Charlie and Steve's Excellent Adventure

February 15, 2015

While you were working – Chasing Rainbows, El Chalten, Argentina

We’ve attained the ranking of supreme lords of overnight buses after eleven nocturnal journeys in six countries taking us nearly the the entire length of the continent. Always a good time to try something new, we jump on the daytime bus for the hop-skip north to El Chalten at the base of Cerro Fitz Roy. Cerro Fitz Roy is a massive granite spire mountain that populates tourism brochures now as it did nine years ago; that is to say quite a bit, a rare piece of the world that deserves it’s long time in the spotlight. If seeing the Perito Moreno glacier was a first date after a nine year gestation then Fitz Roy clarifies that we’re really dating this whole part of the Andes, not just Perito Moreno. Before setting off on this trip we were often asked: ‘What are you looking forward to the most’? My glassy eyed response rarely failed to include Perito Moreno and Fitz Roy, such was the lasting impact from those many years ago.

We skirt lakes worthy of postcards themselves with their too-bright washing detergent colour but it’s Fitz Roy that we really want to see. Not until we get to the speck of a town that is El Chalten that we get to see the cloudy sky that the base of Fitz Roy disappears into, fashionably late leaving us eager at the door for our second date it seems.

Fitz Roy must wait another day though, first we pack everything into the tent and set off on a day walk to Cerro Torre, a nearby similar formation boasting a spire like elegance if not Fits Roy’s immensity. Through town we walk before starting up and past the canyon that gushes the water away from the lake afoot Cerro Torre; that colour again, amazing. Over grassy dales flanked by impressive rock walls we skirt the river interspersed by deviations into alpine beech forests that are the definition of tranquility. In no time at all we’re at our first mirador (viewpoint) and wham, Cerro Torre right there. This is a little exciting and uncommon, not many hiking destinations give you the luxury of a full frontal shot so early, usually it’s a hard slog till the last minute.

Soon past the mirador we see, we think we see, we’re pretty sure we see the swollen girth of Fitz Roy towering above a nearby mountain. It’s a little tricky not to personify great mountains, it’s teasing us.

Despite our plain view Cerro Torre is quite a way away signposting our walk better than any pathway sign ever could. This precarious spire oversees our approach from afar, this could easily have been the inspiration for Sauron’s tower in Lord of the Rings such is its commanding view over such a vast landscape. Banishing the focus on Torre we do our best to appreciate the changing world we travel through but it’s not easy, the tower teases us at every nearing step. Cresting a rise of rocky scree we join the sparse crowd staring up like an old fashioned outdoor movie cinema, we’re here.

In some way the extensive views of Cerro Torre blunt the wow factor of the tower itself but the whole picture is what this walk has all been for even if we didn’t know it. We’re at the shore of a lake of milky jade meltwater leading up to a glacier sweeping its way to the shore, ample icebergs like sculptures of a winter pageant precede our vista. The towers are all grand pale grey awesomeness but it’s the surrounds that complete the trick. Skirting around to the right of the lake the rest of this glacier carved amphitheatre is dark sand and stone in jagged shards dusted with snow like too much icing on a gothic style wedding cake gone wrong. Our trip around the lake also displays Torre and its surrounds in slow rotation, the worlds grandest lazy-susan granting an ever changing view. It’s in this range of visual assault that the grandeur of this place is revealed, it’s hard to know where to look, so many awesome sights with Cerro Torre towering grandly above them all.

Taking time to soak it up is the most obvious point of making a walk like this yet sadly not always a luxury we afford ourselves. A little over four hours walking time up sees no mad scramble back, we pull up a rocky seat and wile away the time. It’s in this time where space of mind is given and awesome places sink into your skin and permeate memories. Photos capture the view and sadly with a quick turn around that is often all you’re left with. Like an expertly planned garden it can be hard to place the origins of mood affecting beauty, sometimes it just looks right. In time the distracting wow factor of all the sights around settle into a chance perfection to make any Zen gardener proud.

This walk is as much an experience as it is a learning process for us. Jettisoned from our high paced demanding lives we set off into the world to experience the world of course but a little part of it was to be able to teach ourselves a few things. Making plans and chasing goals often leads us setting a new goal before a current one is reached; never fully appreciating the attainment of that goal for distraction of the next. A life of perpetual non-success. But not today, the next goal can wait for us to indulge in what we would often deny ourselves, enjoying finding the rainbow rather than chasing the next. The rest of the world can wait but turning over a new leaf has already started.

February 13, 2015

While you were working – The Long Awaited Date, El Calafate, Argentina

After jolting our adventure back to life like a defibrillator to the chest, pulling us back from the brink, we are making the most of our only full day in this town. The journey north up the spine of the Andes will complete the long held desire to travel the length of this great range as well as the nine year courtship to see El Calafate’s reason for being on the map. Since being in Chile nine years ago and not making it here it’s been a pebble in the travel shoe that we haven’t been able to dislodge, today is the day that we finally tread a path free from the discomfort of that persistent nag. Boarding the punitively expensive bus we are not thinking of money right now, we’re full of giddy excitement, this day has waited long enough.

We skirt the glorious turquoise lake, weave beneath mountains that are eerie, ominous and awe inspiring; and all flavours of immense. Amazing on any other day but only brief sideways glances are permitted today, eyes fixed ahead in tantalising anticipation. After about an hour on a winding road we catch little glimpses of the proverbial pebble in the shoe, weaving its way through the valley. Involuntary exhale.

