For anyone who thinks we have moved prettty quickly, you're right. We spent a couple of days in Valdivia, hiding from torrential rain by drinking strong German beer and spending time with our very lovely couchsurf hosts. After that. some lucky hitching and another dose of white line fever have meant we've covered about 2870 kms (1780 miles) in the last six days. But the thing about Patagonia is, there's basically nothing here in the vast majority of it. Gloriously, breathtakingly, nothing.
In lots of ways it's kind of like Scotland. As we crossed over from Chile we got in some hiking in dripping woods
and watched the terrain change to mountains and autumn foliage
full of blue-green lakes and ski resorts.
Farther south, everything turns to brown grass and wind-stunted trees. It began to get really cold, causing C to go into hibernation mode
The nutrition in the grass is so poor you need 5 hectares to raise a sheep. Most farms have at least 5000 sheep to make a profit and that gives you an idea of the scale of them (the farms. The sheep are quite stunted like the trees). The sheep still manage to get in the road of course, and they are about the only thing blocking the freezing wind whistling across from the Andes to the Atlantic. We have also seen rhea, the native flightless bird, and guanaco, the llama's far more dignified cousin who roam about down here laughing mockingly at the pathetic human fences and effortless leaping them to go wherever they want.
The crucial difference between here and Scotland though isn't even the small ostrich type creatures or camelids. It's the size of the place. Patagonia alone is twice the length of the whole of Great Britain and much wider. So its size in terms of Scotland is hard to countenance. There are spaces between towns the size of Scotland. All this means when people do pick you up they are often going pretty far.
Once in Argentina we headed south through the alpine-esque towns of El Bolsón and Esquel to Comodoro Rivadavia. There, after a slightly chilly and uncomfortable night camped out, we were filling our flask with hot water at a petrol station (hot water dispensers are at all fuel stops because if Argentines can't constantly supply themselves with Yerba Mate(1) they may riot. More on this later) when a friendly looking chap approached and asked where we were going.
"Scotland," we brightly informed him in a minor Spanish fumble (Where are you from is a much more common question and they sound similar). He looked a little confused as to how we intended to backpack there but after we realised our mistake explained that he would shortly be headed south to Rio Gallegos, about 700kms south. Of course we jumped at the chance and were soon flying through the night chatting away(2) and drinking Yerba Mate.
We've had Yerba Mate from over half of our rides here. We'd heard of it in the UK as it is a bit of craze in some circles there, but had never tried it. You can't avoid it here though (where it is from. Apparently Paraguay and Uruguay are the same too). People travel with their own special little gourd which they fill with the strong bitter herb and then gradually pour small amounts of water at a time. You drink the water through a special metal straw with a filter, refill and pass the gourd to the next person. It's a strong flavour but great in the cold and we can't emphasize enough how essential it is to the culture here. Last night our lift kept refilling it so often we both had to beg him to stop so we could pelt to a bathroom while he sat in the car giggling and apparently immune to the amount of liquid we'd consumed. We suspect Argentines of having a special second Yerba Bladder.
We slept that night in a bus station behind what was technically a picket line. A week long strike of long distance drivers has only been lifted today. It was not as exciting as it sounds and it took us several days to notice the strike anyway as it never occured to us to take buses. It seems that the unions have got something out of the big business, so that is good news.
Our hitching continued successful and we crossed into and back out of Chile (this guy was the border guard
), took the ferry to Tierra del Fuego and arrived in Ushuaia in the early hours of this morning.
So there you have it. We have reached our destination. It is certainly much nicer than Deadhorse. We have traveled two continents, 15 countries and over 20,000 miles (31,000 kms). That's more than going from Madrid to Bangkok via Moscow and back again. All in all we're a bit knackered but very happy. We are currently in a lovely little library full of big sections of books and friendly staff because internet cafes here are insanely expensive. But here it is free. Libraries have done us proud since Alaska.(3)
We don't fly home until early June and have to get to Buenos Aires to do so, so we will be faffing about some more for about another month, and still blogging if you're into that sort of thing.
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(1) Pronounced Mah-tay. There's no reason why anyone who doesn't speak Spanish should know this but J still got sneered at (despite speaking a little at the time we didn't know it was from South America and that that pronounciation applied) in a swanky coffee place in Portland for pronouncing it like the affectionate term from London... we told you it was a craze for the cool kids.
(2) Though they replace 'Y' sounds with 'Shh' sounds as in (Shho soy C y estoy en Argentina con shhamas, poshho y shhuvia) the Argentine has actually been easier for us than the Chilean one often was.
(3) Support your local libraries folks.
Despite everything here and everything that`s going on at home your news got me more choked than I`ve been for the last few weeks! Why?!! Brilliant. Well done you guys.
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