown over thousands of miles of flatness and now we are driving through hundreds more miles of flatness – and it’s not very interesting.  The land is beigey-grey.  The plants are beigey-grey.  The sheep are beigey-grey.  But the guanacos are browny-grey. We don’t see many guanacos. Thank God for Kindles and iPads.

 Our epic journey involves two buses, an overnight stop in Punta Arenas where we find a very jolly fish restaurant – La Luna – a third bus which eventually takes us on a boat across the “mystical”, hmmm, Strait of Magellan to the island of Tierra del Fuego and then across the border back into Argentina and onto Rio Grande, which boasts the biggest brown trout in the world.  But we don’t stop there.  We board a mini-bus which, two hours later, disgorges us on the seafront in Ushuaia in a square dedicated to Las Malvinas.  We are just 484 miles from the Falkland Islands and Argentina’s claim is clear. Las Malvinas are included in the Province of Tierra del Fuego, and the UK has illegally occupied the islands since 1833. But no-one seems to hold this against us.

This isn’t the only contentious border in these parts. Chile/Argentina is clearly divided by the Andes peaks right down the country, then suddenly a slip of the hand and the border blips out to the east, Chile does a quick land grab for the final few miles of mainland and half of Tierra del Fuego as well as all the little islands scattered down the west coast.  The two countries still squabble over several of these islands and they had to get the Pope to sort it out a few years ago.  He sided with Chile, but I doubt that it’s sorted for ever.  You can’t reach the Argentine section of Tierra del Fuego by road unless you go through Chile.  Which could be why it’s the most relaxed border we encounter.  No checks for illegal fruit here. Everyone on the bus gives their passports to the bus conductor, who takes them in to be cloned – sorry, stamped - at both border controls and we’re through.  

And then there’s Antarctica.  Silly me.  I thought it was protected by international treaty and no-one owned it.  Try telling that to Argentina. With Antarctica only being 600 or so miles away they naturally claim a slice of it, and once again include Argentine Antarctic Territory in the Province of Tierra del Fuego.

So what is it like, this city at the end of the world?  I often find that places I have pictured in my mind based on their romantic name are nothing like the expectation.  The town itself is an eclectic mix – part naval base, part cruise liner port (mainly heading to Antarctica) and because of that, part tacky tourist town; there is not one, but three casinos here.  But the steepness of the streets tumbling down to the sea rival those of San Francisco, and some of the buildings are brightly coloured and attractive, though just as many are ugly concrete.  My real problem is that it doesn’t feel like the end of the world.  I look out to sea and can see land. We are actually looking over the Beagle Channel and there are several islands between here and Cape Horn and open sea.  That’s where the drama is to be had.  Where the Pacific meets the Atlantic and the cruise liners brave waves 20m high to cross Drake’s Passage to Antarctica.

Here in Ushuaia it is high summer; it is a little chilly, but all is calm.  And there are lupins. And a rugby club. And a golf course, with 8 holes.  Who’d have thought of that?

John Wayne eat your heart out - Torres del Paine by horse

So here’s the problem.  We want to take the trail to the base of the Torres del Paine, but after our earlier torres trek in El Chalten, I know my limit and after 9.5 hours walking,  I definitely reached it there.  My guidebook classed that trek as moderate to difficult.  This one is classed plain difficult.  I’m worried.  Will my knee hold out?  Will my spirits hold up?    I know that I could do this trek, but I want to enjoy it, so when we are offered the chance to go part of the way on horses it seems the perfect solution.  It’s easy to persuade Robin that this is the best course of action, I just have to pay for both horses! 

Our hotel has a coral full of sure-footed horses just waiting to ferry us up the first section of the mountain. At this point I should mention that neither Robin nor I can ride a horse.  But with basic instructions – hold the reins in one hand, keep the other free, preferably resting on your leg (no idea why), pull left to go left, right to go right, back to stop – we are off.  My horse is called Gato and obeys my every command – particularly when our guide makes encouraging noises to him..  Robin’s is called Forsilla and is very greedy, so ignores most of his commands and stops to eat whenever she can. But they have obviously done this trek before and cross fast flowing rivers, climb steep hills, cross narrow passes with sheer edges falling straight down to the rushing river below (I can’t look down at this stage), without putting a foot wrong.  Bueno, Gato, bueno!