Get out of my way, dawdlers on the bus are not welcome, we’re the adult version of the greedy kid with an unattended bowl of smarties.
Maybe not entirely adult to be fair. A quick impatient walk to the boardwalk and it’s just a little but dumbfounding, it’s right there, we’ve found it already and it’s far closer than we expected. Perito Moreno has been on a nine year build up, a weight of expectation swelling for nearly a decade ready to burst. Zero, I repeat, zero disappointment . It’s 5km wide, 257 sqm in area, 60m high and right there, just in front of us, it’s akin to a childhood fantasy long forgotten that is now all too real. Rushing back from mythical obscurity to be all too real this glacier is the one we’ve wanted to see for so long. Far from creating dumbstruck awe we feel well acquainted, this long awaited first date is all bubbling excitement. It’s finally real, it’s here, we can see it and it’s beautiful.

Barreling down the boardwalk we’re blissfully free of hoarding crowds, clear vistas are all around. From the higher reaches we can see above the leading edge into the distance, a bare fraction of the glaciers depth slips into the mist beyond, giving a sense of scale more in what we can’t see than in what we can. The jagged and contorted shards that make up this beast are skyscrapers, all the worlds cities appear swept together to contort and bunch up in compressed version of natures blue-white current day urban Pangea. I think superman lives here. Descending to get closer and closer we hear gunshots, roars, groans and thunder; and so far we’ve only described volcanoes as active. It seems activity ranges from molten lava to frozen wonderlands. The glacier advances at 2m a day in the centre and just 40cm a day on the edges giving it a hallmark arrowhead shape. Reaching 180m deep underwater it’s gargantuan and very much alive.

There is one feather in the cap we are also hoping for, if we’re lucky we’ll get to see a house size chunk of ice dislodge and crack into the water, the hope for anyone visiting the glacier.

We stop constantly on the descent down hoping for a rupture, the activity in this monster is unbelievable, constant, loud and ominous. We were hoping for this meeting to be beautiful and awe inspiring but we didn’t account for childlike excitement, our pulses race to each shifting sound. Through the extensive network of paths and viewing platforms we venture to take in every possible angle, slowly dipping below the upper limits of the facade to stare upward at the face that drops to the water with ominous severity. The dividing line here is another stark shock: beyond the wall is a foreboding inhospitable terror, on this side it’s windy but on our side a cool temperate national park like many others, inviting. The glacier seems to stake it’s territory and makes a communicable statement, we are to stay this side.

We soak up every view possible marvelling at every turn but we’re yet to see a show, we’ve heard the groans and snaps but haven’t seen the crash into the water yet. We’ve heard a deafening roar and seen a small tsunami through the lake, we’ve even dashed along a part of the path without a view only to see the remains of a big collapse, but to date we’re without a cherry. Deciding to pause we take in some perspective, relax and look, just look on without a single design to do anything more. From this viewpoint the fluidity of the beast is a real highlight, this seemingly stationary hard block flows and sweeps like poured honey between two mountains, vast time granting a motion to inflexible immobility. This contrast coupled with the scale imbues a slow shake of the head in admiration, it really is that good.

And we wait, this day is a booming success already but we want to see a collapse. The busted up ice bergs of previous collapses litter the lake like the worlds biggest gin and tonic; enough to keep three ex-pats appropriately incoherent for nearly a year. Small silly flights of fancy are a little unavoidable, this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before, there’s no neat box to place it in. The sun drifts overhead and towards it’s home for the day, this imposed passivity creating a vacancy to be filled with appreciation. As time pass… BOOM!

Jolted from our awestruck wonder a car sized sheet of ice falls off the face just to our left. Charlie is Annie Oakley with the camera and snaps away. Amazing. Outrageous. Unbelievable. Then it goes beyond my words, the Volkswagen Polo we saw was a precursor, a flake as a whole spire like the top of a tall apartment building cracks like thunder and starts its slow motion descent. In an eternal instant the demolition is complete, the crashing froth has fallen and the waters are again still to the occasional cheer of onlookers. It’s high five time as we process what we have just seen. If this was a nine year wait for a blind date we’re now panting, our eyes are wide and our pulses are definitely racing; I think we just proposed.

And the date is complete. We have only one day here before we move on and it was all about seeing Perito Moreno. From a more leisurely stage of our journey into the unromantic dash for cash we are now invigorated by our most obvious driver to travel; to be inspired by our world. There really is no replacement for immense power and beauty wrapped together. It’s been a long time coming and a wait well worth it; Perito Moreno you are a star and reason alone to travel the world.

February 12, 2015

While you were working – Turning the Page, El Calafate, Argentina

The secret agent dash for cash draws to a mind numbingly slow close as the bus window television stuck on one channel takes its rightful place in a fading past. Loaded up with US dollars we are slowly re-birthed into this adventure on a breeze rising anticipation. We’re heading to a border crossing back into Argentina and the exciting road ahead but not before a last minute dash. We stop in Puerto Natales, Chile’s last border town. With less than one hour I pull on the running shoes that look remarkably like hiking boots and do the Usain Bolt into town like a panic stricken bank robber fleeing the scene. Money changers, banks, broken ATM’s, money changers, ATM’s, cards not working, shit, a working ATM, hooray, Money changers and a taxi crammed into one foul sweating high pulse rate half-hour sees me saunter back to the bus station. I attempt to abolish the warped panic look on my face; I think I failed. None the less, a valuable last addition of USD punctuates success.

Finally the distracting spectre of calculated transactional necessity can be left behind like roadkill in the face of the bounties of travel; the romantically unresolved set to erase the recent journey of pursued resolutions.

It’s a subtle change this landscape shift, the tussock grass is there, the barren-ness and eternity are also; but. The landscape outside the bus window doesn’t so much become new as we journey north into the grander spaces of the Andes but swells from underneath. The progression to El Calafate is a layered experience with visual awe lifting up from the ground in a progressive revelation; it’s not a sharply changing environment but an evolving one building on its more passive origins. Viewing the passing world outside the bus is more like a teasing storyline, the plot builds with an inevitable twist we know is coming yet we can’t predict it’s device. It’s this feeling of dawning awareness that presents itself as our bus crests a rise and reveals a valley below, this bus ride now blissfully more of a story than modish transport.

