Farewell, trusty steed...

Established, back in the hostel, I write up an A4 "For Sale" poster for my bike (right) and my camping stuff and distribute it to all the other hostels in Ushuaia. Before I went in Antarctica I´d put up a number of internets ads (pricipally on http://www.horizonsunlimited.com  but no cigar !).

Why am I selling it ?? As I still do want to go the 3060km to Buenos Aires. Well, I think the Argentine Ruta 3 is genuinely dangerous on a low powered bike and I think I´ve already stretched my luck about as far as it will go. And I´d like to realise some value in it, the back tyre is nearly gone, the chain and sprockets are worn too. For me Ushuaia was always going to be the end of the road.

Back to the hostel, I wait and I wait and I wait, 4 days go by and I hear absolutely nada......nobody bites. I thought the camping stuff would go quick (it´s expensive down here), but I´m wrong. So I have a much needed haircut (nearly 1 year since the last...) and spend the time doing cultural stuff in Ushuaia, visit the museums and the parks, ride out to Enstancia Harberton and a lighthouse on the Beagle channel. For this reason, cue the history bit....

A very potted history of Tierra del Fuego

Patagonia, in terms of human development, is still in a very youthful state. The original pioneers, Drake and Magellan were down here in the 17th century but a full two hundred years went by when Europeans, and others, seldom landed here (although of course hundreds transited (& were often wrecked in) the Magellan Straights or Cape Horn) so there is little recorded history during this time.. The local indigenous tribe, the Yamanas were aggressive to outsiders and were left mostly to themselves, several attempts were made by 18th century Anglican Missionaries to land, but they were chased off.

The Yamanas were an interesting tribe. During the day they went about this very windy, freezing cold, place completely naked !! It´s almost unbelievable !! They covered themselves only in Penguin fat. They were a tribe that stayed principally in their bark canoes. For this reason, over millenia, they adapted and  developed short spindly legs and enormous shoulders and arms, they were, apparently, ungainly on land. 19th century sailors, partly because of the smell no doubt, considered them more animal than human and treated them as such. When the European and American colonisation of Patagonia began in the 1850´s sheep were imported in large quantites. The Yamanas called them "White Guanaco" (A Guanaco is the Patagonian Llama), they were easier to hunt no doubt, and so they ate them ! This led to very uneven "battles" between rifle carrying settlers and bow-and-arrow equipped Yamanas. As a result, and typically of the period, the Yamanas were wiped out in a few decades, by the 1950´s, as a seperate tribal group, they were gone. There are no current native Yamana speakers left.
It´s worth noting that Ushuaia was first settled by Europeans (Thomas Bridges and family in Estancia Harberton) as late as 1877 !  A penal colony and prison was established in 1897 and that lasted until 1941. The road to Ushuaia was only constructed in the 1950s !! until then all transport was by sea, and later air.  As little as 30 years ago there were no apshalted roads in the whole of Patagonia !!

With new owner

There is a "Latitud del Sur" motorcycle club meeting in Ushuaia over 3 days. On the first day I place my poster behind the guy taking registrations. The very next morning a guy turns up, out of the blue, and buys the whole lot, he does not ride the bike or even look at the camping stuff. He hands over $500 (I wanted $560) and rides off, so that´s $340 for the bike and $160 for the camping stuff. I give him everything that I had that´s bike related, the lot !! (hat, jacket, gloves, waterproofs, levers, guage, patches, pump... etc..). He is from Ushuaia and is not interested in the paperwork either, and that´s a definite plus, as I´m well aware that selling this bike, here, is strictly, illegal !  I feel a pang of sadness to see it disappear around the corner, that bike looked after me for 2/3rds of South America, now it has a new "life" on Tierra del Fuego.

In the afternoon I am walking through Ushuaia, there is a noisy motorcycle club convoy. And there it is again ! It´s the first time I´ve seen someone else riding it, and I had not realised how small it is ! This guy is shorter than me and he looks faintly comical riding it, I hate to think what I looked like. Later on I see it again in the centre of town (left) , which is handy as I really wanted to keep the Peru plate as a souvenir, and the new owner kindly agrees. I also catch up with Alfredo, the guy who I previously met (a month before) at the petrol station in Rio Gallegos. Back at the hostel that evening I´m amazed by how little stuff I now have !!

