Pucon and the big, red ducks

Pucon is the Chilean capital of adventure sports (so it claims) and, after running the gauntlet of the myriad of tour agencies, we settled on the small office of Kayak Pucon, run by a freidnly blonde-haired Italian and her Chilean boyfriend, Rodrigo. The photos of him kayaking off waterfalls were presumably meant to reassure us that he knew his stuff, but served only to warn us that he was a little crazy.


Albane was keen to get wet (the last 10 days of rain apparently didn´t count) and, undeterred by the name, we signed up to the ducky trip. Duckies are bright red inflatable kayaks which can be paddled, after 10 minutes of instruction, by novices. Armed with just a paddle, wetsuit, helmet and buoyancy aid, the authorities that regulate outdoor sports in Chile (if any exist) allow tourists to descend the whitewater rivers that spill from the mountains around Pucon.

The January rush of tourists had not started (it still being December) and there were only the two of us plus Rodrigo on the tour. We drove 20 minutes out of town and unloaded in a meadow beside a clear river flowing gently, but purposefully. We donned our kit and launched in the big red inflatables. Rodrigo gave us 10 minutes of instruction about how to turn and what to do if we found ourselves in the water, rather than the boat. It would be useful for both of us.............


We drifted downstream past small fields, wooden houses on stilts and the odd fisherman casting for trout. The first rapid, a rushing roller coaster where the river was squeezed in a narrow gorge, appeared quickly and, halfway down, one of the waves caught Albane by surprise and she was pitched into the cold water. The temperature and the sucking power of the current shocked her, but she found her boat quickly and managed to pull herself back into the cockpit. A big smile suggested that she was enjoying herself.

We ran rapids followed by calm pools where we could regain our compsure with Rodrigo casually drifting beside us taking the obligatory "I did the duckies" photos. It was fun, really good fun, with the manouevrable boats, cool water and stunning views. The river curved between banks of volcanic ash, the layers marking past eruptions, and green woodland. The water was so clear that we could see the pebbly river bed 2 metres beneath us as if it were in touching distance.


We paddled for an hour or so before we reached the get out point. I couldn´t resist asking Rodrigo if I could try to roll his kayak. It had been 6 years or more since I had been in a kayak and I wanted to know if I could still do it. His eyes sparkled and he smiled as he passed me the spraydeck. I squeezed into the small boat and, without thinking about it, rolled. It was simple, like a deep wired reaction to the kayak tipping over. I rolled a few more times and Rodrigo laughed that my roll was better than his. I was not foooled by his nonchalance.


The trip had been great fun and Albane, who usually feels the cold more than anyone, surprised me by wishing that the descent had been a little longer. But then, like all such things, it is always better if you are left wanting more.

Happy Christmas

Bariloche and PN Nahuel Huapi

It was the kind of rain that only exists in the surreal books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It started on the Friday afternoon that we left El Bolson and did not stop until this morning, just over seven days later. It was steady rain which furtively soaked, rather than a heavy downpour, and it swept the memory of the last three months of sun and blue sky from our minds. And so, under dark skies and a wind whipping Lake Nahuel Huapi into a frenzy, we arrived in the ski capital of Argentina, Bariloche. Our hostel, on the top floor of the highest building in town, had a simply stunning view of the lake and the surrounding mountains and we spent a couple of days reading and eating and recovering after the El Bolson trek, which seemed to take more out of us then we had realised.

The mountain trek that we wanted to do through Nahuel Huapi national park was buried under a few feet of snow and we decided to take a battered bus with other goretex-clad walkers to Pampa Linda, a campsite and park office, two hours south west of Bariloche. Heads craned as we looked up at mountains buried under fresh snow on the journey - not the sunny, snow-free conditions that this time of the year should bring. We began to wonder exactly what we could achieve.