The golden green now accompanied by dusty blue plant-life drops away from us as we skirt the reaches of one side of an immense valley. The distance is disorienting, cities would be swallowed in this valley space as the transition from hill to mountain comes as a slap in the face. Phones and cameras are passed around the bus to join the enlivened faces that adorn the right side windows, this plot twist is lost on no-one. Like any good story the twist is quickly backed up by another, the largest lake in Argentina glittering a bizarre turquoise in the last throes of the days light, glacial melt water offering that all too unreal colour. And it keeps on coming, the town of El Calafate appears on the border of the lake backed by mountains, those mountains; wow. The peaks sharply thrust from the earth in the appearance of an ever reaching surge for the sky emanating a halo in the pre-dusk light that would draw scolds from Charlie as I edit photos of being ‘too unrealistic’. But they’re all too real, photoshop-esque beams of sunlight slice to the earth in sharp blades to complete the scene of seemingly artificial grandeur.

We were excited to get back into the more romantic and fun mode of the holiday, El Calafate has indeed delivered the grandest of entrances to jolt us back out of reality and into travel, whatever that may become. The recent chapter of this trip started as a factual account, a faux accounting text book but in the turning of a single page we are thrown back into grand fictional fantasy. Flipping forward the pages ahead are stark and blank, an unresolved storyline to be created page by page. This page delivers promise and the urge to read; create more. Bravo to the author, we’re enlivened to turn more pages but we’ll stop on this one for just a little longer.

February 11, 2015

While you were working – The un-romance of travel, Tierra Del Fuego

The name’s Bond, James Bond. How quickly the coin flips, we were but moments ago quite enviable global travellers drinking up the worlds bounties and now at the hissing closure of the bus door we become black market racketeers, secret agent eat your heart out. A slight embellishment to the romantic designation of our task does little to diminish the fact that we are in cold hard truth travelling internationally to convert dollars to trade on the black market; sounds terribly exciting does it not? Well don’t believe everything you read in the blogs ladies and gentlemen. High rolling casinos, fast cars, faster women, dangerous villains and gin martinis shaken, not stirred are replaced with buses, bad food, worse coffee, more buses and not a martini worth it’s olives to be found. Welcome to the unromantic side of travel.

The hissing door closes sealing our fate as we set off to Punta Arenas across the border again to Chile, we can’t seem to stay away from the place. Ushuaia sits on the largest central island in Tierra Del Fuego and it’s that island we now get a thorough tour of. On this bus ride we get a further reminder of Charles Darwin’s description of eternal nothingness, my repetition of this statement matched only by its conciseness. Eternal. Nothingness. Eight hours of driving comforted by ‘The Great Gatsby’ reveals a vast land of tussock covered featureless land so scarcely dotted by a handful of rural buildings it becomes hard to imagine that they are even in use anymore. The pages of my book paint images of extravagance and colour while eternal nothingness fills the square metre or so of my bus windows permitted association with the outside world. My reality seems so much less-real than the classic fiction bound to words alone.

But it is oh-so-real; nothingness does not, as it turns out, mean boring; a defining feature of this part of the world. There is beauty here, in gracious scale a jarring sense of wonder is generated. We live lives cramped for space, counting square footage of apartments, needing more storage, no car-space and yet here space is all there is. Jarring disorientation underpins the gently undulating yellow-green forever that flavours this cocktail, such continuity of featureless land like a small space magnified as a grand visual trick delivers grace not in form but in the lack of it. We spend our lives looking at ‘things’, collecting ‘things’ that we see only those things. Here as if blinked away an instantaneous disorientation as the space between the things swells to fill the voids pervades, the space shouting louder than the chorus of things you expect to belong here. Livestock, wind farms, power lines, speed signs, rocky outcrops, houses, machinery, billboards and even refuse seem like thy should belong here, but they simply aren’t here. Nothingness.

Anon I could describe the indescribable but you get the idea: it’s oddly beautiful in it’s emptiness and so unnervingly conflicting to a world we know and are comforted by. As Australians we are used to open space but eternal nothingness seems not to be a chapter in the Australian story.

After eight hours of solid public servant workday conditions achieving absolutely nothing our sensory depravation capsule that we call the bus pulls to a halt, we are crossing the channel. A welcome chance to stretch the legs casts us willingly into the wind, I remember this wind blowing incessantly enough to match the never ending nature of this landscape. Cold, wind, bitterness and harshness define this frontier feel as we wait again appreciating beauty in a place describable in terms that don’t paint a picture of beauty in common terms at all. The ferry ride is cool as well, any up close interaction with genuinely big machinery is exciting and throw dolphins in the mix it’s a fun experience having the bus loaded onto the ferry for the short trip across treacherous water in a tick-box first for me.

Fast forward two hours and we arrive in Punta Arenas, our first stop on our trip here nine years ago. The town has changed, new buildings dot the city, none more notable than the very out of place looking hotel on the port, all glass modernity in this quaintest of historical cities. We find spots and sights that we remember from that other time as we attempt to soak up what travelling flavour is on offer. It’s a nice trip back in time but overshadowed by our new found cash smuggling venture. Embarking on three days of bus travel, ATM’s and money changers will gain us extra cash, enough to make all this worthwhile but there’s no denying it, this is not the romantic part of the adventure.

Fittingly enough we leave a land of expanding scale and mental ignition for a few days of chasing some money, literally buying money in the trade of experience. Tierra Del Fuego excites, inspires and confounds; takes you to a different world than the one you know, allows you to feel space and possibility; for a time. Like a vacuum we’re sucked unceremoniously back onto the bus and into the real world for a dose of taking care of business. With eyes squeezed shut and fingers in our ears adoption the most cliche poses of juvenile denial we wait to be delivered back into a new place of broken barriers. El Calafate, what have you got?