Next day I realise I`m almost done in Ushuaia, but the following day is my birthday, so why not stay another day...? Me and a few others, I´d bribed, hit the Dublin Bar in Ushuaia for a birthday pint or two. I bale out fairly early. Heidi (a German girl from my room who crawls in at 6am and wakes me up by kissing my cheek) tells me she really enjoyed my birthday party, even though I wasn´t there !! Fantastic !!

I take the bus to Rio Grande and luckily find the only hostel. Soon decide it´s not worth stopping there long. Make an early start for the bus to Rio Gallegos and discover why most people go to Ushuaia by air !!! The bureacracy of stamping out of Argentina, into Chile then back into Argentina is crippling, time wise. It all takes 10 hours and we only drove for 4 hours.

Argentina appears to be the only country in SA that links immigration documents with vehicle temporary imports. This was a bit of a worry. I was expecting to be asked at the border "So.... where´s the bike then ??". My immigration slip (a carbon copy from a triplicate) had the bike´s number plate and details on it, but with yet another piece of carbon paper (from a shop), I´d blanked it out with the edge of a coin (though, then it looked a bit shifty....). I need´nt have bothered, no-one asked anything.

Patagonia gives us a proper send off, the wind is howling, we can barely walk and get nicely sand blasted into the bargain. The Magellan Straights ferry crossing is interesting too, on full power it cannot maintain station against the wind, it has to keep pulling off the concrete ramp and driving back on. Some of the vehicle drivers don´t want to drive off while the land is sliding past ! until, that is, they get yelled at by the crew ! All the vehicles get a nice salt water bath. It´s a luxury to be back on the buses, so much less to worry about !!

Then it´s an overnight bus trip on a swishy "ANDESMAR" double-deck bus North, up Ruta 3, to Puerto Madryn. On these Argentine buses you get food, good food !. I also have a new, cunning plan, for overnight bus trips, WINE ! I get 2 seats to myself, down a bottle of red, and it´s lights out til the morning, it works ! It´s the first time I´ve slept on a bus this entire trip ! (all good except for the headache next morning....).       

Antarctica V

Our penultimate shore visit, Deception Island. Through a very narrow entrance to this once super-volcano, now a 15km wide crater bay. The first obvious change is the colour ! Because of thermal activity there is MUCH less snow and ice, everything is Matte Brown and initially you can´t see the many buildings ashore (I expect some of the places we have already been look a lot like this in the high Summer (Jan / Feb). Here, for many years, there was a shore based Whale processing factory. There are many muldering huts, old steel tanks and boilers and wooden whaling boats, very atmospheric and unlike anything we have seen so far.

Then some craziness ensued !!  What should have happened was: A nice tranquil bathe in the 1-2 inch deep thermal waters at the shoreline. What actually happened: Macho Challenge !!  People got changed quickly then Ran Into the Sea (no thermal waters away from the shoreline), & screamed !! and then ran back again !!  I did it myself, I dived in, the shock of the cold water meant I could not breathe for perhaps 5 seconds, and back out again, making ridiculous gibbering noises ! I think this how the expedition crew amuse themselves (or extract their revenge) on a repeating 10 day cycle !!

We had one last run ashore in the South Shetlands, that afternoon, at "Half Moon Bay". We have been very lucky with the weather throughout our time here, calm, sunny days as a rule (the ship´s crew keep telling us how good it is everyday, until it is hard to believe them !). Well on this last visit the weather was probably more typical !! windy, snowy and rough, it made the Zodiac transfers insteresting ! most people got wet.

And then, it is all over !!  We depart the South Shetlands through a wide channel of fasinating rocky spires and precipices. Just as we leave there is an interesting cloud, it´s a Lenticular Cloud apparently, it means there is "Wind Coming" and we are just heading off to re-cross the Drakes Passage, not a good Omen....

The first day on the way back is actually mostly OK, it´s not a comfortable night though. In the morning, I´m surprised to find I´m seasick (the motion does not seem sooo bad), so I miss breakfast, the rest of the day is hard, as reading makes me worse and there´s nothing else to do. The lecture theatre feels like a mangy dungeon if your feeling unwell, but I´m OK by the evening.

The following night the weather deteriorates further, and the ship is flexing a lot when we hit some of the waves. During that morning the wind gets up and up, by mid morning the anemometer gives a steady 60 knots, gusting 80 knots (this is F11 gusting F12 on the Beaufort scale !). Stuff is flying around !!  We are rolling to 45 degrees !!  I am on the bridge when the coffee maker picks itself up and "flies" across the bridge and smashes to pieces. There are ominous sounds from the galley of severe crockery loss ! Because of this we know it is a more severe crossing than usual. The deputy expedition leader and 2nd mate rate it the worst ever Drakes Crossing, the others say worst in years. Fortunately the waves don´t get any bigger than about 12m, for some reason (in this area they can get up to 30m, making it one of the roughest places in the world). .....for a taster watch the video below.....