The bus driver dumped us unceremoniously in the rain and we put up the tent and climbed into our sleeping bags with our books. It was two in the afternoon. Lying in the tent, we could hear longs rumbles every half hour or so. Eight kilometres to our north was Mount Tronador, Mapuche for the Mountain of Thunder, and the regular falls of ice from the glaciers sent huge booms down the valley. It was all pretty primeval in the driving rain.

The next morning, we set off for a refuge five hours´ climb through wet woodland and eventually slushy snow. From the start of the snowline to the refuge lay almost 2 kilometres of deep snow, the route clinging to a narrow ridge. We climbed the first snow slope and found ourselves battered by a howling wind trying to blow us off the cliff to our left. We could see the blue of the glacier through the near white out conditions and a fall would have been fatal several times over. We had no snow equipment, the weather was worsening and there was an hour or so of walking ahead of us. So we turned back, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. The walk down in the rain compounded our sense of failure, despite the fact that we knew we had made the right decision.

The next morning, the wind was near gale force on the high peaks and we watched avalanches swept off cliffs as the wind drove waves of new snow up the sides of the mountains. We were glad that we were in the shelter of the valley. The bus left in the late afternoon and we returned in rain to Bariloche where, gluttons for punishment, we camped a few kilometres out of town. But we are not strong (or proud) and rented an apartment yesterday for a few days over Christmas. We have bought each other presents, but a hot shower, fridge and bed with clean sheets were the best Christmas presents that we could have wished for.

El Bolson and Rio Azul

El Bolson was one of the top hippy destinations in the 1970s and, even today, it is easy to see why. The town lies in a wide valley, surrounded by steep mountains on two sides and blessed with a micro-climate that is perfect for the cultivation of soft fruit. The town itself boasts the usual Argentinian staples - three ice cream parlours, various steak houses, two supermarkets stocked with cheap red wine from the north of the country and a bus terminal. Average enough, but in the surrounding countryside, hidden in the trees, are hundreds of self-sufficient small holdings with orchards, log cabins and corrals for the animals. And it was through these pastoral scenes that we set off for a three day trek up the Rio Azul (the Blue river).

We walked upstream for an hour with the stunning blue water dazzling us in the sun. Like a blend of Swiss, Canadian and English landscapes, it was stunningly perfect and, of all the places that we have seen so far on this trip, this was the first where I thought that I could live. A hermit-like existence in the woods? We crossed the river by a precarious suspension bridge laid with cracked planks, the sign advising one person at a time and a weight limit of 150 kilos.

From the river, we climbed up through beech woodland for the next 5 hours. It was tough going and the surroundings were welcome relief. Tall, straight trunks hung with wispy beards of green lichen; fallen, fractured timber felled by the wind; bulbous growths on the beech trees sprouting orange fungi. We had filled the water bottles from the river and drank the pure water - Patagonia prides itself on having water that, in most places, can be drunk without purification.

In late afternoon, we reached the Refugio Hielo Azul nestled in the shadow of the high cliffs and hanging ice. Built from logs and of a rustic design, the warden had a fire going and we sat drinking tea before putting up the tent and cooking soup and pasta in the chill wind. It was a cold night just below the snowline and Albane wore her Bolivian hat to bed.

The next morning, we crossed a glacial stream and climbed another steep path - the Argentinan trail markers simply send you straight up the hill rather than the more user-friendly zig zags that Europeans favour. It took a couple of hours before we reached a broad saddle and started our descent into the head waters of the Rio Azul. The woodland was peaceful and we stopped for lunch by a bubbling waterfall before continuing down. On the lower slopes of the mountain, the vegetation changed and the trees gave way to open scrub and we came under attack from squadrons of huge horse flies. Although we were a little more relaxed than our encounter with them on the first trek, they were still irritating and we were pleased to reach the bottom of the valley and the fly-free waters of the wider river.