After an hour and a half, at the top of the first hill, we have to leave the horses and carry on by foot.  After our very hot walk in El Chalten, we are relieved to have some cloud cover today. The first section of our walk takes us through lenga forests, keeping us cool despite the uphill climb.  The forest is quite beautiful and very old.  Lenga trees are very slow growing -only a centimetre a year – and many are covered in a long hairy lichen that grows at just a millimetre a year, and only in unpolluted air.  After a week walking in the mountains, my lungs feel soooo clean in this clean air, I swear their capacity has doubled.  Coming out of the forest, we cross the stony scree – but this walk is nowhere near as hard as the one at El Chalten.  Either I am immensely fitter or the horses have done their job, and I’m still in good shape for the toughest section of the trail.

We are also blessed that the day isn’t too windy – we are told that some days you have to crouch on the ground if the wind gets too much.  The downside is that the summit of the torres is obscured by cloud.  But it still makes for a beautiful and dramatic sight and we enjoy our picnic here before heading back down, knowing it’s just 2 hours walking to get backto our horses and enjoy wonderful views over rivers, gorges and lakes. I am at one with my horse.  I feel like John Wayne.  We may be walking down the mountain, but I know I could swish the reins from side to side and Gato would gallop into the sunset.  

Across the border to Chile and Torres del Paine

We head for Chile again, and this time we do cross the border for a 3 day stay.  We are staying in Chile’s most famous, and beautiful, national park – Torres del Paine, across the Andes from Los Glaciares.

In Patagonia, once you stray from Route 40 – the national road that extends the length of Argentina – tarmac is soon replaced by roads of hard packed grit covered with loose stones.  We travel in a roughty-toughty explorer bus which has no problems covering the ground – unlike the poor touring cyclists we pass at regular intervals, their bikes laden with panniers front and back.  I’m oh so glad to be in that bus! 

But we still have to negotiate the border controls. Chile and Argentina may share a 6000km border, but the European concept of open borders has not taken root here.  The border control process is either a job creation scheme or represents national paranoia of the highest extreme. Luckily it doesn’t take 6 hours (as it does in Mendoza region) as most people crossing at this point are tourists, but we still have to

1)      get off the bus to have our passports exit stamped in Argentina

2)      fill in entry forms and customs forms for Chile

3)      drive through no-man’s land to the Chilean border control

4)      take all our luggage off the bus and have it x-rayed – making sure to first eat any apples lurking at the bottom of my backpack - never shall an argentine fruit make it over the border, or vice versa

5)      get our passports entry stamped for Chile

6)      get ripped off changing Argentine pesos for Chilean pesos at the coffee shop 

In fairness, no. 6 is our own fault as, for once, we failed to do any research either on exchange rates or to find out that our hotel in Chile does, in fact, accept credit cards – note to self, don’t believe everything you read on Trip Adviser.

At first glance Chilean Patagonia looks a lot like Argentinean Patagonia.  A few kilometres from the mountains everything is flat.  The Patagonian steppe is dry, arid and peppered with low-lying vegetation, mainly small round bushes and clumps of grass, which are enjoyed by a few fat sheep, guanacos (llamas without woolly coats), enormous rabbits – or hares – foxes, and ostrich-like rheas.  But, as with the whole of the Andes, most of the rain falls on the Chilean side, so gradually the steppe turns greener and more lush.  Chilean sheep require fewer square kilometres of steppe to graze on and fatten.   

Despite the green, it is still dry.  And Torres del Paine suffered major forest fires around Christmas that closed the entire park (nearly 600,000 acres) for 10 days and the area around the Grey Glacier is still closed. A helicopter bearing a water scoop lands next to us when we stop to pay our entrance fee and we see smoke rising in the distance during our stay there.  We also see the effect of the fires as we take the scenic route to our hotel. The lakes and mountains here are stunning, with black and grey crags towering above forested slopes – many now burned and blacked - in turn rising out of vast lakes of glacial blue waters.  The fires flashed over roads, rivers and lakes pushed on by the high winds which are normal at this time of year.  Only a change in wind direction saved the area from greater devastation.

