Posted 3:00 PM by Gobbler
The southern tip of the blog

here i am in punta arenas, chile. yesterday i was in argentina glaciar spotting, adn tomorrow, shortly after England ecome world cup rugby champions, I will go to the Falklands Islands. Which i think you will find are a british Territpory. There i intend to eat fish and chips, dirnk bitter andenjoy the lovely local scenery. i heard from a friend that they have seals and whales and penguins and birds of various varieties (other than penguisn) and sheep and everything. this is GREAT!!! Except of course for the penguins, cos i went to see penguins the other day.

Yesterday to be precise. Now, everyonr knows what penguins look like, they are on telly quite a lot and they look pretty cool. They also wlak funny, waddling along as they do. What people dont realise, at ñleast what i didnt really realse, is just how funny. Penguins are Damn Funny when they walk. not in a train like way but damn funny nevertheless. I didint see one fall over but when they walked over rocks and beach debris they certainly wobbled a bit. this was highly amusing, watching their little wings flap about as they struggled to retain balance. Very fat people, it seems to me, are wquite similar. they waddle, their arms look rather unnatural sticking out of ther fat bodies, they have por balnace nad they move much more freely in watre. The key difference is that penguuins were built thsat way. Penguins are also very cool, fat people are fat and sweaty. And i should know, being a bit of a fatty myself. Penguins, at lkeast these pengiuins (the traditional black and white penguins, the sort that feature on packs of p-p-p-p-p-p-pp-pick up a penguiin packets) live in holes in the earth. Fat people do not live in holes in the ground, at least nhot until their heart has had enough and they pop their clogs, becuase, apart from the minor point that its pretty rubbish livinhg in a hole in the ground (and in any case pengiuns woiuld disagree), fat people are too fat to get into holes. All hail pengiuins.

The day befpore yesterday i went to see a glacier. being in patagonia and it being cols down here and all they ahve glaciaers, and being a tourist and all i was contractually obliged to go and see on. in argentina they have cuningly created a national park calle dthe Glacier National park. they could have called it Bobs national park but cñlearly this would not have drawn in the toursts. El Calafate is the town nearby the glacier the tourists go and see. Its in a fairly desolate part of the world but is in a valley out of the wind. on the side of lake Argentino, it has pleasant tree lined streets and a friendly atmosphere. its centre is wholly adapted to plundering the tourists who stop off to see the glacier, and every building down the main street and many of the surrounding streets is a hotel or restauarnt or gift shop or something touristy of ythe sort. handy for us.

But i wasnt that excited about the glacier. Well why should i be? knew what glkaciers look like, i have done for a long time. Moreovder, i knew what this glaier looked like, having seen pictures of it many times before. My guidebook has a picture of it for a start. its not even all that big by glacier standards. the only reason all the tourists go there is because theres a headland which comes right up to the fron of it so you can drive to its very face. I knew this because i had seen the pictiure. Unexcited though i was, as a good tourist it was my dewstiny to go.

The five of us drove up in our hired 4x4. Sliced, Grilled, Mathei and Liz, who was slowly recovering from a bacterium riddled burger that had earlier prompted much orifice ejection action and which would send her to bed early that night. Everyone seemed quite excited, even liz despite her stomach cramp. i was asleep in the back. Im a hardcore traveller you know, glaciers dont impress me. Glaciers Shmaciers. But this sentiment was not to last.

I woke up shortly after the glacier had first been spotted. in seconds i had seen it too. Big bugger it was. AS the car wound round the headland on the way tpo trhe viewpint, the glacier was usually concealed, but every few minutes it reappeared again. Each time it had grown bigger, bluer and more beautiful, and i less ambivalent. It was fantastic. 50-55 metres tall and 14 km long. The viewpoint gets you within about 100 metres oif it, and we were even rewarded by a chunbk of it falling away, crashing its way into the sea. This is quite normal, the whole thing is not crumbling away from global warming. The Moreno Glacier is in fact one of the worlds few advancing icefields. Cynical nick i am no longer. glaciers are great.

