Photos of San Pedro de Atacama and around

Sue on her bike!

There was a sunset like this every night, Jim and Brid silhouetted here.

Another sunset

The hill doesn´t look that far away does it? The climbing gorge is in the fore ground.

Campfire in the gorge.

James and his friend the cliff.

Gorgeous climbing, Joe sweats his way up another classic while Jim belays below.

Walking back to Socaire after a weeks climbing, could this be the road to nowhere?

The church in Socaire

Circus fun in San Pedro, James, Brid, Sue and Joe.

Sue and Luppi the Clown

Hot springs in Pucon

So delighted with our ascent of Villarica we treated our selves to some fine coffee and cake in a very obliging cafe in Pucon. We once again filled our bags with pasta and tuna and took a local bus to Huerquehue National park, about two hours out of town.This was to be a short and easy four day walk with our arrival at some hot springs on day two being the highlight. We skirted around lakes and walked through wonderful forests of araucaria trees and watched and listened to Magellanic woodpeckers tapping for their supper. We overnighted in the forest before heading on to the hot springs. Nestled at the edge of a very cold river, boiling hot water ran down the hill and a series of rock enclod}sed pools were formed, at varying temperatures. We toasted ourselves till it was time for dinner, then ate, slept and crawled straight from the tent back in first thing the next morning. The most difficult part of the hike was climbing back out to put on our rucksacks and wander back!

Joe sitting in the hot springs. He is relaxed but the look of concentration is due to the concerns raised by James Lovelock in his book "The revenge of Gaia". Apparently the world is in serious trouble.

Onwards to Pucon

So, Joe has posted some photos of us climbing in Frey. We spent a week camping by the lake there, with the occasional swim, pasta and tuna as usual and some very fine climbing. We meet an American couple and a Polish couple, also climbing. We were woken one morning by a helicopter that came to collect supplies from a branch of the army that were climbing and hiking also. We were lucky to meet some Chileans who told us of the wonderful climbing in Socaire near San Pedro de Atacama, that Joe writes about above. We said goodbye to Brid & Jim and Craig as they headed off on their own adventures. Brid & Jim chose to rent bicycles and visit a few vineyards in Mendosa and Craig had a date in Brazil. We had our last tastes of Bariloche cake and steak and headed to Pucon, Chile.





Pucon is home to Villarica Volcano. This is an active volcano that gives a wonderful backdrop to the town. Joe & I packed bags with a fine lunch, for extreme picnicing, and our crampons, ice axes and wolly hats. We managed to get a lift to the base of the mountain. The only downside was that we were collected at 4am!Well 3.45am as it turned out. This proved to be a winner as daily, tour groups drag stacks of tourists up to smell the sulphar. We would avoid the crowds and have the top to ourselves.





So, with head torches to light our way we followed switch backs up the mountain until we came upon the snow and ice. The moon was helpful and with the aid of the reflective snow, we no longer needed torches as we carefully climbed up the ice cap. At this stage the sun was begining to rise and colour the sky beautifully. More difficult ground of loose scree of wonderfully formed volcanic rock lead to the edge of the crater. A cloud of stinking sulphur constantly rose from the crater and we could hear a deep grumbling from within. We fed it a bread roll, just to keep it happy, before sitting down to our own lunch. The edge of the creator was also dotted with small jets of sulphur, burping and pulsing out.





On the way down we spotted a well established ice slide. A short cut to avoid the steepest section of the downhill ice trudge. Joe, poised with ice axe, climbed in and descended the mountain at high speed. Im delighted to anounce that although I could see the spray of snow as he desperately tried to perfom an ice axe break before reaching the scree at the bottom, he made it down without a scratch. His biggest complaint being that his bottom was quite cold!!!

Joe meets a condor!

While on our very long walk, in the hills above Bariloche, we were greatly rewarded. As we descended down into a valley we could see a condor perced on the cliff edge. We then noticed a second as it swooped in to try an unnerve its companion. Joe was able to get quite close before the resting bird simply "dropped" of the cliff edge, into an updraft and continued to hunt for lunch.

What happened in February??

Well, I shall make an attempt to fill in the blanks. We headed north from Puerto Natales to El Cafate an onwards to El Chalten. Both towns are tourist traps with wooden chalets and expensive coffee and cakes. El Chalten is the gateway to Parque National Los Glaciers, home to Fitroy and Cerro Torre, two fine mountains. We camped in the town and got use to eating dust. The locals were busy puting in a tarmac road and pouring their first footpaths so when the wind blew we all got sand blasted and boy did it blow. We bought a stack of food and walked the 3 hours up to a high camp in the hills. A popular spot with easy access to loads of nice walks. Joe, Brid & James all decided to spend a day getting sick and I was nearly driven to writing poetry about the windy conditions. We woke up covered in dust daily and walked to some fine lakes, to see a wonderful glacier, and to climb the ridge of Cerro Madsen only 1806m but my first Patagonian peak.