Fortunately, the area around our hotel, which nestles below the Torres has not been affected by the fire.  We have not been backpacking our way round Argentina, but even so our previous hotels have been modest by the standards of Hotel Las Torres, our home for our 2 nights in the park.  There aren’t many options here, and given a choice between a smart hotel and camping, there’s only one thing to do. We know it’s going to be expensive – but we’re going to enjoy it.

Climb every mountain - to Mount FitzRoy and back

We catch a bus north, to spend a few days in another part of Los Glaciares national park El Chalten is barely more than a village and still has the feel of a frontier town. Outside of high season, the local population is just a few hundred strong, but this is hiking and climbing country and their number is boosted by friendly young Argentinians eager to spend time in this dramatically beautiful area and work a season or two at the hotels, hostels, camp sites, bars, restaurants and outdoor shops that support the growing tourist trade.

The Park Rangers’ office is a compulsory first stop for everyone entering the town. Not only to find out about the range of trekking trails, but also to receive instructions on behaviour in the park – sticking to the trails, no smoking except in town and on campsites, no camp fires, all waste to be brought back to town, etc, etc.

The mountain range here is instantly recognisable as the logo of the Patagonia clothing brand, and the jagged sheer black peaks of Mount FitzRoy and Cerro Torre attract some of the world’s best mountaineers.  We content ourselves with walking up the trails to viewpoints and base camps and leave the vertiginous climbing to others.

We arrive at lunchtime, so on day one we walk for a couple of hours to viewpoints on either side of the valley.  The sun is shining.  It is very beautiful.  It is also very, very hot. And the dust covered trails are tinder dry. You can understand the park ranger’s stern restrictions on smoking and fires.

Day two is set aside for our longest hike.  The Laguna de Los Tres trail is billed at the best in the area. It is 8 miles one way, with a final steep climb of 400m to the blue lagoon nestling under the giant granite walls of Mount FitzRoy.  We set off uncertain that we will make the final climb, but with a contingency plan to veer off the route to a viewpoint for Laguna Capri under the Cerro Torre if we don’t.

It’s another hot, sunny day but – heeding the local advice to dress like an onion as the weather is so unpredictable - we set off with our knapsacks on our back stuffed with fleeces, waterproofs and lunch. We only need our packed lunch and lots and lots of water., refilling our bottles in rushing glacial streams and, when we finally zig zag our way to the the top of the trail, in the turquoise blue water of Laguna de Los Tres itself.  Yes, we did it!  And what a view. A row of dramatic peaks rising out of the blue lagoon and set against a clear blue sky.    We are very privileged.  El Chalten, the original Indian name for Mount FitzRoy means “volcano” – it is shrouded in cloud so often, they thought it was constantly smoking.

But then we have the long walk back.  The steep rocky descent from Laguna de Los Tres takes nearly as long as the hour long climb up and my knees are grateful for the hired walking poles.  At the bottom of the hill we take off boots and socks and step into an ice cold stream.  The sensation on my feet is so intense, it’s like an ice-cream headache.  But it feels much better when I put my boots back on.  Just as well as we have a 3 hour up and down walk ahead of us to get back to the hotel.  It’s a long walk home, but the thought of the cold beer waiting for us, and the wonderful views keep us going. 

By the time we hit town again, we have been on our feet for 10 hours.  A long, hard, but incredible day.  We fall into the first bar in town and down a well-earned beer.  And ten fall into the hotel’s warm, welcoming swimming pool to ease my aches and pains.  And finally, treat ourselves to a fantastic steak and a bottle of Malbec at Fuegia, a great little restaurant close to our hotel – so we don’t have to walk too far.  The meal is like nectar and staff are charming but not great at adding up.  They try to undercharge us.  Twice.  We do our own calculation and pay the right amount.  Not sure if they realised their mistake or just thought we were very generous tippers! 

We have most of a third day in El Chalten, as our bus doesn’t leave until 6.30pm.  Not enough time to do another full day’s hike (thank goodness!) but we manage a 3 hour walk to the Cerro Torre lookout under another brilliant blue sky.  It couldn’t get better than this.

Big Ice - Perito Moreno glacier

We take two flights and most of the day to travel south, to El Calafate in Patagonia.  At this point in the journey, I expected to break out the jumpers and long sleeve t-shirts lurking at the bottom of my bag.  But no.  At 6.30pm, it’s sunny and warm with not a breath of wind.  Could it be that I’ve over-packed?  Again!