I am late again. tonight we are having dutch christmas. normally its the fifth of december when the4 dutch kiddlywinks put their clogs outside their doors and Santa Claus comes over from Spain (of all places) with his negro helpers(nice and politically correct) to give the good children presents. Meanwhile and afterwards, the parents and adults get blotto on beer and possibly fine wine too. Tonight i have been assured we will be doing the adult part, Santa Claus not being hugely active in this region. The group tonight will be myself (Chico-llama, dont ask), sliced and grilled, who now call themselves 'The Completos', 'Son of Condor', Baldy and Blondy, (or simply 'The Gays', ask the completos) liz and mathei (yet to have real names) and Knut (the german with a name so marvellous he doesnt need a nickname). Then at 4:30 am local time (its 8 pm now) the rugby starts. England v Australia world cup final (unlike american football, which is based on Rugby, world cup rugby involves more than one country) in for a real treat there. then at 12:50 tomorrow lunchtime i fly to teh falklands. how marvellous.

cant access talkbacks. late anyway. to the colonies, punks, and more besides. I have five countries left before returning to blighty,a dn four weeks...

Posted 2:31 PM by Gobbler
The Hikers Blog To Patagonia

Los Torres Del Paine. translated as 'The Towers of Pain'

Since the last blog I've been walking around a bit in the torres del paine national park. With grilled tomato, sliced cucumber and Rafe, an english fellow we met on the boat. Last thursday, crickey, a while ago now, we bought supplies for the four day trip. We stayed for one night in the small town of 18000 people, or was it 8000. Its small and the climate fairly grim, but the cluster of grid-patterned streets of one and two-storey, corrugated iron, concrete, brick and wood buildings make for an attractive and surprisingly vibrant place. I had a burger for lunch. Unfortunately it was mushy. Mushy burgers aer not the ticket.

Bridge!

We then spent the evening playing bridge. hoh yes, i did say bridge. BRIDGE. Game for the over 60's strictly. The Rotary Club. The Golf Club. The Country Club. The London Club. Hell, the Bridge Club for the good Lords sake. The old folks home. Grandmas house. And now Puerto Natales. Most of you probably think that bridge is a crap game played by old people, who have to play bridge for two key and complimentary reasons.

1) they are retired and thus bored to death (apparently daytime tv only gets worse the older you get, truly a grim prospect) and need to play games to keep them entertained.

2) they are old and thus frail and thus must play bridge. This is because if they played a game even remotely exciting their pulses would rise dangerously and they would probably die. Bridge is safe.

This is nonsense. Truth is, bridge is a marvellous game full of glorious peaks and troughs in the gameplay. Fact is, most of you punks out there dont know how to play bridge, its a little too complicated for you. This makes you fools, and i, like B. A. Baracas, pity the the fools. And at the same time i play bridge.

We enjoyed the bridge and rafe and i won. Or maybe we lost. You see, it was just such great fun that i dont remember what happened. Next day we went hiking.

Hiking!

Due to a heavy nights bridging i slept on the bus to the park. At about half eleven we reached the park boundary and drifted into the entrance building to pay our dues. After a few minutes the bus attendant indicated he was going to leave and i said chao or adios or at least something to indicate a 'cheerio' sentiment. people round here, being foreign, infrequently comprehend 'cheerio'. 'Toodle pip!' is answered by 'Que?' and 'Ta taa' receives the retort "this aint a fish and chips shop pal. Try next door" (ta taa - tatar - the sauce - oh nevermind) Seconds later grilled tomato came out of the entrance building and said "hey, wheres my bag?" Grilled had failed to take her bag off the bus. As the bus disappeared into the dust and over the hill we realised that a minor techical problem had occured of the type that frequently prompts the participants to vigourously employ expletives of, though disperate and colourful meaning, unified sentiment that can be summed up here for the sake of brevity as 'Oh. Oh dear. Oh dear me.' Apollo 13 put it as 'Houston, we have a problem' and a British crew in a similar situation would no doubt have said instead 'Houston, we appear to be in a bit of a pickle.'

