Feb 24-27 Potosi - Riches to Rags, and a tourist attraction my insurance company would never approve of.

Potosi sits at 4,070 metres above sea level, making it the highest city in the world (La Paz is only 3,500 or so once you descend from the dizzying heights of its airport). It's also a UNESCO city of culture. But these aren't the only accolades it's ever held - in the early 17th Century, it is also said to have been the biggest and richest city in the world. Bigger and richer than London, Paris,.....apparently. The source of all this wealth: Cerro Rico (rich mountain). A peculiar red hill that sticks up awkward and alone from the surrounding countryside, replete with huge seams of silver, zinc and lead. Hundreds and thousands of tons of silver has been extracted, and most taken straight down to the 'Casa de la Moneda' to be made into coins, medals and table finery. Over the next two centuries, the cities fortunes declined as silver was found more cheaply elsewhere, but luckily the lavishly decorated buildings still survive in good condition.
And what of the miners? The government mines have long since closed, but around 800 are still working there, alone or in small collectives, searching for whatever is left.
They may as well be playing the lottery - some find a good seam and get rich, others dig for up to a year without taking a dime home to the family.
And no government means no regulation: no-one is checking who is digging where, how much of the inside of the hill has now been carved away and whether the next dynamite blast will bring the whole structure crumbling down.
Which brings be to the 8 million miners that have died since the mines opened. And the 25 who still perish each year.
Our guide told us that yes they were sad when one of their friends was killed, but that each body was an offering to 'El Tio', who in return will protect the other miners, and bring them good fortune.
El Tio is the devil - a statue of him resides in each separate mine in the hill. The miners give regular offerings of coca leaves, cigarettes and alcohol to keep Tio happy, themselves safe, and money in their pockets. Jesus has no place down here- it truly is a hell on earth.
We suit up in a house a mile or so down the hill: jacket, trousers, boots, helmet and lamp, and we had to buy a handkerchief to wrap round our faces to keep the dust out.
All smiles, we head up to the miners market to buy some presents for the miners: Coca leaves to chew to stave off hunger, soft drinks (really? I thought, but it's so hot down there and they never have enough water with them), and...dynamite.
A quick trip to one of the local, crude refining plants (the sludge that is exported is still a large proportion of rubbish), and we're ready to enter the mine.
Level 1: almost big enough for me to stand up, and gets some fresh air from the entrance. We stop to make an offering to Tio (and attempt to mend his broken penis - oops), and give out a bottle of fanta to a work group on their way out.
Level 2: getting warmer and dustier. We back ourselves up against the tunnel walls as a cart passes (they have no brakes), and begin to descend a steep and slippery chute down towards level 3, occasionally stopping to allow someone to pass us on their way up.
Level 3: we've lost two of our group; a mild asthmatic and a very large American, neither of which had taken the warnings in the guidebooks seriously. That's the problem coming from our cotton wool-protected societies: we think that anything we're allowed to do is obviously safe, risk-assessed, and accessible by near 100% of people.
This is Bolivia - no-one's responsible for you but you. You're on your own.
But I kind of like the concept. I think it teaches children to be more independent, conscious of their surroundings and responsible.
But this mine: this is maybe taking it a bit far. Around 800 children work down here, and they have no choice - maybe they are fatherless, maybe their family is just that poor. At least they also go to school. But what's the point of a free education system if you get kicked out when you can't afford the uniform unless you work down the mine 8 hours a day?
Level 4: The air is thick with dust, the temperature is somewhere between 30 and 40, and we crawl on our knees down the rocky passages to a small work group who are making holes in the rock for dynamite.
Most of the accidents in the mine are dynamite related, and mostly preventable: you lay 10 sticks, 8 of them blow, and you go back to see what has happened to the last 2. As Lionel Bart would say: that's your funeral.
Or you blow all your gear, and go back to inspect the results without waiting overnight for the dust to settle. That's your funeral too.
Or maybe you don't make the appropriate warnings to the other work groups around you before lighting the fuse. Maybe a rock fall will be their funeral....
Our guide tells us that most miners die of silicosis simply from breathing in so much dust (life expectancy 35-40), and that most rock falls oddly happen when no-one is in the mine.
We ask the one of the miners what they think of tourists coming down the mine.
'As long as they bring gifts, it's ok'. There was also some unrepeatable sexual comment made in the local language of Quechua, but that can only be expected from men who are locked away in this hell-hole for up to 24 hours at a time...
Ascending back up the rickety ladders ('look out for the second rung; it's a bit dodgy. Oh and the third. And the fourth a little bit too'), and slippery, dusty chute, my natural inclination is to pull down my mask to cool down a little.
Big mistake.
As a climb, I breathe heavily (don't forget the altitude), and inhale so much dust I can taste the ferrous rock in my mouth. Put the mask back up.
One level up, the guide offers us the chance to see another part of the mine, or carry on outside. The decision is unanimous: we'd seen enough.
The mine is a labyrinth, and without calling out for the guide whenever I lost sight of him round a corner, I would have easily taken several wrong turnings and landed myself in serious trouble.
I don't remember the last time the phrase 'seeing the light at the end of the tunnel' had been so apt or welcome. We emerged gasping at the fresh air, legs and backs aching from crouching, throats raw and eyes stinging from the dust. But almost not a word of complaint - we were just in awe of these guys that endured that and more for 8 to 12 to sometimes 24 hours at a time. 6 days a week. Playing roulette with their fortunes and their lives.
Feeling slightly guilty for wasting good gear, we blew up a stick of dynamite on the hill for fun (the photo of me holding the dynamite bomb with the lit fuse is one of my favourites so far), learning how to prepare it to get the best explosion (if I get arrested on re-entry to Britain for attending a bomb-making class, put in a good word for me will you?, and headed back into town to try and shower off the dust.
The debates, still continuing 5 days later, range from health and safety, the possibility of getting rich versus the possibility of getting dead, free will and choice, child labour, voyeurism on our part and whether the tourist draw is contributing to the perpetuation of these medieval conditions.
But the idea that no-one is in charge of the health and safety - I may be cotton wool-wrapped, but that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Hang on: 8 million? Already happening.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=160745&id=522925763&l=c6cc5283bb