El Calafate is the gateway to Los Glaciares national park and is named after the bushes that grow in abundance all over Patagonia.  Their berries both look and taste like a cross between blackcurrants and blueberries. If you eat them, it is said, you will return to Patagonia.  So we do, straight from the bush and in a scoop of delicious ice cream. The local tourist board is probably behind this saying as the town owes its existence to tourism and is growing fast to cope with increasing visitor numbers. But it is still tiny in comparison with the other cities we have visited, and has more in common with an attractive ski resort – though as it has the compulsory casino, it must be an Argentine city. 

We are up early the following morning to vist the Perito Moreno glacier, part of the southern Patagonian ice cap, the 4^th largest frozen  area in the world after both Polar regions and Greenland.  Surprisingly it is not high in the mountains.  This is a temperate glacier region, and the foot of the glacier is not far above sea level, surrounded by forests.  The reason there is so much ice here is down to geography. The moist air from the Pacific falls as snow over the Andes – as much as 800m a year – and compresses down into a dense mass of ice, which moves slowly down the mountain.  In Perito Moreno’s case, the movement is not so slow.  In summer, the inner part of the glacier can move by 3m a day, while the outer part moves more slowly at around 25cm a day.  The constant movement at different speeds, coupled with the melting of the glacier as it reaches lower levels causes the cracking and calving.

But while most glaciers are shrinking, Perito Moreno is growing.  It is actually classified as stable, as the ice calves off at one end in pretty much the same ratio that it renews itself at the other. And it is a truly breathtaking sight.

It measures 4,500m across and soars 50 or 60m above the turquoise blue lake it spreads into. It is HUGE, though it not the largest in the park, just the most accessible. At the moment it splits the lake in two, as the ice has reached land to form a dam.  This happens every few years and causes the depth of the lake to rise on one side of the glacier.  Eventually, the pressure of the water finds a path into ice in the narrow channel and sets of an explosive series of calving to open the channel, until the glacier advances once more.  I’m sure we saw the start of this happening, and will check over the coming weeks to see if the channel opens once more.

We spend over 2 hours on the viewing platforms taking photographs and videos, Within the first 10 minutes we see two huge chunks of ice – possibly the size of a bus - calve off the face of the glacier and fall spectacularly into the aptly named Iceberg Alley, with an explosion of sound.  You can hear the ice creaking and the sound of water running inside it, and find yourself staring at fissures in the face of the ice, convincing yourself that they are indeed getting wider and longer and that this section is the one to fall next.  Cameras set to video, we watch and wait.  And wait.  And watch.  And in anticipation of the next great fall, set the video running and overlay our very own David Attenborough commentary.  But do we capture the calving on film?  Of course not.  A watched glacier never calves.  Though we do see two more awesome falls on the other face of the glacier later in the day when my camera is stowed in my bag.

But the spectacle of calving is just part of the story.  There is the sheer scale of this vast expanse of glacial ice; the immense peaks and troughs of its surface; and its incredible blueness, an optical illusion due to the compactness of the ice so light takes longer to reflect.  To find out more, we put crampons on our feet and hike the ice for an hour and a half.  The ice has its own landscape of peaks and valleys, streams and gushing waterfalls, blue ice holes and caves.  It is a magical experience.  And as it draws to an end, our guide has a final surprise – a liquid picnic of scotch on the rocks, with freshly gathered glacial ice, naturally.

Clouds, colours, cacti and llamas – another slice of life in the Andes

Despite its lush green setting, just a few miles from Salta the road winds up into the high Andes once more.  This part of the country is near the borders of both Chile and Bolivia and it feels less European, more South American - not least because there are many ethnic indians, whereas elsewhere the local population is predominantly European. 

A two day trip from Salta allows us to explore a fair part of this landscape, starting with a Safari to the Clouds.  The clouds in question could well have been formed by the dust thrown up by the dirt roads, but we were following the route of the 4^th highest railway in the world.  The train used to be a vital link with Chile, but runs only for tourists now, but only during the Argentine winter and then only twice a week, and if conditions are right.  Our 4x4 tour proved far more reliable criss crossing the rail tracks on a road that rose far more quickly into the mountains.  Whoever built the railway decided it was too expensive to use the third rail needed for steep inclines, but I can’t see how the extra miles of track needed to keep to the prescribed gradient, not to mention the hours it added to the journey, were  ever cost effective. It crosses 29 bridges, 12 viaducts and goes 21 tunnels as well as two switchbacks designed to reduce the gradient. And there’s the added hazard of regular rock falls onto the track.  I’m sure trainspotters of the world love it. 

