BA aiport, well I spent five wonderful hours here staring at the ceiling waiting for a delayed flight, the outline of the fig plant against the polystyrene will remain as one of the holiday highlights. But they did feed us well, steaks like house bricks, salads, wine, oh well. But on boarding the plane the captain told us that the aircraft had now been repaired, at which many of the passengers crossed themselves! Not good.
On arriving at Bariloche and although on an internal flight we all had to pass through security checks, the reason, no foodstuffs can be taken into the National Park and as an area big with anglers all fishermen had to have their equipment sterilised ( read that as you want ).
Into luxury accomodation for two nights. On opening the curtains for the first day there it all was, Winderemere Lake. We had trevelled 12000K to come to Windermere!!!!!!!!
But then, hold on, there is snow on the hills, the sun is shining, the windows and doors are wide open and it is 70'. That is not the Windermere I know.
Out of interest we learnt an early but good lesson here, having been swimming we stood around talking for some twenty minutes with neighbours and both of us were very burnt by the sun. Dry winds, thin air, ( not hair ) and hot sun turned us to beetroot. Christine has a lot of red bits, her decolage looking like a double vanilla ice cream with a cherry topping on each!! And me, the back end of a motorcycle, a big red stoplight for a nose and two red indicators for ears. Very painful. And if Christine gets hold of my ears once more and tells me that it looks painful I am going to punch her in the ice creams!
Bariloche is an alpine centre that is famous for the production of of ice cream and chocolate, chocolate museums, chocolate/ice cream delis abound here, as do many very fat people.
Next move was to cross the Andes. This is done via an old drovers trail which takes us via boat and tracks right over the top of the mountain range. A journey that is once started has to be completed, there are no places to stop.
Up at five thirty, breakfast, onto the bus. Then off to the bus station. Like all such places, dire. There are local indians sleeping on the floor and packs of dogs. The dogs are all very relaxed which shows that they are in no way badly treated ( not like the indians ) and they will often come and sit with you just for the company. What is interesting is that although Argentina is a comfortable country it is clear that the indians do form an underclass. Sad to see.
Off we go some two hours later right past our hotel again, we all have expirienced this, then onto the first boat.
We arrived at nine.
The boat goes at ten.
The Naval Police arrive, some twelve in all, ands take up guard positions. These men are totally expressionless much like the Tango dancers, blank eyes, no smiles, no words. Why are these guys here?
Why? Because the boat crews are on strike! Here we are in the middle of nowhere and we meet with the first industrial dispute here for ten years.
So. Why do they strike, and as always its for more money and less hours its always the same. Now the local TV news crew arrive and as they try for interviews with the strikers the crowd of some three hundred passengers start to shout, whistle, clap. After three hours we are told to return to our hotels, there will be no boats today. Thats okay but our hotel is in Chile, we cannot go the long way round because the bus drivers are in sympathy with the strikers whose leader is called Arthur!!!!!!!
So we go back to sit on our bus only to find it full of Germans who claim that they have reserved these bus seats and will not move. An amiable Yank points out they they are on the wrong bus, ever tried to tell the Germans that they are wrong!! This Yank was so good, and after some time managed to convince them that their bus was number one and in fact that they were on number three.
Sulking, they went back to find their towels on number one.
We settled into our seats.
Off the bus, off the bus, the strike is over, whoopi!!!
We were loaded onto the boat alongside the sacks of onions, carrots and cabbages. We were off.
Stunning. Sailing into the ever higher mountains, at first like our lakes at home, then steeper and steeper, higher and higher, the sides closing in on us until two hours later we arrived in the centre of what appeared to be a vulcano bowl.
Off the boat, lunch, beans, beans and more beans, then we were directed onto coach number one, but no coach number one! These coaches are 4x4, high off the ground and old, suitable for rough tracks, but ours was not there. I strolled away and around a corner came to a workshop cut into the hillside and there was coach number one. The driver hands on hips, the mechanic with an inspection lamp and the biggest hammer in the world, wanging the life out of the underneath of our coach.
No trouble says the driver, its just the brakes, Oh oh oh oh!
We are off, bye the bye our luggage followed in trucks and we reckon that it was loaded on and off some sixteen times during the day, still its now bus/boat bus/boat and then straight up the side of a mountain to cross the Argetinian/Chile divide.
We pass through remote custom posts, stand on our tails, stand on our nose, up down, boat, up down and arrive in Puerta Varas at ten in the evening. Wow what a trip just so much in one day.
Valleys, rivers, valleys, glaciers, vulcanos, some dead some alive, rain forests, all in one shattering day. This is an adventure but it is a controled adventure, suitable for fat, bald, middled aged men like me. Worth doing. Oh yes.
Now I will not be back for a while, thank God, ( I heard that ). Motorcycles tomorrow.
So just some personal messages.
Viv. I have a small one to bring home for you. Christine now has a spare German one!
