The Great Escapade

Having travelled from the Equator to the Antarctic in the last 7 months and now being on the point of departure from this fascinating continent I thought I would just write a quick review of our time away so far. Starting in Quito, Ecudor, we have covered a vast distance largely by bus (I really wish we knew how many miles we have travelled so far) through 8 countries to end at the southern tip of this wonderful world with a real treat of a trip to Antarctica - our seventh continent!

We have enjoyed a range of climates and geographies from the seasonless constant spring of Quito, to the cold nights camping in the Andes, to the deserts of the Atacama, to the the beaches of the Costa Verde in Brazil, to the wild winds of Patagonia, and finally the icebergs and snow of Antartica. We have been hiking in the Andes in many places the length and bredth for many days, we have scuba dived in the Galapagos alongside orcas, snorkelled with sea lions and penguins, cycled through deserts in northern Argentina, ice climbed a mountain over 6,000m, browsed through numerous interesting museums, seen football matches in 3 countries, been to the opera in Santiago and Buenos Aires, sailed around the Galapagos and Antarctic, trekked through Amazon rainforest surrounded by wildlife and walked amongst many ancient sites of Pre-Colombian culture. We have seen so much varied wildlife from the whales of Argentina, to the monkeys of the rainforest, the penguins of Antarctica, the alpacas and guanacos of the Andes, and the giant condors swooping over our heads.

I am very sad to be leaving South America and could easily have spent our entire year away here. It feels as if a part of South America will stay with me and I will always long to return. We have done so much here, but there is so much more to see and learn. My favourite country was probably Argentina - and although it doesn't feature as much as I thought it would in the list below, the entire country is superb. We zig-zagged our way down from top to bottom and never had anything but a great time. The scenery is incredibly varied, the wildlife is superb and the people here are the friendliest we have encountered anywhere. It is not as culturally interesting as other countries - particularly those in the north, but the history is worth anyone's time to delve into a little - with army juntas, dictators, explorers, indians, immigration, wars, and missing people.

Bolivia and Ecuador were my other favourites being so beautiful - Bolivia has an extraordinary geography in a relatively small country, and Ecuador is so underrated as a tourist destination yet is is so picturesque with a huge variety of options that you could easily spend 3 months there alone. The culture of the Andean people is much more evident in these countries than anywhere else and the rise of this culture seemingly to return to clash once more with the legacy of the Spanish colonial period is so interesting to try to understand from a variety of perspectives.

Language-wise, we have had a great opportunity to begin to learn a new language. I have never spoken a language as well as this before and although it is not great, we can say pretty much what we want in all situations, we can converse in the past and future and although the grammar and the accent is far from perfect, the message is clear enough. Unless we lived here for a significant period of time, it would never get any better than this as tourist-speak is very unchanging and gives little opportunity to expand vocabulary and knowledge. That said - I am still very pleased to have got to this stage and would love to take it further in the near future.

There have been highlights too numerous to mention again, but for me, the ultimate highlights so far have been as follows (in no particular order):

1. The Galapagos (Ecuador) - the first place we really visited and still my favourite. Unbelievable variety and accessibility to wildlife on the shores and in the seas.

2. Antarctica - unique scenes and a real privilege to have seen a little piece of.

3. The Pampas of northern Bolivia - one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet and swarming with life.

4. The Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) - from salt plains, to volcanoes, to deserts, strange rock formations, geysers, to crimson, turquoise and green flamingo inhabited lakes all in 4 days.

5. Huayhuash trek (Peru) - despite the kidnapping - the scenery was some of the best in South America and the trek was a good achievement with challenging passes every day.

6. Huayna Potosi (Bolivia) - climbing any mountain over 6,000m is a great achievement, but ice-climbing up 60 degree slopes in the middle of the night just added to the whole experience.

7. Iguazu Falls (Argentina-Brazil) - even after having seen Niagra - these falls still make you catch your breath - simply stunning and you are able to see them from so many points.

8. Nasca Lines (Peru) - definitely the strangest thing I have ever seen - whether man-made or naturally occuring. Truly fascinating to view and consider how and why they were made.

9. Torres del Paine national park (Chile) - stunning vistas, wonderful camping, great people and enjoyable hiking every day.

10. The pre-Inca sites of Northern Peru - interesting history of the pre Inca civilizations and fascinating ruins that are just being discovered right now. No tourists. Much more interesting and exciting than Macchu Pichu.