February 10, 2015

While you were working – Room with a view, Ushuaia, Argentina

Waking up in a picture perfect location we are treated to a view that redefines the word, perfection never got so perfect. Orange tent flaps frame our vista of the silent racing river leading to the snow dappled mountain peak. It’s a common catch phrase really; room with a view, that is until you’re in one and it doesn’t seem so common at all, what a way to start the day. The view sets the tone for the day, unbidden smiles turn the corners of our mouths at this sight first of many. A bus comes to pick us up at 3pm today so we’re embracing mountain exploration old lady style and with the egos shelved for a day it’s guilty pleasure all-round.

Quick brekky down we set off with our gloriously light pack, note singular not plural, so much weight left in the tent sees the case for getting old gaining momentum by the minute. We have a small network of trails to make our way around today taking in various views of mountains, lakes and bays along with the local wildlife. First stop on the trail is to go looking for beavers, never thought we’d say that. Introduced pests wreak havoc with their damming and are considered an unwanted pest; one look at the dam leaves no room for objection, beavers are evil. It turns our that beavers prefer to be appreciated early in the morning and in the evening, who knew; so no sighting for us today. Before us we take in the original streams path littered with dead trees due to the now flooded basin. We see the chopped down trees all around giving pause to any designs of getting up close, a good reminder that beavers have big sharp teeth and are best avoided, but I guess we knew that.

The sun is beating down in the crisp air as we transfer from dense forest, to sunny dale and back again in the ambling comfort of casual sightseeing, strategically avoiding tour buses at any opportunity. The furthest our walk takes us today is to a small buoy on Lapataia bay and we take a lesser trodden track to avoid the throngs to strike out in relative solitude once more. The balance of comfort and ease posed against the ideal of experiencing isolation is a challenge we’ve admittedly never been particularly good at, often pushing to greater extremes to achieve that elusive separation. I guess today we are experiencing a different way to see the great outdoors and with a little dose of perspective we are able to make a great day of it in the face of what might usually drive us crazy, people. It definitely doesn’t hurt that the area here is truly beautiful, again a deviation from our normal mode of seeking altitude; we’ve rarely ever hiked at sea level so in itself this is a somewhat new thing for us.

The walk out to the bay reveals more beaver destruction, what a phenomenon. The once small unobtrusive stream is now a sea of former trees now just little stumps mostly about half a metre in height, carved to a sharp points. The scene resembles sombre un-named wartime grave markers, these stakes reach 20-30m either side of the creek and stretch for as far as we can see up and downstream in a lasting tribute to the fallen. Any tree fifteen centimetres in diameter or less is no more and the ones that were too thick are silver skeletons due to the flooded ground. The scene has an abstract beauty in its contrast but there’s no denying, they really are little bastards.

At the Buoy we stop for a lunch in a quiet spot and stare out to the stretch of the Beagle channel, named after Charles Darwin’s ship ‘HMS Beagle’, the juggernaut of modern science a prominent figure in these parts. Fittingly this area so associated with the father of evolution throws up some great wildlife for all those that care to look. Our lunch spot is shared with a red fox making it’s way along the shoreline, as casual as you like. It’s not going terribly close to people but it’s obvious that we’re in it’s territory, not the other way around. There’s ducks and geese galore, one particular white and grey goose poses pompously for a photograph on a small rise just a few metres away from us, all grace and beauty in the sunlight, Darwin himself would be proud.

This days hiking has been different for us, an adventure away from adventure. At our ripe old ages we’re like kids in the sandpit and learning to play with others on the trails, sadly more of a hurdle than it should be. The question remains, are we seeing the light on the more elderly method of seeing the great natural world? Not a chance is the simple answer. The more casual approach to this hike has indeed been fantastic and not without a notable highlight reel. However the achievement of aching muscles, the tacit exchange in the thin air of altitude and the intrinsic gift that is being surrounded and alone simultaneously is a different story all together.

Ushuaia is a bit of an odd duck in a way, we enjoy towns but lasting experiences come as a result of detachment, a plunge into a wilder existence, a former time. In this town we get the inspiring slap in the face by simply soaking up being at the end of the world, striking out into nature has simply been a cherry, not the goal. The uplifting sensation of the wild that buries itself in your belly and lifts you up, carries you away hasn’t been chased to the hills or dominated to reclusive reaches, it runs thick in the streets. In a way just being here is an extraction, Darwin’s eternal nothingness is the etherial crackle in the air that permits the mind to soar, we are at the end of the world after all, there’s nowhere further to separate to.

February 9, 2015

While you were working – Just a little walk, Ushuaia, Argentina

At the end of the world it’s time to have a little look and see what’s out there, out in the last reaches of where us humans are really meant to go. Strangely enough it’s not bitterly cold here, it’s summer of course but the temperate days bathed in sunshine are far more T-shirt weather than you’d expect if you pointed to Ushuaia on a map. All geared up for life more literally out of a backpack than the rest of this trip we are having a little walk along the shores of the Beagle channel, west from Ushuaia and within sight of Chile. This walk is quite literally just a little dabble into the wild, accommodation in Ushuaia is like good coffee around here; pretty much non existent so we’re heading off early to Punta Arenas in Chile a little earlier than planned. So with checklists at the ready we load up more food than we’re going to need and trundle off to see what lies at the edge of the world.

