Les & Phils Excellent Patagonia Adventure
So then, last time I caught up with you, I was fulfilling the role of 'par-tay animal' and losing, well, all kinds of things. The Pacha incident saw me swaying down a Buenos Aires street at 8am Saturday morning with a load of Milhouse Hostel rejects. It was a bit like Shaun of the Dead. I had befriended Disco Bunny Phil from Manchester and slipped a convincing firm arm through his and told him that we were off to 'Do Patagonia' togther. We were both pretty wrung out with BA by this point antd lots of other people were heading off- so after 4 hours feeling rough but with a cuppa and a twix we had our route sorted. This was going to be our version of booking into The Priory.
Flew off to El Calafate via Ushuaia (the most southern city in the world) and got ourselves to the expensive little village that is host to the Moreno Glacier - one of the only ones to still (until recently) be still advancing. The point of going to see this is because the thing is pretty stationary and whilst it advances from behind, at the front- every day- massive chunks of it just break off and crash into the lake. It's so dazzeling, ice blue white against fantastic clear blue skies and beautiful mountains surrounding it. You can hear it creak within- it's like an animal- and then, before you know it, it just goes 'crrreawwuuuump-SPLASH!'.
Hmmm. Not entirely convinced the splashed bit really captures the moment but still. We strapped on some crampons, Phil did a little mincey dance in his and struck various (unconvincing) butch poses, and we went glacier walking! It was ace. Rewarded with whiskies and chocolate after.
Spent 2 days there, holed up in a little cabin hilariously titled 'Los Dos Pinos'- we only went there because we wanted to snigger the name to a cabbie- and rather than attend 'The Music Conference' that had many a worldwide DJ attending in BA, we danced around our little kitchen and played house music and wished our friends were with us. We didnt even get drunk! You have these moments... We also did abit of mountain biking and agreed that neither of our friends would recognise the outdoorsy-type people we appeared ;)
After this we headed up to Puerto Madryn, a Welsh settlement town on the Eastcoast of Argentina. Got ourselves on a little boat and went Whale watching. I thought we might see a blow hole or two, or even maybe a tail in the distance, but what we got was HUUUUUUGE whales swimming right up to the little boat and playing with us. Ace again! And the odd cheeky Sea Lion, but alas no Penguins :(
After 2 hours of this we were stranded in the village of Piramdes for 3 hours until a bus could take us back to Madryn. We went inside a little fishing cafe and it was empty except for 4 circus acrobats who had tied a massive drape to a beam on the ceiling and were all hanging in various arty ways from it to really hard dance music.
Which was nice.
Had the bus journey from hell to Bariloche. An overnight one that started well but for some reason at about 5am a speedometer alarm on the coach broke and from then til 8am it just went 'BLARRRRRBLAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR' like every 30 seconds or so. Phil wimpered under his face mask. I got heartburn. Caught a delayed bus at 1030 for the remaining leg of the trip and expected full sleeps til one but then, with it being day time, they started showing really loud spanish films, one of which was like a spanish musical version of The Goons. Awful. Phil turned into Victor Meldrew with about 10 'I dont believe this's'. And the staff lobbing cheese & ham butties at us didnt help.
To round up anyway, we got to Bariloche, and while it was stunning, it was also a bit nippy and we were more than a bit tetchy from the rubbish journey. We did go canoyping in the mountains though - swinging through treetops like a pair of Ewoks - and ate chocolate, and cake etc. But obviously not while canopying. I mean I was good at it but that would just be showing off.
The time to part finally came Phil up to Peru and me to Chile. It's amazing what you can plan on the way home from a club, and we both had to agree that it had been a most excellent adventure....
Flew off to El Calafate via Ushuaia (the most southern city in the world) and got ourselves to the expensive little village that is host to the Moreno Glacier - one of the only ones to still (until recently) be still advancing. The point of going to see this is because the thing is pretty stationary and whilst it advances from behind, at the front- every day- massive chunks of it just break off and crash into the lake. It's so dazzeling, ice blue white against fantastic clear blue skies and beautiful mountains surrounding it. You can hear it creak within- it's like an animal- and then, before you know it, it just goes 'crrreawwuuuump-SPLASH!'.
Hmmm. Not entirely convinced the splashed bit really captures the moment but still. We strapped on some crampons, Phil did a little mincey dance in his and struck various (unconvincing) butch poses, and we went glacier walking! It was ace. Rewarded with whiskies and chocolate after.
Spent 2 days there, holed up in a little cabin hilariously titled 'Los Dos Pinos'- we only went there because we wanted to snigger the name to a cabbie- and rather than attend 'The Music Conference' that had many a worldwide DJ attending in BA, we danced around our little kitchen and played house music and wished our friends were with us. We didnt even get drunk! You have these moments... We also did abit of mountain biking and agreed that neither of our friends would recognise the outdoorsy-type people we appeared ;)
After this we headed up to Puerto Madryn, a Welsh settlement town on the Eastcoast of Argentina. Got ourselves on a little boat and went Whale watching. I thought we might see a blow hole or two, or even maybe a tail in the distance, but what we got was HUUUUUUGE whales swimming right up to the little boat and playing with us. Ace again! And the odd cheeky Sea Lion, but alas no Penguins :(
After 2 hours of this we were stranded in the village of Piramdes for 3 hours until a bus could take us back to Madryn. We went inside a little fishing cafe and it was empty except for 4 circus acrobats who had tied a massive drape to a beam on the ceiling and were all hanging in various arty ways from it to really hard dance music.
Which was nice.
Had the bus journey from hell to Bariloche. An overnight one that started well but for some reason at about 5am a speedometer alarm on the coach broke and from then til 8am it just went 'BLARRRRRBLAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR' like every 30 seconds or so. Phil wimpered under his face mask. I got heartburn. Caught a delayed bus at 1030 for the remaining leg of the trip and expected full sleeps til one but then, with it being day time, they started showing really loud spanish films, one of which was like a spanish musical version of The Goons. Awful. Phil turned into Victor Meldrew with about 10 'I dont believe this's'. And the staff lobbing cheese & ham butties at us didnt help.
To round up anyway, we got to Bariloche, and while it was stunning, it was also a bit nippy and we were more than a bit tetchy from the rubbish journey. We did go canoyping in the mountains though - swinging through treetops like a pair of Ewoks - and ate chocolate, and cake etc. But obviously not while canopying. I mean I was good at it but that would just be showing off.
The time to part finally came Phil up to Peru and me to Chile. It's amazing what you can plan on the way home from a club, and we both had to agree that it had been a most excellent adventure....
posted by LesAlanos @ 2:10 PM
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