Now, i had my bag and so didnt personally care, but Grilled wasnt too pleased. Calls were made and it turned out that the bus would return a few hours later. A little lunch was had and then Rafe and i took off for the first checkpoint, where the girls, that is sliced and grilled, could get a minibus to some hours later.

Despite the temporary loss of bag, things were looking good. The normally troublesome weather was fine, the towers and surrounding ice capped, glaciar frilled mountains provided a stunning vista as we set off. A herd of Juanacas (a bit like a llama and therefore damned fine creatures) trotted past, and a cool breeze brushed our faces.

In due course rafe and i met up with sliced and grilled and we continued up to our first camp. This 2 hr wlak involved something people the world over term a steep hill. We have no problem with this, it happens. But alas for poor gilled and sliced, from Holland. They have problems enough with sleeping policemen and minor undulations in the landscape. they are not physically designed for tackling slopes of more than a 2-3% incline. Add to this the fact that they have been pursuing lung cancer with admirable dedication for a decade or two, as most nurses seem to do, and what we had on our hands was a bit of a mission. Taking some tins of food and other heavy items out of grilled's bag she was heard remarking, as she put her rucksack back on, "I think my bag is lighter now." Its nice to see that despite teh physical hardships her mental faculties were undiminished. This fact was bourne out later when she commanded the bridge game we were later to play. I should like here to complain about people beating me at games that i have just taught them. its really not fair. Eventually we surmounted the crest of the hill, and not long after reached our camp. I bought a coke when we got there. it was a pound fifty, something of a hideous rip off and not even cold. only later did i discover that i could have bought a beer for the same money. tchahh. The camp wasnt bad but even with my wooly clad bodice i was a trifle chilly in the night. I put this down to having no ground mat, me being too stingy to purchase one. It cost three pounds you know.

Next morning rafe and i set off early to climb the moraine to get a good view of the torres. three big rocks poking in the air About 1500 metres in the air. a must see to all you rock lovers out there. some people even climb the things. But then some people are stupid. As we descended the moraine on the 1 1/2 hour fast walk back to camp the mists closed in and the torres were obscured. teh weather had been kind. The same haped the next day, Avalanche day, and the next, Glaciar day. I account for this luck in a very simple and logical fashion. I am english. (actually im half irish but ive lived in england all my born days and therefore for the purposes of the forthcoming arguement as english as earl grey tea) England has fairly rubbish weather most of the time. My theory is that god knows this and therefore has granted me a repreive when it comes to potential bad weather spots elsewhere in the world. I'm pretty lucky with foreign weather. To return to where we left off, the second day, Torres Day, was completed by a four 1/2 or five hour walk fom one camp to the next, the highlight of which was three condors flying just 20 metres directly overhead.

Day Three: Avalanche Day

Avalance day started off by getting the hell out of the campsite, after breakfast and relevant morning activities of the sort. By this stage our retinue had grown to 8, as we had picked up two german lads and a dutch couple, all of whom we had met on the boat. (the boat stories will come in due course, but of course in the course of this discourse i have not time to recourse to the course of the boat, the first course, last course and of course the main course of the coarse dinner on the boat, the non-existent golf course which of course did not exist. If you see what i mean and have not become bamboozled).

While the germans left our group to make for the boat and sliced and grilled took in some rest time by a bridge, four of us motores up a valley to get a view of a small glaciar. All day we had been hearing and sometimes seeing small avalanches as snow and ice made its way from the peaks to the glaciar below. We made the climb in good time and waited at the viewpoint for a big fat avalanche. The weather afforded us a perfect view but the avalanches werent playing ball. jumping up and down in an attempt to vibrate the things into action and shouts of abuse aimed at the same only brought the miserablest of snowfalls and hushed wispers were passed around that the tiny avalanche had nothing to do with us anyway. Horrible it was, just horrible. we came all that way and we didnt get to see a decent avalanche. i mean what is all that about. A combination of being very cold and short on time meant that before long we had to turn around, and suer enough, as we descended tho?rough the trees, out of sight of the glacier, we heard about five avalanches. Ah, it was cr*p anyway. It was about five hours to the next camp, a very windy affair.