Our road journey takes us to the highest point of our trip, way over 4000m and most of the first day is above 3500m.  This time we take precautions and do what the locals do - drink plenty of coca mate (tea) before setting out and buy a bag of coca leaves to chew on the journey.  This seems to work as we don’t experience any shortness of breath – though it may be because the air is more humid than in Mendoza’s mountains and there is no wind.

After crossing the first high pass the landscape changes again as we enter the Altiplano – mile upon mile of dry, almost desert plain well over 3500m above sea level surrounded by distant snow-capped peaks.  Life up here is harsh, but we pass small settlements of families farming crops and llamas.  We stop for lunch at the most godforsaken place we have encountered – San Antonio de los Cobres.  There are no farms here, the two main employers are the army and the borax mining company. There is also a station on the train to the clouds route, but I’m sure it can’t be the final stop.  If it was, the little old ladies selling knitted llamas would have a field day.  I don’t need a llama, but I buy four to give them some pesos.  That’s how bad it is here. 

We continue crossing the Altiplano on a dirt road in parts washed out by summer rains passing a small herd of shy vicuna, to reach to Grandes Salines, which shimmer in the distance like a far-off sea.  They may be Argentina’s largest salt flats, but this is tiny in comparison with those in Bolivia, which may well be the size of Wales.  Nonetheless the reflection from the expanse of white is intense and despite slathering on the factor 50, my shoulders burn in 15 minutes.  But it is fun walking on the white crust and seeing the blue water channels where the salt has been commercially excavated.  Some of it may even end up in my grinder at home.

The Andes run down the spine of South America, so it should be no surprise that its composition changes from time to time.  But here it seems to change from minute to minute as we drive by hard rocky outcrops, soft sandstone carved into Tolkienesque elvin armies by the wind, and hills of multiple colours created by the rich mineral deposits.

We stop overnight in Purmamarca, a typical Andean village of low-rise adobe buildings spreading out from the town square, overlooked by a white-washed church.  From 8am to 8pm the town square is a riot of colour with stall after stall selling ponchos, shawls, jumpers and hats – or the chance to have your photograph taken with a very cute llama.  But we are here to see colours of a different kind – the seven-coloured mountain that stands behind the town.  Our hotel is at the base of the hill and the rooms, a delightful series of terracotta adobe hobbit houses, blends into the terracotta slopes.  The colourful mountain is at its best under the morning sun.  After feasting on llama and enjoying another evening of Pena music, we are up early to view the mountain.  It is an amazing site, with stripes of blue, green, ochre, red, pink, purple and tan signalling the mineral rich earth here.

Purmamarca sits at one end of the Quebrado de Humahuaca, an outstandingly beautiful gorge that is now a world heritage site.  We continue our journey along the valley floor, stopping at several towns along the gorge.  Tilcara, with views along the valley for miles in both directions, has been a key stronghold since pre-Incan times and played an important role during the revolutionary battles against Spain, when the Argentinean forces combined the fighting skills they had learned from the Spanish with their knowledge of the mountain terrain to form an effective guerrilla force.

The excavations of the pre-Incan village at Tilcara give a fascinating glimpse of life over 800 years ago.  The houses, used mainly for sleeping, were built of dry-walled stone with the roof supported by cactus trunks – which are surprisingly similar to wood.  The buildings had no windows as the gaps between the stone provided ventilation in summer.  In winter the walls were hung with leather to keep the cold winds out, and in the depths of winter, young llamas acted as hot water bottles.  Not so much a three dog night as a three llama night.   Llamas were vital to these communities, providing meat, leather, wool as well as being family pets.  And very delicious they are too.

Continuing along the valley, we cross the Tropic of Capricorn - apparently this means it is very hot here - but that was pretty obvious.