We are safely back on dry land after our 11 day cruise to Antartica. We have seen just a little piece of this wonderful white world, but what we saw was magnificent.

Setting off from Ushuaia aboard our little ship (70 people including crew) appropriately called the Ushuaia, we passed through the Beagle Channel with Chile to our right and Argentina to our left. The first night passed without too much incident then we headed into the dreaded Drake Passage - one of the world's roughest sea crossings. Apparently we were lucky and it was relatively calm - I was sick 4 times! I kept looking at the sea and it didn't look too rough, but the boat was rolling around from side to side - I am sure that someone should have designed ships so that they don't roll this much by now. This 1000km crossing took 2 days, so I got quite well acquainted with our cabin and the bin!

I was stirred from my sickness by an announcement that the first icebergs had been spotted. We saw a few little bergs in Argentina around the glaciars, but nothing prepared me for this supreme sight. An iceberg far bigger than our ship, weathered by sea and wind, white and blue and huge. Just as I was marvelling at this wonder we spotted several orcas off the starboard side close to the ship - what a sight! This brought me out of my sick slumber and I never felt bad again really for the rest of trip - even on the return through the Passage.

We spent 3 days sailing around the South Shetland Islands, to the west of the Antartic Peninsular and 1000km south of Ushuaia. I had thought that these were British islands, but they are also claimed by Argentina and Chile. When the Antartic Treaty was signed in the 1950s, they became part of the Antartic and neutral territory (although all the above claims still exist).

The islands are all volcanic, black and rusty coloured at times. Snow-covered, but black volcanic rubble strewn along the beaches and mountains. We landed twice a day on different islands to see a variety of wildlife, scenery and historic sites. Some of the landings were "wet" - and they mean wet - absolutely soaking. Big waves crashing over the side of the zodiac launches - ice cold snow flying into your face horizontally, stepping into the sea such that it fills your wellies, then spending 2 hours on land in the Antarctic chill. It was a little different from the easy life of the Galapagos cruise but the landings got progressively calmer and drier as we went on.

We visited colonies of Adelie penguins, Gentoo penguins, and Chinstrap penguins - some of these colonies were huge - up to 60,000 pairs. They were not as big as the Magallenic penguin colony we saw in east Argentina which had around 1 million birds, but the colonies on Antarctica were much more evident because they all stand above ground, very close together to keep warm - so it really is like seeing David Atttenborough footage. Wonderful creatures to watch, waddling upshore, sliding down snow slopes on their bellies, jumping out of the water onto small bergs like a cork flying out of a bottle, turning their eggs with their beaks, mating. I never tired of seeing more penguins and my photos probably reflect this! Nick and I just sat quietly by an ice covered lake on one island surrounded by penguins nesting and talking to each other. A deputation of about 15 penguins were walking in single file along the lakeside and saw us a few metres away - looked a little uncertain about proceeding, but then seemed to stide out (or waddle out) with determination within about a metre of us. One by one they passed us, some having a look at the funny humans, others just concentrating very hard on walking without falling over. One of the most magical moments of our trip so far.

We spotted several seal species, Weddell, fur,vicious leopard seals and elephant seals, many birds - albatrosses, petrels, gulls, skuas - one flew straight past with a penguin egg firmly grasped in its beak! We also saw minky whales from the boat on several occasions.

We visited several sights of historic importance including old whaling stations and British WW2 bases and 2 expedition huts from the Nordenskojd expedition in the early 1900s where in all 30 men survived for 1 year in Antarctica in stone huts, eating seals and penguins, until they could be rescued. We also visted a scientific research station and a logistical base.

Landing at Deception Island - a partly submerged, still-active volcano (previously a whaling station and a British WW2 base, but plenty of wildlife to see too) - we were able to take a dip in the Antarctic waters! The crew kindly dug a bathing pool into the black, volcanic shingle surrounding the crater that was lovely and toasty - especially with a good slug of vodka - vodka has never tasted so good! However, changing into swimsuits on the shore, being buffeted by a stiff, Antarctic, icy wind was an experience. Changing back again after the dip was even more icy! Nick decided to plunge himself into the actual Antarctic sea prior to the volcanic waters - so that it would feel even warmer once in them. I have never seen someone look so cold as he did on emerging from his dive into the sea.

From the South Shetlands we tried to head south to reach the Peninsular itself. The ship was crashing through iceflows, the hull tearing the chunks of ice apart. An exciting and impressive sight to see - the sea as far as you could see was covered in chunks of ice and our ship was plunging through it all. Unfortunately the ice pack started closing in on us and when we found out that the ship a few hours ahead of us was stuck in the pack for several hours there was no choice but to turn back. I had visions of us recreating Shackleton's expedition!