Day Four: Glacier Day

The dutchies got up at seven the next day to set off for the glacier viewpoint. the plan after that was to walk to the exit point rather than pay 20 dollars for teh boat ride. As this was a five hour 20km walk they wanted plenty of time. The bus was at half 6. The viewpoint was supposed to be an hour way. Thats two hours to the viewpoint and back, and five hours to the exit. Say an hour for lunch and other breaks. That makes eight hours. By my book that meant we could leave at 10:00 am and still make it, so rafe and i didnt get up at 7, but 8:15. Unfortunately it was 1hr 45 to the glaciar viewpoint. That meant 8 1/2 hours walking. We left at 10:15. We did not have enough time to get to the viewpoint. Unless we pegged it. We pegged it.

I eventually got to the viewpoin in an hour and ten minutes of walking/jogging/running, and made ti back to camp by 12:35. This is good work people, all those hikes with the dear old rentals stood me in good stead for this one. And there was excellent weather going up to the glacier. The five hour hike to the bus stop was a little different.

Most of the 20 km trek out of the park is flat, across grassland, and the wind ripped across the plain. As thick ominous clouds enveloped the areas we had been walking the three previous days, a vicious wind blew us out of the park, as if the park was evicting us. "All right, youve had youre good weather, now be off with you." it said. Despite tired legs and aching feet we made the distance in 3 hrs 45, if you dont count the half hour lunch break. some legends say that the lunch break was actually forty minutes, meaning a walk of 3:35 mins. speedy. As we got into the bus, reunited with the dutch couple, the rain started. As we left the park it was cloudy, wet, windy and very cold. we had been lucky. We returned home, had dinner, excelently prepared by sliced and grilled, and played bridge.

Sausages are great

I love a good sausages. Sauages are great. It was these kinds of comments that once upon a time earnt me the name chippy from chipolata, but i stand by my sausages. Once i thought that the only decent sausage was a grilled sausage or a fried sausage, but i have mellowed in my old age. Sausages of the german and french variety are good too. The salami types and the types individuals of taste have with bread, biscuits, cheese and of course fine wine. When hiking in the Austrian Alps last year with a german friend of mine, Sebastian of Sausageland Glaser, who is a foul specimen of humanity, of dubious sanity and untold vanity (and looks like a manitee) we ate dried up and wrinkly german sausage for our snacks. they were very tasty, and i bought the same for this little soiree into patagonia. i can honestly say that the torres del paine were conquered with sausage power. which is nice.

Tomorrow is glacier national park in argentina. back on the blog in two days.

Laura: Glad your postcard arrived, i was beginning to worry! Evil Uncle: Roll on the final. I'll be able to celebrate with all the Falkland Islanders! Lovelybubbley: Just about manged to avoid NHB after hike. There was a bath and a plug and hot water and everything, but i managed to have a shower instead... Kat: not enough communication between the characters, yes i agree. thats just the problem with society these days. Despite all these newfanlged methods of communicating nowadays, people dont seem to communicate enough. now, in my day... when penguin is spotted it will be waved at. Roger Roger. Holly Spice mkIV: Sorry i'm afraid that as an officer, a scholar and above all a gentleman I am unable to divulge that information you saucy young thing. Hockey Rich: Sorry i'm afraid that as an officer, a scholar and above all a gentleman I am unable to divulge that information nod nod wink wink good work soldier. Jolly Mr Tom the Cabin Roger: Who won the chess anyhow? Nothing like a good spot of chess. except possibly a dollop of bridge. Rach: Oh. Bugger.

Handily at that point i do have to go. Evil Uncles cryptic message, which is very much like a foreign tongue will have to be examined in further dteail at a later date. adn teh rest. ah, that was going to be funny but im out of time. cheerio