23 Feb Tupiza to Potosi - Hooray for Bolivian buses!

How (almost) every possible thing that could go wrong on a Bolivian bus did, on the same journey...

we arrived at the bus station at 10 for our 10.30 bus, as requested...
bus arrived at 11.30
then I was told that the different companies were combined into one bus, which was overbooked, and I didn't have a seat for the first two hours.
I looked the woman sternly in the eye and asserted in my best spanish: I paid for a seat, I want a seat, and is i don't get a seat, I want some of my money back (except that the work 'back' came out in german, but she got the idea.
I was miraculously found a seat, which unfortunately was at the back, not by the window, as apposed to the booked mid-bus window seat that would have been kinder on my delicate stomach, and I was SURROUNDED by babies of 4 months to 2 years, crawling and mewling and ga-ing for their lives.
Hey ho, I draw my legs up to my chest to brace my stomach against the gravel road, and prepare for 7 hours of the same... but five minutes down the road... we ground ourselves on a steep bridge. Half an hour of precarious plank manoeuvres and we're off again, this time for a good 50 mins before grinding to a halt half way up a hill. (I learnt the word for breakdown: rompio). an hour of tinkering by the drivers proves fruitless, so one of them was dispatched back to town in a hitchhiked pick-up. After THREE hours, a wander off to find a quiet bush, and a visit from an opportunist biscuit-seller, it looks like we're good to go again.
3 minutes, and we stop again. It's decided that this bus (which looked good to us when we got on, but they obviously paid for a new paint job instead of a service) was a lost cause, and to our rescue came a local 40-seater jobbie. Trouble was, there were nearly a hundred of us.
No matter - every man for himself and we all squeezed in. I was standing in the aisle becoming way more familiar than one should with the butt cheeks of the Argentinian behind me. The little overloaded motor panted and sweated up every hill, but at 7pm, 8 1/2 hours after we we meant to leave Tupiza, we arrived at our 'lunch stop'
I noted who was getting off at this stop, did a quick circuit of loo-water shop-cracker shop (I was feeling a little better by that point but wasn't going to risk the local chicken and chips with 5 toilet-less hours left to go was I?), and trotted back to the bus early - I would happily give up 10 mins of leg stretching for 5 hours of a seat. joy of joys, I sat down next to one of the largest Bolivian men there is, a bit cramped but just oh so happy to be sitting down, I put my ear plugs in, turned my brain off and dozed my way to Potosi.
I had been worried by the line on the hostel's website 'if you are arriving after midnight, you MUST inform us or you will be stuck outside until the morning'. Ah well, hopefully there's someone booked in for 2am, or we'll just make a racket until someone lets us in. Thank goodness - that was the only part of the day that went to plan, and all I had to do now was don every piece of clothing I owned (including hat and gloves) before I was warm enough to go to sleep. Stingy buggers - the heating only goes on in winter, but at 4,000 asl its not exactly balmy on summer evenings!

Feb 15-22 The High Andes (Mendoza, Salta and Tupiza, Bolivia)

You come for the towns - you stay for the countryside.

Britain is very VERY small. The Andes, however, are very very big.
Hands down the best mountain range I ever saw.
I now understand all the lurid colours of Andean clothing and crafts; are not a rebellion against the bleakness of their surroundings, but a reflection of their brightness. Each peak is painted in primary tones as if by a small child, this one red, this green, this almost purple. Here, stripes, there splodges. Curves next to jagged crags, scrub with cactus, desert with llamas. In 10 minutes driving, nay, in one panoramic sweep of the eye, you can appreciate the contrasts, but in a whole day's journey cannot see enough. I went up to the mountains in Mendoza, and again in Salta. Every bus journey, now in Bolivia, I press my face up to the window to soak up more, breathing in the landscape in gulps I can't only ascribe to the altitude.

11 - 15 Feb Mendoza - and the grass is greener...

'You are now leaving Patagonia. Please dispose of your empty wallets responsibly and remember to expel all unused fresh air from your lungs on your way out.'