The weather stays like this until we are in the lee of Cape Horn in the evening. Surprisingly about 1/3rd of the passengers are not seasick at all. When we enter the Beagle Channel, faces emerge that have not been seen for over 48 hours (I´d forgotten some were even on the ship !), some people must have had a terrible crossing....

At anchor in the Beagle channel there is the holiday "round-up", a "certificate" ceremony and Goodbyes all round, with much cheering and clapping. We are invited to a (surprising) crew disco on the backdeck that goes on all night. In the morning the survivors (of the disco, not the drakes passage !) blearily report much "coupling" and post-party antics, crew and passengers. There are a few red faces !! Typically, I went to bed too soon and entirely missed out (the bar ran dry and I can´t dance....).

In the bright morning light we are dumped off on the dock following the usual hearty breakfast and that really is IT !!  Most are flying out the same day. I make my way back to the "Antarctica Hostel" and check in. It all feels a little Unreal. We (those still in Ushuaia) have a follow up drink in the Dublin Bar, that same night.

All in all, a fantastic trip and quite probably the highlight of my whole trip !!

Antarctica IV

Our last visit to a base, it´s another ex BAS base, Port Lockroy. Founded in 1944 for WWII intelligence reasons, it was manned until 1962. It´s muldered and rotted from then until just 2 years ago. When it was restored by a British charity (the Antarctic Heritage Trust) and turned into an unlikely gift shop & museum !

It´s an excellent & interesting museum and also gift shop, quite a lot of people from the ship bought souvenirs (including me, a mug (sic)), well, you would would´nt you ?  It´s run by 4 plummy girls (volunteers) who came out with the MV Ushuaia just 11 days before, on the first cruise of the season. We are they´re first customers ! They are out here until March 2011.

Inside it´s a time warp from the 40´s, 50´s & 60´s. They never seemed to make themselves comfortable in those days. The wooden structure resembles a garden shed and has a little more insulation, just 2-3 inches. They have just uncovered & restored some hand painted "girly" pictures, obviously from the 1940´s (the style is unmistakable) under several layers of paint.

Initially, I was quite excited by the possibilty of returning and volunteering at this base, and the volunteers were very upbeat about it, they said that not many guys apply. But two days later I realise that it´s Antarctica, yes, but primarily they are running a gifte shoppe, for 7 months, for no pay. They are stuck on a small island, there is no science here and apparently the other bases are being snooty with them by not talking on the radio.

Zodiac Cruise !!  I am out of luck here ! I get alocated to the "Ye Oldes" zodiac completely by chance. This is the only boat that does not get involved in a massive zodiac "Pirate War" involving snow balls (snow taken from passing icebergs) !! I am out-voted every time I try and join in, and it looks like great fun !! boo hoo !!

          Penguin about town !! 

Antarctica III

Day 3 and we pass through a narrow icy channel (the Lemaire channel, left) and arrive at "Vernadsky Base", as far South as we are going to go. This is a "proper" scientific Antarctic base, still manned, now by Ukrainians. It was "Faraday Base" until 1996 when the British government sold it for one pound ! (to save themselves the demobilisation & "cleaning" costs, part of the 1957 treaty). This base was the first to discover the hole in the Ozone layer, in 1970.

We land at the base and the personnel there most certainly give us odd looks. Turns out later that we are the very first outside people they have seen for 8 months !!! (since March this year), and we have women, and they don´t !

Well, for me (who always wanted to join British Antarctic Survey) this is absolutely fastinating !! The base is large and comfy inside. They have a bar and lounge, with pictures and souvenirs from yachts (and others) who have made it this far.

 

We have a quick tour around, & see some of the science. A lot is legacy from BAS. A low frequency radio for measuring the ionosphere height. A Dobson Spectrometer for solar radiation (how the hole was found).

I have a vodka (the real thing, Russian) in the bar ! send a few postcards (they will be posted from the Ukraine, might take a while to arrive, if they ever do !!), and have my passport stamped like the sad tourist I am !  We get sheperded out fairly quickly, shame, I could have stayed for days. I would have loved to have spent an Antarctic Winter in a place just like this (just the one Winter that is....).