Fortunately the seas around the north of the Peninsular were relatively ice free so we tried a landing there and succeeded - it wouldn't have been quite the same not to have touched the real continent itself. We landed in Hope Bay, an Argentinian logistical base, and we were received with a great welcome and huge hospitality. The "locals" were keen to show us their little settlement of 40 people, including a school for the 21 children - a memory that will stay with me for a long time was the school children who were so excited to see us, trying their English out with us.

From here we visited Elephant Island - the first island that Shackleton reached after over a year stranded on the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. The isand is very mountainous with enormous glaciars spilling down from the mountain tops into the rough surrounding seas. We saw the beaches that the Shackleton party landed on - I am sure that the land was a welcome sight to the men after so long without it, but the island is very bleak and almost impossible to land on even with today's equipment. We had to abandon our attempts as it was too rough, but Shackleton managed it with 3 battered old rowing boats and a crew of underfed, sick and exhausted men. Most of the men then stayed on the island for 4.5 months on an unsheltered beach, soaking wet and cold, living under their rowing boats and eating seals.

Around Elephant Island we cruised though some superb scenery - enormous icebergs as far as the eye could see of various shapes having been sculpted by the weather. The odd one had a few penguins or a seal atop them. Beautiful blues and whites, ice caves, crevasses, cracks.
Then we came upon a supreme sight - a vast tabular iceberg around 1 mile long and at least 50 metres high. We sailed all the way around it at very close quarters - its remarkably smooth surface and the sheer size of the thing just took my breath away. Absolutely awesome.

The scenery in Antarctic is totally unique - I have not seen anything akin to this before. The icebergs and the penguin colonies were the highlights for me and rank very close to the best things we have seen so far. There is not the enormous variety of wildlife that you can see in the Galapagos, but the "otherworldness" of the trip will stand out in my mind forever. A truly special few days.

The average age of the passengers was probably early 30s, which was a surprise for us. We had thought we would be amongst the blue rinse brigade. A good group of mostly Europeans travelling around the world, interested in seeing a little piece of what, for most of us, was our seventh continent.

From the sublime to the.....well - from here we travel back to Chile for a couple of days then fly to LA for 3 days, then onto Hawaii. So within a week we will travel from Antarctica to Hawaii! Life is good!!!

We are now oficially heading home passing the halfway point of our trip on 5 November. Not a great thought, but if the second 6 months are anything like as amazing as the first 6 months then this will be an epic year away for us both.

Returning to Chile for 10 days to explore some of the southern region was a great experience. Last time we were in Chile we were visiting the Atacama desert, the fertile valleys in the north and Santiago. The south of the country is very different. Lots of fjords, mountains, lakes, volcanoes and abundantly green everywhere. Crossing over the mountains from the brown, dusty deserts surrounding El Calafate in Argentina to the lush green valleys dropping down to the fjords of Chile was an interesting change in only 5 hours.

Our main reason for coming back to Chile was to do some hiking in the Torres del Paine National Park which is one of South America's most famous areas. Puerto Natales is the nearest town and the place to organise our trek. The town is situated on the fjords themselves, staring out towards the snow-capped mountains. A very sleepy little place with houses constructed from colourful corrugated iron. We sorted out our supplies and tent accommodation for a 5 day trek (called the W circuit) through the park to start the following day.

The drive up to the park from Puerto Natales was an event in itself and felt like we were on safari. We passed herds of guanacos (llama-like animals), flocks of rhea - some with little babies that kept falling over as they scampered to follow their mother, condors, grey foxes, a skunk and Patagonian hares. The walking was about 6 hours on average per day with one colossal 10 hour day. The scenery is breathtaking and changes every time you go over a little pass or round a mountain side. The main spectacle is the towers themselves - huge granite towers rising to around 3000m - which we climbed up to view on the first day - on the righthandside of the "W". Unlike in Fitz Roy we got to see these towers in all their glory with beautiful clear blue skies. They are hugely impressive, standing across from a turquoise coloured lake with glaciars tumbling from the base of the towers into the lake. On other days we walked around mountains, overlooked different coloured lakes, watched condors soaring overhead, gazed at the beautiful Glaciar Grey with its blue coloured caves and steeples formed in the ice.