We spent the night camping at Refugio Cajon del Azul, an idyllic wooden building with neat rows of vegetables in the garden, two contented porkers in the pigsty and fruit trees in the orchard. We drank the refugio´s home-brewed beer, fruity and cold, before a short evening walk along a nearby gorge. Only a few metres wide and inaccessible because of high cliffs, the river spews its way through rapids and between boulder fields before calming into large pools of swirling currents.

After a good night´s sleep, I was woken by the sun and walked the gorge again in the early morning light. Plants and trees were defined by long shadows and there was scarcely a sound in the forest. On the way back, I followed a young plover chick down the path, its mother calling loudly above me to distract me from its offspring. I let it slip away and returned to wake Albane. We ate the last of our food and filled the bottles one last time.

The descent down river seemed harder than it was - aching, hot feet and a wide track detracting from the landscape. It took four hours to reach the gravel road and we found a small shop from where we called a taxi to take us back to El Bolson for steak and red wine. Maybe an ice cream too.......

Esquel and PN Los Alerces

Having landed at Puerto Madryn in 1865 to establish a New Wales, the settlers headed inland following the Chubut river. At Gaiman, they established a small town with brick chapels where Sunday service is still observed in Welsh. The first few years of their existence in Argentina were tough and it was only with the assistance of the local Indians, whom the Welsh befriended rather than fought, that they managed to grow crops and survive.

The tourists don´t flock to Gaiman for the lively nightlife, rather for the tradition of Welsh tea - a plate of seven or eight different types of cake and a huge pot of tea served by women who wouldn´t be out of place in a Welsh farm kitchen. We both felt sick by the end, but awarded equal first place to the apple pie and bara brith. As we waited for the evening bus, a tray of cherries caught Albane´s eye and we rounded off a day of eating with a bag, spitting the pips into the river and wishing them luck in making an orchard downstream.

The next day, we arrived at Esquel, 8 hours in a bus to the east, and, in the glorious first light of dawn, saw snow-capped mountains. The air was fresh and I felt excited to be back in the Andes. We spent the day buying food for our planned trip to the nearby national park and, in the evening, stumbled on a concert by Gruff Rhys, lead singer of the Super Furry Animals. In a Welsh Sunday school with 50 other people, we drank beer and relied on the Spanish translation of what he was saying in Welsh. Slightly embarassing for a Welshman! A cross between Jim Morrison and James Blunt, he looped sounds and his voice to create multi-layered songs, some of which challenged the musical tastes of the Welsh-speaking Argentinian grannies.

Los Alerces naional park is, as the name suggests, renowned for Alerces, a native tree which can grow to an age of 3,500 years old. Access to the remote regions of the park where these monsters grow is restricted due to the high fire risk in the region, but there are a number of trails open to walkers and, having registered our destination as Playa Blanca, we headed along the shore of Lago Futalaufquen through fragrant woodland.

The last time we had carried full rucsacs was on the Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca two months ago. Since then, we have eaten far too much ice cream and red meat and exercised far too little, so the steep 2 hour climb to the windy pass at 1,500 metres was tough. We slipped into silence and our own little worlds as we put one foot in front of the other and ascended through forests of bamboo. High above us in the main canopy of the forest, we could hear the screaming wind and when we reached the top, we had to put on windproofs as our sweat cooled and we started to shiver. It had taken almost 5 hours of walking to reach the top and Albane admitted to me later that she had wondered to herself why she was doing it.


However, when we crested the pass and the land started to drop away, we found the explanation. As simple as the huge vista in front of us was beautiful. As far as we could see, there were ranges of jagged, snow-capped mountains, dark lakes whipped into white horses by the wind, swathes of dark green forest cloaking the landscape and not a sign of human existence. We huddled behind a boulder and stared at the view until the cold got to us and we were forced to descend down a viciously steep path for an hour, our toes slipping uncomfortably to the front of our boots, to reach a small beach.