Our return to town saw the start of our true fine living. The local shops were very uninspiring but they did sell chunks of red meat. So a series of barbques were lit and enjoyed and we downed chunks of meat like we had never seen before. We also experienced a day of rain followed by a day of wind and that was enough of El Chalten for all of us. I did get the scissors out on the windy day and cut Joes hair. The before and after can be seen here. He returned from the shower with a hairy molly on his lip and I nearly fell over with laughter when I saw it. The french man beside me at the time didnt know what was wrong as he was support a similar growth. All the rage down here a Joe kept it for some time!! A constant source of laughter. Also took a while for the ¨Joe, theres something on your lip¨ joke to not catch him out.





Onwards by overnight bus to Bariloche, with Jim & Brid hanging with the hippies in El bolson for a few days on the way. In Bariloche we once again camped, 3km out of town, to avoid high tourist prices and noisey hostels. Barbques were once again lit and we feasted on even larger chunks of meat and the finest of Malbec wines. Our days started with a swim in the nearby lake that Bariloches sits beside. Oh so different from when we were there on our honeymoon. The sun was splitting the rocks and rain was a thing of the past.We soon found a good coffee house with fab cakes.


You may notice I talk of food a lot. You need to understand that this is not an obsession. It mearly stems from the fact that when in the mountains we have a stable diet of porridge, pasta and tuna, packet soup and cake if we are lucky. Lunches are usually a sandwich, but after 3 days most bread is pretty lame.





So, with bags full of pasta and tuna, we decided to go for a walk. A long one. Six days in total. Not roundabout but strangely up and down. From a place called Pampa Llinda to somewhere else called Colonia Suiza, for all you budding atlas users. Undulating said the guide book. With all our gear and food it was a challenge to get up the valley sides. However, the nature of the walk meant that we camped in a new valley every night, with Mount Tronador a constant companion in the distance. Called mount thunder as ice is constantly crashing off the glacier giving a threatening noise! We had a lake at each camp and our very own valley to enjoy. The sun blazed down on us as we climbed about 500m up and 500m down each day.With quite a few kilometers in between. Sun hats were all the fashion and snow balls were thrown, pasta and tuna were eaten and glacial lakes were swum in.We treated ourselves to a cold beer on reaching a hut on the second last day.





On our return to Bariloche we met a friend of ours Craig Starkey (featuring in a photo below) in the camp site. Stories were exchanged and steak was eaten. Now our group of five headed to the hills again but this time to climb.





I need a rest, its hot here and I think Im sweating pisco sours...

A selection of photos from the last month

Steak dinner last night with our U.S. climber friends Jay and Torey. Moustaches are all the rage down here!

This ones in here for those that are sick of work.

Mother spider with lots of babies, if you look closely on her back.

Sue half way up another 5 star granite crack Bariloche.

Torre Principal, near Refugio Fray, Bariloche

Elaine and Paul, Bariloche. The effects of too many months of travelling are easily seen.

Craig Starkey leads the way!

Sue gets handy with the camera, a lizard in the hills

Fitzroy in Patagonian Argentina

Evening light, camping beside a lake called C.A.B. near Bariloche, nothing to do with the criminal assests bureau unless Martin Cahill brought areas of Argentina!

Condors in action near Bariloche.

Rule no. 1 Never eat anything bigger than your head!

Torre Norte, Torres del Paine

James summits!! It was a wee bit windy for standing up!

Eight days to bag a summit in Torres del Paine is optimistic to say the least, people come here for months and sometimes don´t even get to see the summit let alone climb one! However this was all the time, food and fuel that we had. James and I struggled getting all the appropriate pieces of paper required and lost several days between administration offices in Puerto Natales and park head quarters pleading with anyone who looked official. Everything fell into place just as we were giving up hope and wondering if you really need a permit after all, there aren´t going to be any bureaucratic park rangers half way up one of these mountains we thought. Suddenly the fax machine sprang into action and produced a stamped application form sent from Santiago
after the man with the pointy hat had jiggled the wires at the back.

With permit in hand and very heavy ruck sacks on back we stomped our way up the valley to the Japanese base camp which became our home for the next week. Here we fell quickly into the routine of the alarm clock going off every morning around 2am, pushing snooze as many times as possible before getting out and checking the weather, if this was good breakfast of porridge was scoffed down before marching further up the valley high above the tree line into the land of wind and granite. It takes four hours of hard walking up loose unstable scree and talus to get to the base of the route and its heart breaking to get half way only to have clouds appear out of no where and to feel rain, sleet, snow or some combination of the three driven on the wind.