It must be the most perfect time of year to visit with spring in full bloom. The trees are all a fresh, clean, new green, the birds are cheeping to their hearts content, the hares are chasing one another around in pairs, the lakes and waterfalls are all full of the melting snows and the avalanches and glaciars are releasing snowfalls to dramatic effect as they warm in the sun. We had the best weather possible with 5 days of sun and blue skies which is almost unheard of here.

What really made the trip wonderful was the people we met. Everyone seemed almost like they were on some Aldous Huxley soma-like drug, they were so happy - glorious weather and scenery just does this to people. We met every night in the refugios for a decent 3 course meal with a couple from Sweden, a couple from Oz and a Brit from East Ham (who sensibly had never ventured 1 mile away to Upton Park). We camped in tents but in the way that I like to camp - superb locations for the tents, but hiring the tents at every refugio so we didn't have to carry them up the steep passes. The third night was so extremely windy that I had barely any sleep - the tent was concaving in on top of my head and was extraordinarily loud - Nick, however, was gently snoring away as we were almost blown away in hurricane winds! People in the towns in this area have to hold onto lamposts when the winds get this strong, but in the park there are no lamposts and walking and pitching a tent can cause comic effect at times. The hike was not too difficult at all - nothing like the trek we did in Northen Peru and I think some of the guide books go a bit over the top in describing how difficult it is as neither of us had any problems at all. I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who is in to trekking or climbing though as the views and variety of scenery are truly excellent.

On the big trip south and yet further south, we stopped for a couple of uneventful days in the southern most cityof Chile - Punta Arenas. An odd place that was once a big, thriving, port city and one of the most important in the world before the Panama Canal was completed - rendering Punta Arenas redundant. An interesting museum on Tierra del Fuego, the indigineous peoples of the area and the explorers who visited here, including Darwin on the Beagle. There were 4 tribes of indians that lived in Tierra del Fuego - all are now extinct. When the European immigrants first settled here in 1880 the local population was decimated by disease and was hunted by the Europeans. The commencement of sealing and whaling in the 19th century and later the discovery of gold in the early 20th century only made matters worse, and by 1910 there were fewer than 50 of the Yamana tribe remaining (from a population of 3,000 in 1880). The last pure indian women died in 1982. There are mestizos here now but no pure indians and it is very sad to look at relatively recent photos of the now-extinct tribesmen living in the early 20th century in a way that no longer exists. All that remain are these photos and piles of mussel shells that they deposited as rubbish outside their nomadic makeshift houses over generations.

Our penultimate stop in South America was the southern most city in the world - Ushuaia - back in Argentina. We are no longer on the mainland, and firmly based on the island archipelego of Tierra del Fuego. Tierra del Fuego (or Land of Fire) was so-called by the early explorers and sailers who discovered this part of the world, due to the fires lit by the indigineous indians here that were visible from the oceans. Ushuaia has a real end of the world feel a we stare out across the Beagle channel towards the little bit of Chile that runs south into the ocean and on to Antarctica. The nights are long with the sun going down around 9pm and the dark only setting in around 10pm. The city's backdrop is mountains and the national park of Tierra del Fuego itself. We walked in the park itself and up to a nearby glaciar. The scenery is more desolate here than further north and not quite as striking - but then we have been rather spoilt in that regard. There are low mountains, lakes and abundant rivers, forests of beech trees; the sea shores are lined by mussels and crab making for a delicious local cuisine. There are beavers, rabbits and guanacos, and various sea and lake birds.

The city was where some of the Argentinian Navy was based during The Falklands Conflict, and it is here that the subject is perhaps the most sensitive of anywhere in Argentina. There are a few monuments to the war and the dead with big cutouts and outlines of the islands, painted in the Argentinian sky-blue and white flag, with the statement "Volveremos" - We will return! and Te Esperamos Las Malvinas- We are waiting for you!

All in all, we had a very relaxing time here, staying in a family run B&B where we encountered the Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition team (not sure I have ever met a Bulgarian before) and a very doddery English chap well into his 70s who had been travelling around South America by himself for the last 10 weeks. To me this is incredible - he can barely walk, speaks no Spanish, yet he has journeyed from Rio to Ushauaia, gone from Brazilian amazon rainforest to Lima overland, which is not for the faint-hearted, let alone someone who is very immobile. After chilling out in cafes, museums and the cinema when not exloring the countryside we now await our new journey's commencement.

From here we are about to set off on a very exciting adventure to Antarctica - our seventh continent. I will report back on our 11 day cruise on our return.