I was looking forward to my return to a warm climate, after nearly a month in the windy, rainy south. My feet were itching to be out in flipflops and I've nearly forgotten what my shorts look like.
However, three hours after arriving, I'm sunburnt, covered in sweat and have sandal blisters on my re-tender feet. And my knee is sore again from having bashed it on an unidentified piece of bus on a nature call in the middle of the night. Also cursing the hostel for not being able to let me in my/any room early, to shower off the 20 hour journey, put away my valuables and actually consider what I do and do not need in my daypack for a hot and sunny city morning. (Walking round a city with all your money, passport , computer and electrical goods= not smart. And heavy. Having no sun cream on you= plain stupid)
Frustrated by the bigness and busy-ness of the city after my small Patagonian towns, I decided to seek solace in the enormous 'Parque San Martin', with the promise of views of both the city and the Andres from the top of Cerro Gloria on the far side.
Instead I find the green laced with roads, rendering it impossible to escape traffic noise, and the small wooded area in which I sit to cool off from the 30 minute walk covered in discarded condoms and wrappers. Nice. The intermittent noises of a soundcheck waft my way - I may go and investigate, but I'm also determined to get to the top of the hill. 45 minute walk, my guidebook suggests.
Hmm - this guidebook is for old people, I bet it's no more than 30.
Maybe - with some shade and proper shoes, and without a full backpack and blazing midday sun.
The park slopes gently uphill, becoming scrubbier, drier and with greater breaks between the shade. After a Lawrence-of-Arabia-esque eternity, I arrive sweating and steaming at the base of the cerro, to be greeted to my delight by a kiosk selling ice-cold 7-up.
15 minutes later, fortified, I began the ascent. It wasn't far but it was steep, and at the top I had to pause in some shade to catch my breath and cool down a little again.
I found myself watching a few crazy runners who had jogged all the way up.... only to realise after a few minutes that it wasn't a crazy few, there were a good 30 or so. And some of them were doing LAPS. I balked at my own shameful state of unhealthiness... then proceeded to open my guidebook to the chapter on how to get the most wine tasting out of my Mendozan wine tour.

Route 40 - El Calafate, El Chalten and Bariloche. The Road to Nowhere, and Knight In Shining Armour syndrome

27 Jan - 10 Feb

I hope you'll forgive my skipping over Ushuaia, El Calafate and El Chalten : there was a lot of hiking, and a lot of pretty mountains and glaciars and a HECK of a lot of nothingness in between to see. But you'll see them in the pictures. No great tragedies, histories or comedies to report.
I'll try to give you a short synopsis of each place....
Ushuaia: gateway to Antarctica, plenty of peripheral penguins, reclusive glaciar but pretty alpine scenery
El Calafate: bleak, bleak, bleak, flamingos. And a great big old glacier
El Chalten: tourist base camp for macho-inducing long hikes. Fell over twice to the displeasure of my left leg and walking trousers.

Thursday 4- Saturday 6 February

Ruta 40 El Chalten to Bariloche

The Marga Taqsa bus company doesn't seem to think very much of backpackers' romantic notions of travelling 30 hours up the gravel (ripio) road east of the Andes. Inspired by photos of sunsets and guanacos (llama-ish) and gauchos and the word 'legendary' which seems to inevitably precede 'route 40' on all marketing materials, we book our tickets in droves and eagerly await the epic voyage. Comforted we are too, at our memories of previous long haul bus rides including video entertainment, almost fully reclining seats, meals and wine, a pillow and blanket and at the very least free flowing sweet coffee and water, and footrests, and, er, a fully functioning toilet.
You can imagine our dismay as the esteemed Marga Taqsa's offering rolled up, half an hour late (it is cold outside you know - it may be summer but these are the andean mountains and you won't let us wait inside the off), a 42 seater seen-better-days (maybe because it spends its life travelling up and down ripio) 'coach', with none of the above comforts, and to boot, a rapidly plunging temperature overnight making me pleased about packing thermal leggings and ski socks in my hand luggage, but nonetheless envious of the ones with the sleeping bags.
We awoke on the first morning to the horn beeping at two guanacos on the road (noooo!! this is what we are suffering this to see! don't shoo them away!) then predictably nibbled our way through the packed lunch that was tossed to us as the bus pulled away at midnight (variations on themes of white bread, cheese, ham and dulce de leche). I also have 6 litres of water and kilogrammes of snacks on me: you never know what you're going to get on these journeys, or when you'll stop for supplies. Best to assume you're fending for yourself all the way.
Armed with my wad of toilet roll and antibacterial hand wash, its time to brave the toilet again.


Bariloche - Saturday 6 to Wednesday 10 February

(Sunday 7 Feb)
How much you enjoy a town depends a great deal on your own attitude. If you're feeling introverted and grumpy, you're not going to meet new people. If you've already decided you're bored of Patagonia, you're not really going to appreciate another four days of similarly stunning landscape.
Bariloche started badly: it was raining, the sister hostel of highly-recommended Condor de los Andes in El Chalten turned out to be an ugly second-cousin, and on the first day I fell over twice on the slippery pavement and did a mischief to my knee. (Yes, on the left leg, the same that got two separate batterings on the El Chalten hikes). Yes I got a lot of blog catching up done (thumbs up!), but there really aint much to do here when the weather's bad and you can't really engage in physical exercise. I'm again grumpy now looking out of the hostel window at the sunshine, having cut my day's walk short because it looked like the rain was setting in for the afternoon.
At least I sorted the hostel. Condor de los Andes wasn't bad, as such, but having been looking forward to Bariloche's famed amazing hostels, the basic bunk/bathroom/bread and jam for breakfast set-up really wasn't going to cut it. And the crowd seemed to be mostly Argentinian couples. Not great for meeting new people to go and do fun things with.
And so I sit here, in my new and improved Tango Inn living room: a bit bigger than I usually go for, but there's a young cosmopolitan crowd, sofas, a pool table, more helpful staff, sun balconies, scrambled eggs and a jacuzzi. For the same price. Sitting, I am, tapping and fiddling about and whatnot and.... waiting for some poor helpless other singles to wander in so I can pounce on them and suggest going for a bike ride tomorrow. Come closer, my pretties!!!