Did I mention the wind, the first morning we hiked to the bottom of the route and we thought everything was go till we heard a gust roaring round the strangely named silent valley. I thought Ireland was a windy old spot but it doesn´t compare to here. I´m sure you´ve all tried the lean or recline back in the wind trick at some stage in Ireland, you would literally be blown away into the next valley by some of the gusts. Anyway we got all our equipment to the base of the route and looked up to the col Birch a third of the way up the tower and 150m or so up our route. The noise of the wind been squeezed through this 3m wide gap between the Central and North Towers sounded like a jumbo jet taking off! Another day we thought and tromped back down the knee twisting loose scree for another day of endless games of chess and talking about food!

We had three false starts over the six day wait and I had given up all hope, there had been quite a bit of fresh snow which would now mean ice in the cracks of the climb. However the mountain blinked and although conditions were far from perfect, we managed somehow fumble our way up the tower in all our stormy weather clothes. I was surprised to say the least, we just kept our heads down and our eyes on the weather and the next thing that happened was that we had run out of mountain! Short congratulations take a couple of photos and lets get out of here before the real weather wakes up. We down climb and abseil and our ropes didn´t blow away or get wrapped around some spike of rock out of reach despite the ever increasing gusts!

We get back to the bottom of the climb and I feel humbled and honoured. I know also that Patagonian climbing deserves its reputation.



Old beer cans from bygone climbers, these rusty Guinness treats need a tin opener to get to the elixor inside! There was a large stash of these half way up the scree slope near the Bonnington bivioac.

The Japaneese camp crew from left to right Witeck (South Africa), Dave (USA), Jonathon (Spain) and James. If its worth a mention Jonathon was the chess champion after many a day waiting!
A wide van and a narrow bridge, James walks away from the Torres, Torre Norte is the twin peaked spires above and left of the van.

A walk in the park, Torres del Paine.

We flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas where we ate fine hamburgesas and walked to the sea to throw a stone in the Straights of Magallan. We had seen our first steaming volcano out the window of the plane as we flew south above the Andes. We then took a bus for a few hours north and finally arrived in Puerto Natales. Our home for the next few days, we settled in a hostel and scouted out the local bakery. Our plan was to head to Parque National Torres del Paine on Tuesday morning. Brid & I to walk what is know as the circuit, ( a 7 day circumnavigation of the towers in the park) and Joe & James, having jumped through many hoops of bureaucracy to climb Torre Norte. So with the teams decided we filled up on local treats and did a large grocery shop in town. Us girls needed to carry all our food for the 7 days as well as our tent and sleeping equipment and raincoats, hats, suncream, fuel for the stove and three quaters of a kilo of cake! Needless to say our bags were on the heavy side and we only had one outfit of clothes each. So we took a bus with Joe & James to the park entrance and wished them the best on their climb. The hardest part of our journey had arrived. We needed to put our bags on our backs and start walking!

So, day one we walked 16.5km to Puesto Seron and I ended the day by being sick and Brid had to eat dinner alone. Day two we walked 19km to a camp site by Lago Dickson having turned the corner around to the north of the park with a wonderful view accross Lago Paine. We wandered along the flood plain of the river in very hot sun with very little shade. Once we had set up camp we closely examined Brid´s feet to discover that blisters were appearing. She was suffering and we had many days of walking left to go! A chat with porters that were walking with a tour group informed us that bad weather was heading our way. We decided to rest ourselves and stay by the lake for the following day and sit out the storm. Over the next four days we walked another 42km through old burnt and new regenerating forests, though a high mountain pass and down to the edge of Glaciar Grey; 27km long and 4km wide. Huge chunks of ice fall from the end of the glaciar and float down the river. The deep blue icebergs give a vivid colour to the grey glacial melt water of the river. I crept out of the tent at night to get a wonderful view of the stars, with no light pollution from anywhere. We were also lucky enough to here the tap, tap, tap, of a woodpecker and to spot it at work, pecking for it´s dinner.

We spent an extra day lounging about at the camp site beside Lago Pehoe and spent our evening practising our spanish on locals and tasting pisco sours. We enjoyed a boat journey along Lago Pehoe before catching a bus back to Puerto Natales for pizza. We had just pampered ourselves back to full health and washed off seven days of dirt when Joe & James returned triumphant from climbing Torre Norte.

Santiago

Guillermo full of fish!
Merial, and her new tree in Santiago


We arrived in Santiago to beautiful sunshine much to the delight of Sue who had just brought two new dresses leaving New Zealand (these are modelled by Brid and Sue above in the photo). We hooked up with James and Brid, met with Max´s friends Pablo and Maca from Cambridge for dinner, Mum´s friend Merial Bacigalupo who convienantly needed a tree planted in her garden upon our arrival before we guzzled her fabulous dinner. Also a glutonous meal out with Dad´s collegue Guillermo who took us to their old eat sea food till you drop haunt ¨La Tasca del Altamar¨. I should also mention the numerous coffees, strolls up Santa Lucia and Cerro San Cristobal parks in the city centre.