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At the end of the valley Humahuaca is a larger version of Purmamarca. The town square here boasts a colonial church and town hall – the latter containing a life-size clockwork priest who appears at midday to bless the assembled throng.  Sadly we don’t arrive until 3 so miss the performance, but he will no doubt be working overtime next month when the town celebrates Carnival – a 9-day bacchanal, followed by a population explosion 9 months later. 

  

Salta: Mummies and Music

We fly  north west over mile after mile of arid land until suddenly the ground beneath us turns green, with tree covered hills rolling down into vivid green pastures, and land in Salta.

Surrounded by hills, Salta has its own microclimate, producing far more rain, particularly now, in the summer months, than anywhere around it.  Architecturally, the Spanish colonial influence is more obvious here, due no doubt to the city’s proximity to the silver mines of present day Bolivia much treasured by Spain.  The main square is surrounded by a pretty pink cathedral, a low white cabildo (town hall) with typically arched windows and a number of other colonial buildings, one of which houses the fascinating “mummy museum”.  Elsewhere the decorative façade of the San Francisco church is dwarfed by a huge bell tower and many smaller colonial buildings now house shops, bars and hotels – including our own, the delightful Hotel del Virrey, full of colonial charm.

Salta is famous for two things – the best empanadas in Argentina, and the Pena (pronounced pen-ya) – the folk music and dance of the gaucho.  We sample them both – several times.

In both Mendoza and Salta there are whole streets devoted to eating and drinking.  Belcarce in Salta is also the place to see the best Pena shows. Stern-looking, but very cute, gauchos in wide-brimmed hats and wide-legged trousers tucked into their boots compete with each other, drumming furiously on cow-hide covered drums before breaking into wild dances, the footwork as fast and thrilling as that of the flamenco.  They show a romantic side in formal dances wooing skirt-swishing, handkerchief waving ladies – presumably after long, lonely months on the plains.  The pena folksongs are easy on the ear but, like the tango in Buenos Aires, tinged with melancholy.

The mummy museum – or museum of archaeology of the high mountains – is my favourite in Salta.  The mummies in question are three perfectly preserved Inca children who were found buried at the top of a mountain at over 6000m.  The video footage of the archeological team carefully unwrapping the cloak covering one of the children’s faces is riveting.  Every feature is preserved, even the lock of hair falling over one closed eye.  Child sacrifices were rare – and they were thought to be with their ancestors rather than dead – and used only after the death of an Incan ruler to cement the vast empire under the new Inca.  Carefully selected children – usually high born – were brought to Cusco from all corners of the Incan world.  These children would have walked many hundred, if not thousands of miles through present day Bolivia, crossing Lake Titicaca and the high Altiplano of Peru before descending to Cusco.  Here they were “married” to children from other communities in a splendid ceremony, before walking back home, where they were again feted before being marched up the mountain, given drink or drugs and sealed into their tomb still alive..  In the high mountain air it is unlikely they would wake, and the facial expressions on the mummified bodies look very peaceful.

We also stumble across Pajcha, a tiny private museum devoted to the art and craft of ethnic America – essentially the communities of Andean Peru, Bolivia and Argentina.  It is largely a collection made by one woman over 35 years and seeks to show the influence of the various cultures on each other – including the spread of the Incan empire and the Spanish – and how the distinctive art and craft styles live on today.  We are given a personal tour by Diego, the infectuously enthusiastic director. Amongst the beautiful silver jewellery and intricate weaving, he points out the strangest exhibit, and clearly his own research: photographs taken from 3 churches – 1 in Peru, 1 in Bolivia and 1 in Argentina showing paintings of “angels with firearms”.  The “angels” have coloured wings, are dressed in Spanish dress of the day and are priming guns – whether to fire on the devil or recalcitrant converts, no-one knows - not even the equally colourful, Diego.

Summer in the city

 Summer time, and the living in Mendoza is definitely easy.  Its buildings are not the most attractive in the world – the old ones were destroyed by earthquakes. But life is lived on the streets, not in the buildings. The heat of the day is offset by thousands of trees that shade every street and restful square in the city centre, watered by irrigation canals that separate road and pavement.  And a huge park, almost as big as the city centre, provides a landscaped, leafy recreation area.

After dark, when it is very slightly cooler than the day, the squares are full of families at play, entertained by impromptu theatre and music performances or just chatting with friends. They are happy and relaxed and so am I.