(Sunday 7 Feb, 10pm)
Having briefly been bouyed up by booking activity for tomorrow, and looking forward to getting out there and doing something physical (it was a hike-kayak combo which I thought would be stimulating yet not too brutal on my poor knee), hopes were dashed when, returning from my evening stroll, I was informed there's a big storm coming tomorrow and the trip is cancelled. Gawd darnit!! dang town. Why have I already bought my bus ticket and paid all my hostel nights upfront?
So I look forward to a THIRD day of facebook photo-tagging tomorrow. woop.

Bariloche day 3 - Monday 8 Feb

Finally - DOING something...

This is where, I'm almost ashamed to report, dear reader, that I discovered a rather primal female urge to be rescued by a knight in shining armour. That is to say, once saved from by a man, he becomes something of a knight in shining armour.... make sense? no..?
Ok, so there's this theory that goes that a man immediately becomes more attractive to you if he's saved you from a dragon, witch, or, you know, some other mortal danger.
(Allow me to first assure my dear parents that I was never in any real danger. Sit back, relax and appreciate my use of exaggeration for dramatic literary effect.)
So white-water rafting: one on my tick-list of adventure sports to try out while I'm here, and a seemingly good option for a day of questionable weather forecast.
So we're on the boat, cruising between rapids on Rio Manso, one of the best rafting spots in South America, and on the border between Argentina and Chile.
The other girl in the boat, sitting next to me, has already fallen out (I had a near miss, but seated as I was in front of the guide, he saw and pulled me back in as I toppled backwards). (Oh and there was that other time when I managed to bounce into the boat rather than out of it). Anyway, we approached a rather turbulent-looking beasty by the name of 'scrambled eggs', the foam tossing and peaking in a rather good impression of it's namesake, the entire width of the river. 'I reckon you're gong in on this one', suggested an English guy in the front, helpfully. 'You wanna bet???' I countered, but less than confidently, given my previous experience.
We start the rapid, all good, riding the boat like a bucking bronco, in my rather precarious position straddling one of the cross-pieces of the raft.
All of a sudden (as these things are wont to occur) the boat tips sideways towards me, our side gets a face full of our left-hand companions, and I'm in the water.
Attentive as I was in the safety briefing, I remembered the first protocol when you find yourself on the wrong side of the wall: if the boat's there, grab it. But we're still in the rapid, so the boat catches another wave and just plows straight over my head (creating the souvenir of stiff arm and neck muscles for days). Thanks guys.
I come up the other side, bashed about by the currents, far from being able to 'adopt the safety position, on your back, legs up and pointing downstream, and give a few back-paddles with your arms to slow you down', my only thoughts being about when it was safe to breathe in or not. There wasn't even time to feel scared.
In seconds, I get spit out of the rapid and the safety kayak comes up beside me, tells me to hold the handle on his bow, and the raft is on it's way. Then it came: 'Are you ok?'. And I looked up, past his paddle, between the straps of his helmet, and deep into his eyes..... and he was my saviour. He had rescued me from certain peril in the foamy, rocky depths of the Manso.
I was pulled back into the raft and spent the rest of the time on the river concentrating on paddling hard to stem the shivering, but sitting here now in the warmth and safety of the minibus and gazing at his muscular kayakers' shoulders and well-defined jaw line, I find myself sighing at the longing for this calm, strong knight in shining armour to come and rescue me again and.... aarrrgh - snap out of it!!
Please will somebody tell me this is a natural feminine response to being saved from danger by a handsome man (ok, he wasn't that handsome before, but like I said, he was afterwards), or do I belong in a Disney film??
Off to Mendoza tomorrow, where I hear there's another good rafting river. Who knows what kind of prince charming awaits me there?

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=160733&id=522925763&l=27a214dab1

Antarctica!!

This is a collection of random thoughts and scribblings in the order I scribbled them.... apologies for overlap, repetition, omission, deviation, hesitation or any other comedy panel-game no-nos. This (she says with a sigh and limp hand to her forehead), is how inspiration took me.

Antarctica - 17-27 January

Day 3, 19 January

nah nah nah, way too expensive, way too cold - no intention whatsoever of going to Antarctica.
What's that? Best thing you ever did? once in a lifetime experience? 1 female bed only on the boat leaving in 48 hours which means I'll touch land for the first time on my birthday and its a special last minute price at half the usual $8000 US dollars.... um.... alright then.
And that was only 6 hours after taking off from balmy BA.
Impulsive, yes (I had to go back the next day to ask a load of questions I'd forgotten), reckless, probably (in two months, when I run out of money in the middle of Peru, ask me then if this was a good idea), but it seemed to fit the bill. I was wondering what to do for my birthday that would make up for a frankly disappointing Christmas and New Year, I think you regret the things you don't do more than the things you do, and having been dulled by the sleep/work cycle I'd stuck myself into for longer than felt comfortable in BA, I was itching to follow my nose and do whatever struck my fancy.