Jumping a little mini bus we are sardines squeezed in and off to the national park admiring the awesome ranges to the west and south as we bump along. Scratching around at our sketchy little walking map it seems that the bulk of those ranges are where we’re heading, exciting. It seems the Andes don’t quite sink into the ocean with quite the passive whimper that they seem to on the map, not the grandest peaks in the range to be sure but glorious enough for plenty of gawking. Amid the appreciation there is a small matter of pesky tourists, I mean the other tourists, of course were allowed to be tourists and the only ones at that, all others should really be somewhere else. This headspace is an easy trap to fall into, preaching the virtues of the wild, decrying human degradation of the natural world while insisting that we be the only ones permitted into that wild; good old middle-class hypocrisy. We all do it and it’s always a horrid expression.

The walk begins along the shores of the Beagle Channel and away from the throng of sixty-somethings pouring from buses like hornets from a disturbed nest. Thankfully there’s not an east coast US voice with the volume stuck on high among them so no gripes, but today is about being in nature so off we trek. The walk is a different one for us, less demanding and gently picturesque, the environment here engendering a less than usual desire to be alone in nature; happy to share the path today.

Reaching a branch in the channel we skirt Lapataia bay and it becomes apparent that many of the grander mountains we see are most likely on the Chilean side of the border, Chile has a knack for this. Chiles neighbours don’t like Chile generally speaking and the reason sited is often Chiles fortunate borders. Chile ‘stole’ Bolivia’s ocean making it a landlocked country, ‘stole’ land from Peru and grabbed the better deal out of southern Patagonia from Argentina. To the casual observer there seems to be a bit of sour grapes toward the country that has it’s house in order and punches quite successfully above its weight economically and socially. On the other hand Chileans will admit they have a fair degree of Pasado, or bravado about their success; so basically Queensland when they win something. I get the angst. We’re not too sure of where the battle lines should be drawn but we do love Chile and in the relative disorder of much of South America it seems pretty obvious how a nation like Chile might have become firm, even aggressive about its territory.

The walk turns out to be exactly that, a walk; a glorious soaking up of the surrounds, far from the lung busting grind that we usually take on. As far as a first dip into the travel habits of the elderly go this could do a lot worse, it’s a lovely day and we’re happy to shelve greater challenges until we get to El Chalten, the home of the Fitzroy range. For now we turn up to a plushly grassed campsite adjacent to a racing river sliding smoothly by. With barely a sole in sight we relax on the soft ground in the shade of an alpine beech and slip away the afternoon just like the river beside us. Sleep takes us for about half an hour but who really cares, there’s no time here, no obligation, no messages; nothing to interrupt a little slice of pure serenity.

We wake up a little surprised that we actually fell asleep to find that we’re not the only ones in the campsite. Just about five metres away we’re having our space invaded quite rudely; by two big birds of prey. I whisper to Charlie to get the camera quickly, I know what these birds are, they’re Southern Crested Cara Cara’s. I’m not an ornithologist by any means but the uncanny recurrence here is that we had a close encounter with these exact birds nine years ago on our last visit to Patagonia, Chile. Like an arrow shot from the past the name lurches from my mouth in stunned amazement. They’re solitary birds so to see two together like this just metres away is crazy, we’re speechless. They’re big, powerful, the pure definition of majesty and they’ve just naturally landed right beside us; this is precisely what we venture into the wild for. We sit on plush grass on a rocketing riverbank beneath grand mountains, everything postcard photographers crave, just about all to ourselves and these beasts just decide to join us after a nap. You get the idea, chalk up another moment that we just want to grab a hold of an make last forever.

Alas the moment escapes us borne on the wings of a fantastic animal, the Cara Cara’s leave just a little bit of magic as they soar away taking the moment with them. We started the days walk in the hornets nest of blue rinse tourism and we end up in an intrepid adventurers nirvana. The disparity between physical push and outcome here is a weird one, high season so rarely grants moments like this particularly without pushing the boundaries. Maybe being at the end of the world is adventure enough, a luxury granted to those that come. Grander mountains await, harder treks need treading and more evasive moments will come and go but now we’re in Ushuaia and the end of the world permits only space in thought, those other moments can wait. Right now permits only right now, we’re in some blesses cool weather both reading high-brow literature that is only beaten by the even higher-brow setting. so much for just a little walk.

February 8, 2015

While you were working – Writing the Open Book, Ushuaia, Argentina

The mind wanders and sways to the breeze of unfamiliar thoughts, ideas and notions. The origins of the new are as difficult to pin down as any sense of conclusion, one thing that does seem a certainty though is that the end of the world is a place of space and eternity. We have tatty passports, barely a possession that we left home with so with just over a third of this adventure away from home it seems far too early to be looking over the end of the world. It seems far more appropriate to say that we’re having a journey away from home and life as we know it rather than a journey towards anything or anywhere, it’s just more accurate. The road ahead is not bereft of locations, signposts or goals however perceiving the road ahead as a goal to achieve seems unreachable right now; instead it’s open and without prejudice, a vacuum to be filled. So where are we ‘going’? It seems like nowhere that we can articulate, but we’re going there anyway; the only tangible is what has happened and what is happening, not speculation about what lies before.

One deep breath and I’m back from the brink of talking like a vague drug-addled post modern former B-list faux-buddhist celebrity passing up his decades long cocaine habit as a spiritual podium on which to preach from. After I achieve B-list celebrity status first of all I intend to embrace my post modern drug addled hysteria for what it is; maybe I’ll write less obscurely then.

All jokes aside there is a definite and unavoidable sense of openness, limitless possibilities and grand notions in parts of the world like this. Sitting at a hostel table now gazing through a dusty window I see a frontier town on a bitterly fought over channel of water and beyond, the drop-in theatrical stage set that is the snow dappled Andes. Travelling the length of this great range was always part of our plan and we’ve more or less done it, small deviations our only distraction. And now, the longest range in the world that has become our friend, our muse and indeed our tormentor at times slowly and passively shrinks from ominous force to submerged slumber, the beast has been tamed. The colloquial term ‘end of the world’ is used a lot here, it’s the most southerly place excepting antarctica but the broken up specks of land that finish like the trailing trickle of a spluttering spray can speak so powerfully of finality.