To our joy, Playa Blanca was the dream destination - a perfect campsite on flat ground amongst the trees, a log to sit on while we cooked and a pebble beach. We were hot and sweaty after the descent and stripped off before diving into the clear water. It was cold, but refreshing and, when we could bear the temperature no longer, we lay on the hot pebbles to dry. There was no one else within 5 hours´walk and it was an unforgettable moment of the trip.

The next day, with bamboo staffs in each hand, we climbed back to the pass and ran screaming through the scrub when the wind dropped and swarms of large, ravenous horseflies bombarded us. We arrived back at the trailhead in the late afternoon and walked to the bus stop where, after an ice cream (some habits die hard), we bounced back to Esquel.

Midnight Puerto Madryn

Peninsula Valdez, Argentina

Settled in 1865 by Welsh colonists looking for a better life, Puerto Madryn is 1,300 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, and clings to a crescent-shaped sandy bay with an aluminium plant at one end, the 6 storey Patagonian skyscrapers of downtown in the middle and a half-finished hotel at the other. In January and February, it is crammed with porteños (residents of Buenos Aires). For the rest of the year, it gets ready for January and February. We arrived after another 20 hour bus journey, this time through endless plains of dried grass and scrub, and went straight for a swim in the sea. It was like a baptism after 3 months without a glimpse of the ocean and afterwards, we warmed ourselves with hot chocolates at a beach front café.

North of Puerto Madryn lies Peninsula Valdez, one of the premier marine mammal national parks in the world, and the next day we took the 300 kilometre tour. The Peninsula looks like a drawing pin stuck into the mainland and, nestled in the narrow isthmus, is the sleepy, one hotel town of Puerto Pyramides where we boarded a boat and motored east to search for Southern Right Whales, so called because they float when dead and have vast quantities of oil, thereby making them the ´right´ whale to hunt. The shallow warm waters of the gulf are perfect birthing grounds and we were visiting at the end of the season as the whales were starting to leave with their calves.

We were lucky and quickly found a small group. The engine was cut and we drifted closer and closer. The whales were huge, dark curved arches looking like smooth obsidian or planed tree trunks. They had barnacled heads, the white colonies of bivalves marking each animal like a fingerprint, and the calves floated alongside their mothers, occasionally raising flippers out of the water or rolling their bodies on to their mothers´ expanse. Weighing 3 tons at birth, the calves had gained 7 tons in weight feeding on almost pure fat whale milk. We watched half a dozen whales in the 45 minutes that we circled and it was one of the best experiences – the boat headed back to port with both of us wanting more.

After the boat tour, we drove to the end of the Peninsula catching glimpses from the minibus of leggy rheas, the South American equivalent of the ostrich, where the male will care alone for up to 100 chicks, and guanacos (the Patagonian version of the llama). We almost skidding off the road to an untimely death as the driver narrowly avoided running over a speeding armadillo, which looked like it was remote-controlled as it bounced across the dirt road. On the east coast, we watched elephant seal calves and juveniles practice breath-holding and fighting. The adults had unfortunately left some time before and we could only imagine the 3 ton males fighting for harems of 150 females.

A short stop at a small penguin colony, where the waiter-like birds nested in holes in the ground, and we headed back to Puerto Madryn. Day 1 done, but we were not finished with the wildlife.








The next day, we rented bikes and rode a 17 kilometre sand and dirt track to Punta Loma, a seal lion colony. The viewpoint was 15 metres above a neat amphitheatre of white rock, replete with nesting cormorants, and, lying on the edge of the dark shingle and green water, lay hundreds of russet brown torpedos. The females, pregnant and due to birth in a month´s time, were unmoving until a lesser male encroached too far and, in an explosion of blubber and muscle, the huge black male, owner of the harem, charged, immune to the cries of the females who panicked to get out of his way. We ate sandwiches in the wind, watching another life go on below, before riding back towards town.

The clouds, which had threatened all day, lifted and in a warm evening sun, we found a deserted beach and swam with only a flock of flamingos for company.

La Boca, Buenos Aires