And here I am, 4 days later, tapping away in the galley, just getting over the excitement of spotting land and our first icebergs..... and I just had to stop writing to scramble on a coat and gloves at the shout of 'WHALE!! WHALE!!!' from one of the guides (it was a humpback - a good way away but we got a tail flip out of him as well as some blows, so we were happy. thank you whale!)
Like my 34 hour bus journey, I'm sure you're all DYING to know how we spent our last 2 days in the Drake passage with only the bobbing horizon to amuse us.
Well, I'm not going to chronicle every hour (so you can relaaaax), but eating and sleeping has been quite a feature.
The food is stunning - dishes of taste and sophistication heretofore not experienced on my traveller's budget. And prepared while the ship is rocking back and forth on one of the roughest sea crossings in the world. And despite one travel agency warning us to bring mucha chocolate to keep us warm, being fed 3 courses every 3 hours or so we really haven't wanted to even look in the direction of my swag bag (10 days of chocolate supplies - its a big bag which I fear I may be working on until Mendoza).
All the other worries and caveats seem to be unfounded as well - we were warned that the parka and obligatory gum boots weren't included for last minute tickets... so I bought a pair of wellies...and we were handed them out on board. Plus a parka. sigh- - there's 60 pesos gone. And water: I drink a lot of water, so I asked if water between meals was included. The answer was a 'maybe' and an 'I think', and, shockingly, a 'you should have thought of all these questions before you paid us all that money'. eh? customer service and all that.
So I lugged on 11 litres (an extra litre a day) for my own peace of mind, and yes, of course there's a litre bottle in your room every day plus a dispenser where you can get more cups of water when you need (and cheekily fill up bottles feigning ignorance at the 'no bottles' sign. ahem)
So no hay drama! The next unknown I have to deal with is whether I have enough clothes (maybe I should have invested in ski trousers??). Tonight I intend to do a practice-dress; get all togged up and see if I can successfully stand up on deck for 20 mins or so without hypothermia setting in (we'll be on land for up to 3 hours at a time but there's supposedly walking involved). When not worrying or eating, we've been whiling away the time listending to lectures on the history, birds and mammals of antarctica, climate change, and endless regulations on exactly how close one is allowed to get to a penguin (15ft, in case you're wondering - but then if they walk towards you, that's not your fault).

Sea legs: of course having thought I was immune to seasickness (I love boats!) I woke up on day two.... no, waking up wasn't the problem, it was getting up.... feeling more than a little queasy. The pitch black cabin didn't help - staggering around getting dressed in the dark - my poor brain just didn't understand. Still, I never spewed, and after some fresh air, a nap and a good lunch, I was good to go.

The highlight of the drake passage crossing (apart from it being mercifully, unusually, and, ok and a little disappointingly, calm) was seeing orcas yesterday! Neither our expedition leader nor the captain had ever seen orcas in the Drake. They didn't come and play very close, but there was a good pack of them, finning and blowing, and the captain turned the ship around to give us a better look. Gracias, el capitan.

its been a good hour and a half since my last meal, so I'm starting to get hungry again - good job its only 15 minutes to dinner time, then i think early bed ready for our first landing in the morning!

Day 4, 20 January

A guide to antarctic mammal spotting, for penguins

Greater Spotted Antarctic tourist
(sub specie of genus homo habilis, though generally accepted to be a regressive mutation)

the Greater Spotted Antarctic tourist is most easily recognised by its bright red coat - in fact they are completely unable to camouflage themselves and rely on sheer arrogance in the face of threat from land predators and natural disasters alike.
Not that you have to look hard to know that they are there: you can usually hear them before you see them. The calls vary in pitch and frequency between the sexes and regional heritage (seasonal and permanent migration is not uncommon for this species, and different subspecies often intermingle) but it has now been proven that these twitterings rarely signify meaningful communication. There is a recent theory (Emperor &Adelie 2005) that if Antarctic Tourists stop twittering for any length of time, their faces will freeze from lack of hot air passing through it.

The skin colour and facial features of the Greater Spotted Antarctic Tourist is generally un-catalogued and rarely seen, as due to insufficient personal insulation, the Tourist is forced to wrap himself in the skins and fur of other animals and plants to keep warm. In extreme conditions, only the eyes can be occasionally seen when not hidden behind a picture-taking or eyesight-enhancing machine (more on this below)

Like all members of the Tourist genus, they generally travel in groups of 10 - 100, and while the Greater Spotted Antarctic Tourist has nowhere to hide out on land during the day, he takes great care to protect himself at night, as while asleep he is defenceless and oblivious to his surroundings.

Antarctic Tourists have incredibly sophisticated communal homes constructed for this purpose (as of course they cannot build them themselves, see below), incorporating sleeping and eating quarters, and even food storage areas that enable them to travel for days or weeks at a time without having to stray from his normal diet. This is iimportant as Antarctic Tourists are known to have very sensitive and inflexible digestive systems. They enjoy a rich and varied diet, high in sugar, fat and calories, in a misguided attempt, it is thought, to increase their personal insulation.