So where does one go when one has reached the end of the world? Of course we take a minute to have a gawk and then it’s boots on and off into the wilderness. The day in Ushuaia is full of the usual shopping, cooking, counting clothes, confirming park entries mixed with a good dose of old fashioned looking around. Oh, and a bit of wanky literary rubbish of course. The town is not entirely tiny but definitely not a city, the range of retail options for all manner of unnecessary stuff a strong pointer to a boom and bust tourist cycle, a very ski town type feel. It’s a little touristy but the vastness and imposing sense of forever quickly banishes any feeling of an over serviced cash trap. We stop for coffee, we have a bite to eat and we take photos in this charming little town that stares off the end of the world.

We even get a good exchange rate on the blue dollar; lets explain the blue dollar for those of you unfamiliar. The Argentinian economy is about as stable as Australian politics right now (January 2015) so people are desperate for hard currency in US dollars as savings. Illegally people will give anyone about 40% better exchange to have their pesos changed to US dollars cash, so it’s into boarded up rooms, toyshops, cafes or even right on the street to personally contribute to Argentina’s impending economic doom. There oddly seems to be a better rate the larger the town or city so to get a change of $12.70 as opposed to BA’s $13 is a bonus. We’re cashed up and ready to jump into wilderness where we can’t spend it.

Like taking a big breath before a deep dive we prepare to literally walk step by step into the above mentioned void of nothingness so tangible in this place. Tomorrow we venture off for a short walk to camp one night in the national park and allow the vacuum of the future to solidify around us at each taken step. The photos will be shot, sights seen, food eaten, footprints left and memories taken; but that will happen tomorrow. Tomorrow is an open void and there’s no place to go, nothing to see; until the sun comes up again. For now we’re just the two of us staring into nothingness, hand in hand in the ‘now’ staring off the end of the world with the only certainty the hand that is in each others.

February 5, 2015

While you were working – Chasing Adventure, Argentina

Beunos Aires is indeed playing it’s part to resurrect the impression of urban life in Argentina, through our eyes at least. If travelling is a metaphor for life then life is an adventure, the passivity of comfortability is an option contra to the tatty corners of a passport. Buenos Aires is a huge city, 13 million people cram into a sprawling tangle of urbanity that is not entirely urbane. We’ve seen but a small part and we’re setting off again to head south chasing where the weather is cooler, the humans less frequent and the mountains higher; our kind of place for sure.

It’s a strange thing being in this ravenous mode only taking the best pieces off the top of the cake; we metaphorically eat a single icing encrusted cherry and leave the rest on the counter barely worth a glancing look. But that is travelling and it’s our life for the meantime, we’re ravenous beasts interested in only an undiluted cherry filled existence from the top to the bottom of the cake, no room for empty sponge. Argentina does however have an inordinate capacity for producing cherries; indulgence, decadence and amazement are routine menu items giving any traveller a fairly quick cherry hangover. By cherry I of course mean meat and wine which turns out not to be the diet plan we were hoping it might be, better to end this paragraph now.

Now is the time for sponge.

A blessed bland comfort engulfs us for our departure from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia in the south; the brochures, advertisements and dare I say it, the blogs have it wrong, life’s not all mojitos at the bar. In its own way the embracing of the mundane carries notes of indulgence of its own as a more recent development of the traveller beast takes root in us. In this state we are becoming more able to appreciate having obligation free time which is sadly quite a new concept to us. Our final cherry bereft day in Buenos Aires involves little more than hunting for ferry tickets, camera lens caps and visiting a Japanese garden. Oh and coffee, plenty of stops for coffee. We farewell Ben off to his ferry to Uruguay and the continuation of his adventure, the last vestige of home leaves us at the sound of farewells ringing out through the hostel common area.

It’s just the two of us again. For the first time in what seems an eternity there’s no ready made group of mates, friends or family from home; it’s two little soldiers with our lives in our backpacks off to see the world and all it’s adventures. A horridly early alarm thrown us into the disordered mess that is Argentinian logistics, off to the airport and a place where there is adventure at every turn if you’re of a mind to see it as we are, Ushuaia. The plane touches down and we’re less than an hour late which is amazing, our bets of 3-4 hours delay were well off; someone needs to call a newspaper, this must be a first in Argentina.

The chill of the air is like a kiss from an old friend. The humidity and heat in Buenos Aires made for more sweat and unsettled sleep than we care to mention but now it feels like home. Ushuaia is in Tierra del Fuego, the land of fire named such by colonial explorers noting the campfires of indigenous peoples centuries ago, the land on fire. This broken up spray of isles off the southern tip of the continent signals the Andes final slip into the ocean and what many people have described as the end of the world. Charles Darwin wrote that he experienced eternal nothingness in Tierra del Fuego such is the sense of emptiness beyond the final scraps of land. For us this place is less so a finish, an end, but a beginning of a new place, new adventures and a new plunge into wilderness. In the travellers exchange what defines an end to most represents a beginning, the relationship between embracing and escape now a new set of principles.

Nestled against the Beagle channel Ushuaia stares at Chile only a matter of a few kilometres away, two nations with no little amount of vexation towards each other marking their lines in this prized territory. The land here is too broken up and isolated to be of any significant value as a port but it’s from Tierra del Fuego that that access to Antarctica is granted, Ushuaia in Argentina, Puerto William in Chile. Backed by impressive mountains like the back of a shoebox in a diorama Ushuaia lays on no shortage of picturesque drama making for a first impression that is tailor made for the elevation of adventurer spirit as the Andes lose their elevation.