We come close to the Antarctic Circle (66.6 deg South) to over 65 deg South (pic left), but we don´t actually cross it. It´s light nearly all the time, even in the middle of the night it´s a little gloomy, but not that dark




That afternoon it´s Zodiac Cruise time again ! This time "Iceberg alley", notably we see a Leopard Seal. This is not a (typically) cute and cudley member of the seal family, it´s a fearsome beast with a huge slavering mouth, you would not want to go swimming with one....   And we are told that the sea temperature here in MINUS 1.8 degrees Centrigrade !! as cold as sea water can get !! one more good reason for not going swimming.....

Antarctica II

Day 2: We awake in the Antarctic Peninsular, Antarctica Proper ! In the morning there is a "Zodiac Cruise" (we get these when a landing is not possible, good at the start but tended to disappoint towards the end of the trip) to Foyn harbour. An interesting trip through the icebergs, the colours have all gone, just blues and whites !

 There is the rusty old wreck of on an old 1912 Norwegian factory whaling ship, the "Governoren". Yachts have attached lines to it to moor here, and left them, which makes our guide, Augustine, angry....& he rants about it for a bit !!

In the afternoon we make our first landing on Antarctica, I´d be lying if I said that this was not a solid reason for coming here ! I´ll have now travelled to every continent !!

On the way there there are several loud thumps as the ships hull hits large "growlers" (solid, very old, ice that is as transparent as glass and therefore difficult to see in the water). We stop at "Almirante Brown" station, an uninhabited Argentinian station that burnt down some years before and has been partially re-built. We plod about in the snow for a while, then, inevitable have a snowball fight !! The point here, is really, to have landed on Antarctica....

Following our run ashore is another Zodiac Cruise. This time around the remarkable "Paradise Bay". Which appears to be "Antarctica in a nutshell", everything is on a massive scale.....

And the odd dozing seal lying on his comfy iceberg...

 

"My God, this is an awful place !!"

So said Captain Scott, 2 years off 100 years ago. Obviously I don´t think that !  But, after only 2-3 hours onshore or out in the Zodiacs, despite 3 layers of socks in my wellies (you have to wear wellies !) my toes are numb ! and my hands are going numb. The humidity is high here but the temperature is only 2-3 deg C.

With out a doubt it is a hostile place. We will all return to the heated ship and have nice hot showers. I have renewed respect for those early pioneers. Especially Shackleton and his crew, they camped on the ice for 9 months, right through a Winter, with wet Woolen jumpers and not nearly enough food. It must have been just so damned uncomfortable !!

Antarctica I

 I´m down at the dock at 4pm, joining an excited queue of people, to embark on the MV Ushuaia. I´ve quite surprised myself that I´m actually doing this !! I thought I might get to Ushuaia and choke on the price of this trip. But after successfully getting this far I´ve got to do it !!

First impressions of the ship are that it is a little old (1971), but it is in good repair and it is a "proper ship" (not a floating hotel) watertight doors, narrow corridors and steep stair wells. It is an old NOAA Oceanographic vessel, with an ice strengthened hull, so should be very seaworthy. I was initially happy with my cabin in "steerage" (a little bigger than a sleeper cabin on a train) until I realise it´s the smallest cabin on the ship and my room mate is a little odd, bloody typical !!

At 1900hrs we are off ! Down the Beagle Channel to the open sea. We have 2 solid days of steaming to cross the redoubtable Drakes Passage. By 2400 the vessel has assumed a bit of a motion, it is a not particularly pleasant "Corkscrew" roll, as the swell is on our Starboard quarter. I wanted to see the lighthouse at Cape Horn, but at 60 miles, we are too far away.


During the crossing we are kept entertained with lectures about the flora / fauna / geology of Antarctica. The best part of this crossing is watching the "Royal" and "Wandering" Albatrosses wheel and dive on the wind, with their 11´ wing span, so graceful. I did not expect to see so many of them. Instead of "knobbly knees" we had a competition to spot the first iceberg, I kept a sneaky eye on the radar, knowing it would appear there first, but I was at lunch when the first one appeared, so missed out on a bottle of wine by a few minutes. Just after our first berg, LAND HO !!  The snow capped peaks of the South Shetlands appear ahead of us.