This inability to adapt to foreign surroundings is a behaviour shared with the Common City and Lesser Beach Resort Tourist, an inferior relative to Antarctic sub-genus: both are also generally incapable of leaving the group home (colloquially known as a 'hotel') without a group leader; a strange paradox when compared to the arrogance displayed in the presence of other species.
The only conclusion that can be reached by this naturalist is that one of the traits of the entire Tourist genus is that they are unable to distinguish between real and imagined predators.
Distressed giant albatross = real danger
Avalanche = real danger
Humans that speak a different language = not a real danger
Unfamiliar public transport system = not a real danger

The behaviour of the Greater Spotted Antarctic Tourist is of great interest to naturalists; we know, for example, that he must have a very poor memory, as he is obliged to use a machine to make pictures of everything he sees, for future reference. He also has very poor eyesight, and uses another machine to look at things from far away. He must have poor hearing as well, due to the volume of the twitterings between Tourists very close together.

Antarctic Tourists are incapable of living independently, and seem not to possess any skills necessary for life (cooking, cleaning, leading the group, etc), and do nothing at all except make pictures, eat, sleep and breed, and naturalists are still baffled at how these individuals reached this privileged status in life. Further research is in progress and preliminary results are due in early 2011)

Day 5, 21 January - Enterprise islands and first sighting of the continental mainland!

The ship sits benignly on the millpond of the inshore Antarctic waters, maintaining an impressive posture of dignity in the face of such an awesome backdrop. Awesome in the original sense: I spent 20 minutes just starting in wonder at a 100m high hill saying 'that's just ice, I mean, JUST ice. Not rock, all that's just snow and ice.' At the same time you are struck by the longevity and fragility of this landscape - having taken 100s of years to build, a piece of that ice shelf could be cracked and broken off in seconds.
We are intensely privileged to be here, the largest remaining wilderness on the planet, and during the long two days' journey here from Ushuaia, there was plenty of time between waves of seasickness to ponder the morality of such an expedition.
An expedition is what the brochure calls it (the word gives one a rather inflated sense of scientific importance), but 'alternative cruise' would be closer to the truth. Do we really have any right to be wandering about nesting penguin colonies in groups of up to 100 just because they've no reason to fear us, without natural land predators?
Yes some nesting sites are protected, but others are visited by Antarctic tourist ships every day between November and March. 30,000 tourists visit the Antarctic yearly. One of the scientific research bases in the area conducted a study on their island: one side of the penguin colony was never bothered by humans, the other was visited regularly. Birth and survival rates of chicks was compared, with no difference between the two found. Which makes one feel better. Penguins really are pretty oblivious creatures. The only time you know they're aware of you is if you're in their way: they'll just stop and stare, and you can almost see the little cogs in their birdy brains trying to figure out how to get round.
But here, of course, bird traffic has right of way; step aside and they'll waddle on past.
Talking of penguins, awkward on land they may be, but as soon as they get wet they're a different animal. stretched out they're almost cormorant-slender and torpedo
But the whales? No question we are all excited about seeing whales, and are all itching to get closer for a better shot of the tail when they dive, but we do know that boat noise disturbs their communication. Storms too, but if there's a storm, they say 'hey, call you back in a few days'. If there are boats passing every day, when are they going to call back?
Its not that bad here yet: the boats are strictly regulated by the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO), landings are restricted and booked 6 months in advance, and the captain and guides are clearly very passionate about the wildlife and take care to respect their comfort zones. But what's to stop the gradual slide to just another stop on the tourist trail, like the great pyramids or Machu Piccu (whoever foresaw the damage to those places that would be done by just walking around?)
And another thing, how do you square up all the IAATO regulations against the black exhaust belched out constantly by the ship and zodiacs (small landing craft)? We saw some studies showing that no matter where in the world CO2 is produced, it all spreads out and becomes evenly spread in the end.
Well that's alright then.
The boat is diesel electric, which means it uses diesel to generate electricity, which drives the propeller. Really the most fuel-efficient way?
I had a tour of the engine room with a couple of friends, and was proudly shown the machine that recycles all the (non-potable) tab water on board. 'This is a very green ship!', we were told. Really though?
Its a tricky one - and I'm not the only one having this debate on the ship.
And it's all very well and good for me to sit here ranting, while I'm ON the trip, rather than before making the decision.
Is the raise in awareness of the area and conservation issues worth the small amount of damage we're causing? (Because of course we'll all return home raving about the (scant) flora and (abundant) fauna, and how we must fight to save it) Should a wilderness be left as just that? Has our voyeurism gone one step too far? Is this softly softly approach just the beginning? Will Marriot be opening it's first Antarctica branch within 5 years (complete, of course, with helipad - we can't have the well-to-do 5 star crowds suffering 2 days of seasickness now can we?). Maybe we could have a disneyland Antarctica themed around The Story of Mumble Happy Feet and Ice Age 2 (not disney I know - artistic licence). The obsession with list-ticking insures constant demand for the most southern bar in the world, the elusive 7th continent, and the other numerous landmarks like the arctic circle and various south poles.
Coming up next on controversial holiday destinations - the moon! and using outer space as a rubbish dump.

Day 8, Sunday 24 January

You can choose your friends....

...but not your cruise companions.