In this year long quest for cherries we find ourselves supping on different flavours of red delight, meat and wine keeping the traveller principle alive. Yet as time rolls on in this odyssey it seems that we’re finding flavours that never seemed to be there in the former bland. Esoteric existentialists might point to an evolution of consciousness but really it’s a bit of good old fashioned opening of mind. We so often discard the bland in the chase for the greater but like a good diet, the meat and wine might be delicious but what’s nourishing for the body needs to be gifted greater importance, if not desire. In a mental sense travelling is ushering us from a stage of mental adolescence to somewhere else. What seems so obvious now is that there is no finish, end or goal in the complex chase for balance and perspective.

As the saying goes, it’s a small world. Until you try to see it and then realise that it’s a cruel exponential unsolvable riddle that perpetually extends before your view. The more you see, chase, the more the world grows, you’re never able to reach it; the irony of the chase a revelation for us only now. Fitting really we realise the futility of a chase at the end of the world, time to look a little differently into nothingness.

February 4, 2015

While you were working – Poking around, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Today we have a full day of donning the tourist caps and getting out and about, our to-do list is welcomely sparse leaving space for good old fashioned poking around. So it’s off to see the sights, soak up some atmosphere and surely get frustrated by the now comical Argentinian lack of efficiency and strong businesses commitment to non-commitment of make money. For now though it’s coffee time, of course and we’ve found a place that’s not run by an Argentinian so there’s a better than average chance of it not being randomly closed because the owner couldn’t be bothered today. Exaggerating? Not a chance, Argentina is all over the place in terms of working efficiently.

We make our way to the northern part of town to a few attractions that suit the ambling tourist absorption mode we are after. We stop off at an old theatre that has been converted into a bookshop for a bit of a poke around. Box ticked here, it’s a lovely building full of grandeur and vintage class but inevitably a very grand book shop; nice to see but hardly a ‘must see’ for a city of BA’s history and size; moving along.

The bookshop was as easily enjoyed as it was forgotten, not quite so our next stop. We make our way through a grand white entry facade and into a weird sort of alternative universe. Arrow straight avenues are flanked by ordered rows of ornate facades in polished marble or historic stone, everything here screams of exclusive affluence. Small gardens are manicured and grand statues abound in this expression of wealth in a small walled block of the city. We gaze with wide eyes through windows into places we can’t get to in a throng of tourists doing just the same as us. Sadly there’s no delicious coffee, no bars with a cold beer and no boutique fashion and definitely not a snack to be found. Annoyingly the residents of this exclusive enclave don’t enjoy such niceties which I guess makes sense, we’re in a cemetery.

This place is a grand city in miniature, small churches boasting all the opulence of the larger kind are no more than six metres tall; fit-outs that belong in the most expensive hotels are crammed into a few square metres floorspace. It’s quite captivating and completely bereft of the macabre nature of cemeteries as we know it, polished windows open the view to coffins, statues, candelabras and everything in between. What we see before us is less so a place of rest for the dead and more so an extensive release of cap-X (capital expenditure in corporate terms) for brand maintenance of reputations. It’s a pissing competition of Catholic proportions, families and notable individuals have their brands and of course, the brands of their families polished for all to see. BA at least has a very good grasp on Catholicism and its machinations. South America yet again makes a pot shot at commercial religion oh so easy but for now it’s just a weird and wonderful place to see, these insatiable tourists soaking up the fodder of our kind.

We shamelessly do scout out Eva Peron’s crypt, the grand figure of Evita stands strong in Argentinian history and social conscience still. We didn’t however know that Evitas body had been grave-robbed and stolen for decades. We also didn’t know that when it was rediscovered and returned it had signs of being interfered with. The suggestion of interference is more of a statement than a suggestion and it’s exactly what you’re assuming, I would suggest. And with that icky business behind us lets move on shall we.

We meander past closed shops and through metro stations with closed ticket booths, uncannily entering into the invalid entry at every opportunity, doing anything is laced with difficulty in Argentina. All we can think is that running a business must be super easy here, unlike the tight margin competitive beast that is Australia. How else can businesses small and large routinely and consistently be closed; we’ve noticed retail shops that we’ve never seen open, wine bars closing at 10pm saturday night and cafes that only open a few hours a day. The question we can’t quite figure out is that in this struggling economy do we see a commercially easy day to day or is the easy day to day the cause of the struggling economy. Or is it a cultural chicken and egg scenario?

Launching into the lush tourist grazing pasture that is a street market we devour our way through the San Telmo market heaven. There’s an abundance of tourist awesomeness here, antique stuff, awesome stuff and weird stuff sold by people that are equally antique, awesome and weird. When it comes to poking around a city to devour from the buffet of whats on offer and think as shallowly as when watching a hollywood movie, we’re nailing this exercise of passive one way osmosis.

No one really calls time on play but we organically drift towards the hostel listlessly deciding to cook in for the night. Buenos Aires heat is sapping and the incessant walking without significant aim has stagnated our energy levels, we’re clocking off this day. Our hostel plays re-runs of vikings to further dumb our mental lethargy while we cook, BA is huge city and we’ve barely scratched the surface. A mere scratching of that surface is plenty enough to come away with an opinion well and truly forming. BA indeed lives up to some of its hype; it’s vibrant and lively but most of all it’s exploding with grandeur and style. There’s a long tumultuous history of lavish excess, turmoil and wealth, or oppressive lack of wealth depending on the time giving BA an abundance of grandeur without social or political consistency to drag it to gentrification. In a day we’ve tasted glamour, fading glamour, opulent excess, current dash and historical grandeur; in BA it seems that staid and mundane are off the menu now and always have been.