By 5pm we are in the first landing spot, Aitcho Island. (Funnily enough when the Brits were here in 1940´s it was their H.O. ! geddit ? the name stuck). The temperature has dropped remarkedly since Ushuaia, it´s just 3 deg C in the afternoon sun. The scenery is immediately "out of this world". There is a large mountain that is completely covered by hundreds of meters of snow & ice, surely that only happens here.

After a Zodic trip ashore we see Penguins ! First impression is: they stink! (like all sealife) and, they chatter. But of course they waddle about in that endearing manner, much like a self-important waistcoated clerk in a Dicken´s novel, who is late for Tea !! you can almost see the flying pocket watch !

We also saw a couple of elephant seals, basking in the sun and ignoring us completely.

Then, after a short walk we arrive at the glorious vista above. I did not expect such natural wonders so soon !

So who are the passengers ?  It´s motley selection of adventurous cruise ship passengers (who are a little older) and I´m glad to see, Backpackers !! Some of whom bought their ticket on the morning we departed !  There are quite a few Brits, Australians, Europeans, Canadians & North Americans, so lots of English spoken (thankfully), there are, of course, Argentinians and some Brazilians (oddly, the ships crew were mainly Chilean).  Also two pretty Polski girls (read their rather fruity blog: http://www.hottoddiesunlimited.com, they´ve got the best pictures)). One of the Brits has come equipped with 3 litres of "special water" (voddie !). There is an elderly rolley-polley American lady who looks as if her hand slipped while making the cruise booking, she was aiming for "Antigua", but got "Antarctica" instead !! Two Argentinians from Ushuaia won the trip for a local photo and writing competition. Another Argentinian couple got the trip free by the promise of writing a blog (missed a trick there...). There are also a handful of travel agents from Ushuaia who will need to sell the trip in future. There are only 64 of us in total, when the capacity of the ship is 84, which is good news all around. The whole social thing gets started as soon as the first day (on the crossing) and it´s great throughout the whole trip. 

7 days in Ushuaia...

Arriving at Hostel Antarctica, Ushuaia (a most excellent hostel) there is an ancient Honda CB175 parked outside. Turns out the young American owner has just ridden it from Connecticut in 3 months, I am once again amazed !! (and slightly shamed), and this is on a small bike too. He has just sold it to the guy who delivers beer to the hostel ! a positive sign for me. The hostel has a large back garden, so the first morning, everything goes through the wash while I clean my bike (wearing just my "bathers" and a Bolivian t-shirt that I don´t trust to be washed with anything else). The bike comes up really well and looks almost new.

And so begins a period of reajustment where I realise that Ushuaia, the promised land,  is just a normal place, it does not levitate in the clouds ! And the hostel is full of "normal" backpackers. For me, it´s something of a "luxury holiday" following the rigors of Patagonian motorcycle touring. Backpackers from the hostel are rapidly coming and going and only staying 1-2 days, I feel a bit like a static object in a "time lapse" video...

Snow at the hostel...

My first priority was to get the bike fixed ASAP, this is an irritation really, as I was planning to sell it. The hostel helps me find a moto garage, and they fit a new clutch for a reasonable $75, so I´m soon buzzing round town again. But this takes 3 days, unfortunately, missing the only enthusiastic pillion passenger I ever found, by a few hours (she left on a cruise). The other priority was to finish my blog. This was frustrating as the hostel had just one PC and everyone wanted to use it !

Any attempts at tourism in Ushuaia were stifled by the weather, it was uniformly terrible for my first 6 days, having broke on the day I arrived (previous post). And thanks to the weather it´s 7 days before I can take my "Everything I Took" photo in the back garden (link above). The temperature in Ushuaia rockets up and down during the day, by 10 deg or so and often the weather changes completely in just 15 minutes.


Almost everyone in the hostel is going to Antarctica !!  One of the big reasons for me coming here was to explore the possibilities of getting to that elusive continent !!  I am very keen to get there but I´m also keen to get a "bargain" ! After just a few hours "research" (talking to some of the agents in Ushuaia) it becomes apparent that this year there are not going to be the bargains that were available last year (I talked to some girls, in Ecuador, in May, who got bargains here, a year ago, exactly this week). With that in mind I chose my ship & cruise carefully and settled for the MV Ushuaia, departing Ushuaia on 13th Nov, for 10 days, and Booked It !!

In the hostel I met a Spanish couple, Marcial and Gabriela, I´m in their blog http://siemprehaciaeloeste.com ! they have some simply gorgeous pictures on there....