But I think we did quite well anyway: guests and crew from 23 different countries, from 22 to ages that would be impolite to ask, but we've got our fair share of Parkinson's sufferers, cancer patients and celebrators of golden weddings. The guides are mostly in the late 20's to early 40's and expressed their delight at having some young people on board to hang out with. Most of us are on the last minute deals - of course the rack rates of $10,000 - $20,000 per person are going to somewhat limit the age, social background and even nationality spectrum.
And while the family of 16 septuagenarian Texans (on a mission to tick off the seven continents one adventure at a time) don't really have much to say to anyone outside their group, most of the guests are fascinating, life-affirming and inspiring people to converse with.
I would like to take this opportunity to note for the record that even sixty year-olds are not above sliding down snow-covered hills on their bum just for the fun of it, nor jumping into the Antarctic sea (not the thermally heated bit, no no. The temperature was minus 2 degrees and boy did it feel like it) in nothing but a swim suit.
Of course there are a few that you try to avoid (either because boring, rude or just plain annoying) at all costs and a few others that you wouldn't be upset to say goodbye to when we reach land again. But for the most part, it's been amazing to get out of the backpacker rut and speak to some different kinds of people (not that I didn't love you as well, backpackers, you know who you are....)

Things I've learnt about Antarctica and cruises

1. Whales are no respecters or napping, showering or dinner schedules
2. Other tour boats are no respecters of our slightly fantastical but important need to feel like we're the only ones here (about thirty thousand holidaymakers now visit the Antarctic every year)
3. Its a great idea but almost impossible to give lectures on board - while there are some scientists in the group, others clearly skipped most of their school biology and physics lessons
4. You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your tour group, and a hundred-person ship is a very small space to get trapped with people who piss you off for 10 days
5. The Antarctic summer is officially warmer than the British winter, at least this year.
6. Queuing for pudding is a necessary inconvenience
7. Bad feeling can spread quicker on a ship than the Nora virus
8. It sucks to be expedition leader. See 7.

Day 10, 26 January. Antarctica Intro

(It seems strange to end with an introduction, but maybe lets call it a summary....)

A land where animals show no fear of humans. A land dedicated to peace, science and discovery. A land where no man dares keep a permanent home. A true wilderness, largely unexplored, largely unknown, and still holds mysteries we may never uncover.
Sounds like Utopia.
Well, this is Antarctica, and its probably about as close as you're going to get.
The easiest and most common way of accessing Antarctica is the 48 hour tossing, turning sail through 'Drake's Passage', one of the most turbulent stretches of open sea in the world. Emerging on day 3, tender and dozy from seasickness into the millpond flat inshore waters of the South Shetland islands, surrounded by towering snowy peaks, glass blue icebergs and soaring albatrosses feels just like a continuation of the crazy dreams those seasickness tablets were giving you.
But still, Antarctica doesn't lay out all its glitteing gems to be snatched at the first sitting. No, like the Northern hemisphere islands of the same name, the South Shetlands are now, as often, shrouded in fog, and the first expedition photos are misty and dull.
Only moving further south towards the continental mainland over the next two days does the weather clear, and suddenly megabytes of grey skies and listless bergs are deleted to make way for the new improved deep blue, sparkling white and reflected turquoise monoliths of Pleneau bay and Enterprise Islands.
The whales too, first teasingly distant, got gradually closer to a breath-stopping encounter with 3 humpbacks just seven metres or so from our zodiac landing craft, where, after finning and diving a while for krill, and the odd tail flirtation, they lifted their heads clean out of the water to eye our bobbing orange life-jacketed figures up and down, decided we were nothing to be concerned about, and promptly fell sound asleep.
This is only imaginable now, a good twenty-five years since whaling here was abolished, that the generation of whales that suffered this cruelty and learned to fear humans has passed on.
Whales were the prize find of course (we got two sets of Orcas, a few distant, shy minkies and incalculable tonnages of the more common, but no less special for us, humpbacks. But one of my aims for my whole trip in general was to come and see penguins.
Penguins.
What Mr Attenborough doesn't prepare you for is the smell of the penguin colonies. It hits you before your zodiac even lands - like burying your nose a bird cage not cleaned out for a year, whilst waving around a handful of rotten fish for good measure - and is not far from your nostrils for the rest of the trip (wellies outside the cabins please). This is no real surprise when you get closer and see the guano splattered Jason Pollock-style on every bare inch of rock (projected in long lines by chicks with mixed success in accuracy and distance from the nest), moulted feathers blowing about in the breeze and the regurgitated half-digested krill spilled messily between parent and baby beaks.
(Seals aren't any more respectful of their temporary homes - spread flat out on ice floes, they happily release whatever waste products they please, roll around in it, then slide off into the sea when they need a wash/get hungry/ get bored of being papped by 75 overexcited tourists, leaving behind a skid-mark that any teenage boy would be proud of.)
But we'll forgive them that, for the dignity and sheer oblivion with which they will let you watch them go about their normal lives right in front of you. They really couldn't give a toss if you were there or not, unless you accidentally block their well-worn path between sea and nest, in which case they'll just stop. And stare. And look to the left. And the right. And stare at you again. Until either you move, or their little birdy brains figure out the way to walk around you. How long this takes, we never discovered, as the sound of the cogs whirring stirred us into action way before they figured it out.
Yes, in Antarctica the local faunae have right of way no matter what.
But the nesting, the practice-nesting of the juveniles, the unique call between mates, protecting the nest from the skuas, comic waddling (they're walking on their haunches just to keep warm y'know - penguins actually have rather long legs, and are more runner-duck shaped when they're all stretched out), jumping, tobogganing on land, and swimming TORPEDO FAST! in the water, ‘porpoising’ occasionally to breathe. And the chicks feeding, and exercising their little wings, and lying spread-eagled on their fronts on the rock cooling down... Its all right there in front of you. Not over there through a pair of binoculars. Not lying in wait, camouflaged behind a bush all day waiting for a glimpse. Not on the TV, hours of film cut to the few seconds where something actually happens. No, this is all day, every day, and all around you. I could watch penguins forever. Maybe Utopia does exist. Still, I wouldn't like to be here in the winter.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=Debinthebox&target=ALBUM&id=5435256102659625841&authkey=Gv1sRgCNiSr7PUwpzUhgE&invite=CKGF3J0E&feat=email

Thursday 7 January 2010 Colonia

Or...I should really know better when it comes to immigration

“You want to go up the lighthouse?” the bored-looking security man asked.