February 3, 2015

While you were working – Back in the spirit, Buenos Aires, Argentina

We farewell Laf and Barnaby, we farewell La Constancia and we farewell Cordoba; all three have been very good to us. The liberal splash of luxury of La Constancia has been a breath of fresh air into the open window of hostel land and Cordoba province has rounded the picture of Argentina as we know it. Our impressions have largely been reinforced in Cordoba, the slowly solidifying picture of a culture who’s heart beats well and truly in the rural areas. Mendoza, Salta and Cordoba cities all have a consistent theme thus far: all commendable cities but lacking a flagship gravitas that a city, a capital should have. They’re functional and overshadowed largely by their surrounding areas.

The elephant in the room here are Laf and Barns, and that’s not a reference to Barnaby. We’ve said our farewells after another meat-fest in fairly undramatic fashion only to leave an uncommon lingering fondness in this travelling year underpinned by distance. To say that it was good to see people from home would be a drastic understatement. The traveller headspace has taken root in us strongly granting faces from home a presence like an icy wind, a slap in the face. We’d gotten used to being on our own per se, now home has come rushing all the way to South America. Leaving Laf and Barns has taken a bit of us back home with them that it took a long time to drag to us, we’d definitely been getting in the spirit. This minor turmoil is thankfully abated temporarily by the meeting with our nephew Ben in Buenos Aires, missing home can wait for a few days more.

We’d heard that Buenos Aires (BA) breaks the Argentinian mould with ample dash and swagger, the morning in BA goes to script, the script is this. BA does immediately seem more alive, Palermo is buzzing, trendy and vibrant. Everything we want is closed and everything that is open has run out of what we want, it seem some moulds remain intact. Ben is running late for our 9:30am rendezvous, Ben is not answering messages, one suspects Ben had a night on the cans. We wait for a coffee shop to open, who would ever want coffee before 10am on a Saturday? Ben arrives about two hours late, all is forgiven. We have several coffees. We remember at 12:58 that our laundry closes for the whole weekend at 1pm, shit! I run like a scolded shoplifter for three blocks and make it at 1:01pm, I was not prepared for that. We have more coffee. The end.

The day ambles by on a wave of post overnight bus fatigue mixed with meeting Ben excitement, the veritable sleeping pill and red bull all at once. Either side of the upper and downer battle winning out at various stages. On the obligatory diet of market browsing, food hunting and travel stories we catch up on our respective adventures. After some awesome burgers the sleeping pill part of the equation starts to win out leaving us to crash like any good over the counter drug abuser, siesta time.

In the emotion tugging whirlwind of leaving Laf and Barns to the socially acceptable drug haze of meeting Ben the steady ship of travel has met some turbid seas. A sleep fixes everything. We’re very excited to be taking Ben out for dinner, fittingly to a recommended place from Laf and Barns, a sushi joint nearby; we can’t do anymore meat just yet. We’d heard that it’s a bit picky on the dress code so we’re all in Bens shirts, that is to say that we’re all looking like retro VHS era porn star imitations, the boy’s got style; well, a style. Over a sophisticated bottle of Patagonian pinot we drift away to some of the most delicious ceviche, nori and sashimi we’ve ever had. It’s not just us getting back in the travel spirit, it seems that BA is joining us for the ride.

But it does not stop there, oh no. Dinner comes and goes and it’s not for lack of dining experience that I speak no more of the food, what happens next is the real deal. We ask to go to the bar for a drink, common enough. We’re ushered by a very rigid little rabbit of a man to a fairly discreet door at the back of the restaurant. Just inside we’re in a small room lined with dusty wine bottles, great atmosphere for the speel. The restaurant is named Nickys New York Sushi; the story goes that it’s a replication of the famous ‘Nickys’ of the 1920’s, a restaurant famous for being a cover for a mob backroom speakeasy. That’s where we’re going. We were never offered this, it’s only on recommendation that we knew of it, we’re asked not to take photos and we’re led to a door, literally a large old fashioned bank vault door. This is getting more and more bizarre by the second.

The door flings open to the orange ambience of incandescent bulbs, dark timber, and bouncing swing music. The doorman in stiff waistcoat greets us ‘welcome to New York; 1920’. And in we plunge, this setup is out of this world, we’re flung into the roaring 20’s right into the heart of a throbbing mob cocktail bar. Through the vintage style shopfront facade we enter a scene that is half Great Gatsby and half The Godfather, we’re all beaming smiles and wide eyed wonder, agape and unable to speak for a moment. This is definitely time to pinch ourselves and bottle this moment, we’re here with Ben in this one-in-a-million scene. Our wavering traveller spirit from recent visits from home comes, like the 20’s, roaring back. The cocktails are divine, the atmosphere is charged as we set about rewriting the definition of what travelling experiences are all about.

We eventually jump back in the time machine to the present via a different discreet exit, the curtained door gently folds back into the place. We look back to see nothing but a curtain, the portal to our other world no longer evident, the nicest of touches on this grandest of experiences. Plunged back into the heaving streets of Palermo we’re in Argentinian time and heading out at about 1:30am. A couple of bars later we’re still seeing families out, a boy six or so walks through the bar at about 2:30am, nearly bedtime by Argentinian standards, I am not getting used to this yet at all.

With a clock face showing 3:30am we fall into bed thoroughly alive but exhausted. Our minds had been tugged back home momentarily, but only momentarily. We’d been thrown off track by the relative lack of spirit of Argentinian cities, buoyed only by the fiery country lifestyle. On the Back of Buenos Aires rolling out the lively spirit of what a city can be we find ourselves similarly launched back into the swing of things. Our notions of home are no longer left behind but now rolled into the traveller spirit, all one ideal and no longer separate; the world doesn’t seem so far away anymore. We travel now more so with home, not from it. In BA, the last of our capitals in South America we have regained temporary absence of traveller spirit, or is it that we’ve only now just properly found it?