Following our Christmas post post Here are our travels before Christmas : from Argentina to Chile and back to Argentina etc etc

We stopped at a roadside café having just arrived in Chile, which Dirk, a newly acquired friend from Holland had decided was a great place to eat, and very nice it was until we found that because of the regulations on bringing vegetables into Chile we had no onions. Would the lady in the café sell us some onions? Oh yes and she looked very happy to do so. She provided us with some beautiful looking onions. It was only very much later in the day that we realised that the reason she had looked so pleased was probably because she had charged us about £6 for two onions.  

We visited The Pali Aike National Park. Here it is possible to walk right up into the crater of a small, extinct (we hope) volcano. We had a really interesting time  with 6 of us sharing a meal together at the foot of said volcano.

The volcanos crater

playing hide and seek

 
                                                                                 Looking for eagles

our gang in the volcano

What a great car  but so old and still overlanding

We were leaving the next day when I saw a very special overland vehicle driving towards us. It was a beautiful 40 year old Citroen DS which has already travelled very far and wide we stopped to meet with the couple in it and to take pictures.

From here we drove on through a bit of Chile until we got to the ferry across the Magallan strait the ferry was pretty straightforward  but as we crossed I looked over the side to see about 30 0r 40 dolphins whizzing around and under the ferry

Onto the ferry

The splashy bits really are dolphins?

It was a very exciting sight and despite having my camera with me I was simply unable to be quick enough to photograph any of them. Just take my word for it. It was pretty neat.

The nature of the boundary between Argentina and Chile meant that we have had to crisscross the 2 countries  quite a few times in order to get to where we want to go.The only problem with these crossings is that there are strict regulations prevent the import of meat and vegetables  either into Argentina or into Chile. If they find any they confiscate it.

We briefly met a couple of men who was going the same way, who said that they had eaten till they were full and had food  said that we should take their surplus food instead of handing it over at the border.

The result was that we and our friends ended up scoffing all the food before crossing into Argentina. It was not a very dignified scene.

We then crossed the border, The food inspector got in the van and began looking round. He notice that our steering wheel is on the wrong side and was so interested,he showed his colleagues and the inspection was abandoned. We really could have brought a herd of cattle through.

We drove on to a town called Tolhuine ( which I always thought was an ingredient of TNT. Shows how wrong you can be).

Tolhuine is an odd kind of resort town. It has a beautiful lake and this town is hard to describe but has the appearance of being made up of tin shacks of all kinds. There are some down at heel shacks and there are some rather nice shacks. And even some quite opulent shacks, mostly holiday homes.

Anyway we arrived and did not really know about the lake so we grooved about the town for a bit tried the rather nice but overpriced cake shop and then went and spent a night at the petrol station. It was only the next day that we discovered that we could have parked in a lovely spot by the lake without the heady aroma of diesel fumes. 

Ushuaia - Fin del Mundo (the end of the world)

 Then on to Ushuaia! This was to be our southernmost town known locally as Fin del Mundo - ‘The end of the World’ Ushaia is surrounded by stunningly beautiful mountains. I am reliably informed by Vasco that these are the tail end of the Andes, it has an airport, and a fairly busy sea port mostly with arctic ships and cruise ships etc. 

familiar eh?

The St Christopher here for more that 60 years

Ushuaia has its own shipwreck which is right in town. 

The WW2 Royal Navy tug which had served its war in and around the South Atlantic. It had been sold off  and renamed the St Christopher and functioned for a few years in and around Tierra Del Fuego and the Malvenas.   In 1954 she became involved in the rescue of another stricken ship during which the St Christopher was herself quite badly damaged. It was bought for salvage  and towed into Ushaia. While under tow, which involved salvage experts and presumably the local pilot, so you might be forgiven for thinking that they should have known better!  It was accidently towed onto a bank right in front of the town it pitched onto the bank with such force that it could not be refloated. She has remained there ever since.

Frigate Europa

While I was photographing The St Christopher, I saw coming towards me  a lovely site . It was the frigate Europa a sail training ship. A real tall ship coming straight towards me. Sadly it was not in full sail but magnificent nonetheless

In the run up to Christmas a lot of people came to our camp 
But in particular we had a visit from the ‘Rotel’ This is an extra ordinary rig. This is the rolling hotel which can carry up to 40 travellers and with sleeping accommodation. It really looked like one of those trucks that carry racing pigeons around. Maybe a battery chicken farm. It will drive from one tourist site to another all over the region. A couple of things surprised us as onlookers. One was the level of apparent bewilderment among the passengers  as they disembarked. The other was their average age which was somewhere up in the 70s. I certainly expected to see reasonably young backpacker types, but not so. 

The extraordinary Rotel Bus

This truck was remarkable and it may well be described as a rolling hotel, but The Ritz it was not. I am slightly ashamed to observe that it gave the impression of being a bit like an institution. With remarks about whether or not the inmates administered their own medication. Also questions about whether or not they are locked in at night. Anyway this large number of punters descended on our little camp but they did their own thing and were quite organised  and 48 hours later they were gone.

Ushuaia also has its own national park which we visited shortly after our lovely Christmas party. We found the park quite a nice way to spend a couple of days during which we spotted a beaver, beavering about in a stream.  Very cute! 

I'm just beavering about thats what beavers do !

beaver dam  

We later learned that Beavers were introduced a hundred years ago for commercial reasons and they have done so well for themselves but the destruction that they cause by habitually chopping down trees and stripping the bark off others has devastated vast areas of wood land where all you can see for miles is dead trees. It is now thought to be threatening the wildlife balance all over the region. It is quite a startling scene.

Actually not an eagle but the rather magnificent  Curra curra a large falcon

Our hawk nicking the lead off our roof

I have spoken about the way that birds and animals are not bothered by humans and it is possible to stay so close to them. We had what we think was an eagle buzzard wandering around our van one morning and later the same day a hawk was standing by the roadside. I thought I’ll get a picture of him and as I got out of the van he hopped up on our bonnet right in front  of Ping in  the passenger seat. As I went to take another picture. He went up on the roof and started to eat the sealant off the van roof. It was really hard to climb up and take pictures though he was not interested in me right next to him. How interesting I thought he is eating all the sealant off the roof. His mate came to join him oh wow! I thought.

The next day we had a serious downpour of rain and it all leaked into the van where our new friend had eaten all the sealant off our roof!

After the Tierra Del Fuego national park we had heard about a colony of King penguins which could be seen on the shore near the road. It meant taking a major detour on a difficult road but this was an opportunity to see these magnificent birds.

Lots of people told us about this. No one said anything negative. When we got there after a difficult drive what we found was far from what we had imagined. We found we were lured into a place that deliberately appears to be a conservation park. We were briefed by a man who wore a park rangers uniform. Actually, he was charging a lot of money to see penguins who happened to inhabit his farm land the whole deal was an expensive con.

There were about 30 penguins that we could see about 70 yards away they just stood there, mostly still. Leaving us believing that some of them might even be statues to make up the numbers. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to stand up, let alone take photographs. We used binoculars but the wind was so strong  that I was really unable to see much. I managed to take only 3 usable pictures pictures.

In the end I reckon that the penguins themselves were on 10% with a clothing allowance to buy a new suit every year  plus all the sardines they can eat.

Meanwhile the Chilean equivalent of Joe Grundy was making money hand over fist. It all came in at about $1 a penguin. and $17 a photo.
While we were there there were at least 6 minibuses arrived  each one with around 10 new victims. It makes your blood boil and you just feel a fool.

Oh by the way. I guess you are wondering why the pictures aren't here.
Ping managed to delete them.     Perfect!!!