“si....”

“Not me, I think it’s a bit boring”

Ah, ok...erm...

Not to be deterred, I paid my 15 Uruguayan pesos anyway and starting the long clanking climb up the metal spiral staircase, despite it being hot and having only just eaten lunch, inspired by the promise from my trusty guidebook that you can see Buenos Aires from up there on a clear day. Lord knows why that struck a chord – I’ve been itching to get out of there for the last month; why do I want to see it?

Well, yes you could see it and yes the ‘you’re-over-there-I’m-over-here’ factor was quite satisfying – modern, glassy tower blocks of Puerto Madero (think mini London’s Docklands) rising in a line to different heights like sound levels on a stereo.

Colonia’s metaphorical sound levels meter is well within the green – an idyllic Portuguese colonial town that seems to have escaped the extensive redevelopment of similar areas in South America, this is now a UNESCO world heritage site. Being only a stone’s throw from the hub of Buenos Aires (just imagine the catamaran is the stone and the throw taking it an hour or so across the giant rio del plata estuary), its a mecca for day trippers, weekenders, and, er, people who need to renew their Argi visa in a hurry (we’ll get onto that shortly). And yes it feels like a tourist town: restaurants EVERYWHERE, signs in English, multiple offices where you can rent golf-buggies to tour the town in, should the less-than-mile-square historical area be too taxing for you to potter around on foot after your huge parrilla lunch.

But despite this being the middle of peak season, and yes admittedly bumping into the same people you met on the boat several times during the day, it doesn’t in any way feel crowded, and you can always find sanctuary on the dock one of the little beaches, or equally one of the tree-shaded squares where I am now, feeding the mosquitos their late lunch and tapping away on my laptop. (I was amazed to find I can get a wireless signal here – tempting to facebook everyone I know: “guess where I am?!! Sitting in amongst some old ruins in the middle of a park in a town that time forgot in Uruguay!” (Except wifi shows no mercy and leaves no settlement forgotten and unsullied by its.....rays....).

I was steaming with curiosity by the time I left to come here this morning: various different sources had heightened and dampened my interest in Colonia by turns: was it a tranquil escape from the city or a dull backwater town where people only come to die or get a fresh visa (yes yes, I will get on to that. Just a minute)

So I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when the alarm went off at 5.30am, hurrying the taxi along to the port, one of the first in line for boarding in the predictably clinical departure lounge, eagerly awaiting, waiting patiently, waiting quietly, slightly fidgety, downright clicking my tongue..... I’ve gotten used to ‘Argi time’ (not yet a standardised concept and one of the many reasons we in the hostel have cited for Argentina still being a developing nation. Anyway...) but a 45 minute delay takes the biscuit even for them. And talking of biscuits, I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so was getting pretty cranky. We eventually left 30 mins late, but managed to arrive a whole hour late. Ah well, I caught up on some of that sleep!

What I do need to do today is decide if I want to come back on Monday. Here’s the story now – are you sitting comfortably?

So I knew my 3 month Argi visa would be running out early Jan... late December I checked some prices for a Uruguay trip, and it all seemed pretty steep to me, when I’d read that you can just get your visa renewed at the office of immigration for much less money. So I kept meaning to ask boss Nico, an Argi, to ring them up and see if I needed an appointment, how it worked etc. But then it was Christmas, and then the office was shut, and then Nico said there wasn’t a hope in hell of me getting an appointment so soon. So, back to the Colonia idea, but all the day trips were sold out until the 11^th. “Ah!” I thought: “I entered on the 12 October! 3 months, leave on the 11^th, no problem!” And went and bought the ticket for a bargain $174 pesos.

Problem... I realised, waking up with a jolt a few days later..... not a 3 month visa... a 90 day visa. Subtle but important difference: my boat was booked for the day AFTER it expired.

Bugger. Stupidity!

So the only way to do it was to go overnight (luckily, working for PAX as I do, they got me a free night at their ‘hostel amigo’ in Colonia). And the ticket was $240. No worries, no worries, not much difference, I’ll just go and get a refund. Nope – non refundable, and non-exchangeable to friends who also need to go: the ticket had my name and passport on. So I now have two tickets to Uruguay – one I can refund but have to use, and one that I don’t need but could refund.

*sigh* bloody Argis

So today my tasks are 1) get visa renewed (tick, by default), 2) buy new notebook and replacement linen trousers (fatface why hast thou forsaken me and worn out in the crotch???) and 3) decide if I want to come all the way back just for the day on Monday, seeing as I’ve spent the money and all...

We’ll see – there is a nice beach just a mile or so away, but it is an awful long way to go for a beach day.

Maybe I’ll go and ask my new friend at the lighthouse what he thinks I should do.

a few photos to come when I can charge my phone!!