It is light until 9pm and in summer, the warmth of the day relaxes into long, balmy nights. This is a European city in South America, but a very different one to Buenos Aires.  Though it was established several centuries ago, the 19^th and early 20^th century immigrants from Spain and, especially, Italy have made this city their own.

In the heat of Mendoza, I begin to understand the rhythm of Argentinean life; it revolves around food.  A light breakfast -  usually a sweet croissant and coffee anytime up to 10.30.  Lunch around 1 or 2pm followed by the afternoon siesta, with shops reopening at 4 or 5pm.  Around 6 or 7pm another snack is called for, coffee and cake, or Italian ice-cream, or a glass of wine and antipasto. No self-respecting Mendozan would dine before 10pm, and by 11, restaurants and bars, their tables spilling out onto the streets are full. Along with the town’s wonderful ice-cream bars they do a roaring trade until the early hours of the morning – or maybe later.  By 2am, my northern European time clock has given up, and I head for bed.      

Mendoza Mountains Part 2 - In the steps of the Liberator

Mendoza is just 6 hours by road from Santiago, the capital of Chile, and we considered making the full journey and spending a few days across the border.  But then we found out that the buses often spent another 6 hours at the checkpoint while the border guards checked every article brought into the country, and decided against it.

Instead we followed Route 7 to Paso de Los Libertadores, the border with Chile, and turn back. Our route traces that of General Juan San Martin at the head of the Andean army that liberated first Argentina, then Chile and finally Peru from Spanish rule. While they did it on foot or on the back of a mule, we are in the relative comfort of an air-conditioned mini-bus.  

The journey is spectacular.  The carefully cultivated vineyards soon give way to the barren, slopes Mendoza’s own mountain range before climbing into the Andes through the Uspallata Valley and skirting Mount Aconcagua, at 6,962m the highest peak outside the Himalayas.  Of course, it is shrouded in cloud when we pass by. 

Our first stop is the reservoir that provides all of Mendoza’s water and much of its electricity. It is surrounded by desert mountain scrub, a clear sign that without the Andes snow, life would be impossible here.  And there are real fears about the effect of global warming.  Each year there is less snow, which means less water.  The Mendoza River is in full flood at the this time of year, but the channel of rushing water, chocolate brown with mineral sediment carried down from the mountain, covers barely a quarter of the river bed. But the locals have developed ingenious irrigation systems and the few towns and villages we pass on the road to the border announce themselves with rows of trees and green fields standing out against the arid landscape.

General San Martin’s army was not the first to pass this way.  The Inca civilisation spread through the Andes from Cusco, hundreds if not thousands of miles north.  One of their favoured spots was the hot thermal springs along the route.  Legend has it that the bridge across the river here, Puente del Inca, was formed by a line of Inca warriors stretching out to form a bridge for their ailing leader to reach the healing springs.  In reality the remarkable bridge is calcified water, created by the minerals in the springs.  There is no public access to the springs – this ended in the 60s, when the spa hotel there was swept away by an avalanche.  Judging by the roadside stalls, they are now mainly used to calcify old trainers to sell to passing tourists. 

The lorry drivers who regularly use the route are a superstitious bunch, leaving offerings at makeshift roadside memorials that commemorate unofficial “saints”.  The signature red shrine of Gaucho Gil is one of the most popular, but he is unlikely to be canonised. A Robin Hood figure, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, he was eventually sentenced to hang, proclaiming from the gallows his new mission to save the lives of those travelling the roads.  Another shrine to a woman who died in the mountains but whose baby lived by suckling at his dead mother’s breast is bizarrely marked by piles of plastic water bottles.

We manage the journey safely without their blessings, but instead of going through the tunnel to Chile, take a narrow, hair-curling dirt track to climb the 800m in 2 kilometres to the top of the pass where a statue of Christ marks the border between the two countries.  At over 3,800m and in dry, windy conditions the air is thin and scrabbling over the scree to get to the best viewpoints leaves you short of breath.  But once again we fared better than the Andean army, who were forced to eat onions and garlic to ward off altitude sickness.  It took them 22 days to reach Santiago.  I’m betting they won their freedom by breathing on the Spanish forces they met there.