Ushuaia - Week 19

19th - 25th January

Having left Buenos Aires at 6am and 33 degrees, it was a bit of a shock to reach Ushuaia at 10am and 5 degrees!!! Bloody 'ell, it was cold! But, wow, we are so pleased we went to the effort and expense of travelling to 'The city at the end of the world' because this place is unlike anywhere else we've been and is stunningly beautiful. It´s the southern most city in the world next to the Beagle channel named after Darwin´s ship, and only 600miles from Antartica. We hope the pictures will do it some justice...

We are staying at Yakush hostel which is lovely with underfloor heating and big dorms with comfy beds. Everything here in high season is mega-expensive so the budget didn't stretch to a double but luckily there are just two other couples in our dorm and none of them snore or have smelly feet!!

One of the other fantastic thing down here is the daylight hours. The sun doesn't set until about 10.30pm and rises again by 5.30am. Impossible to go to sleep before 11pm but gives us loads of time every day to pack everything in!

We spent the first afternoon settling in, exploring the town and shopping for woolly hats and gloves! Cooked a nice spag bol for tea, had a chat to a few people in the hostel and were in bed asleep by 11pm.

Saturday, we went to book bus tickets up to the next town Puerto Natales and then headed off on a 6 1/2 hour hike up the 'Cerro del Medio' which is one of the snow capped mountains behind Ushuaia. The walk took us steeply up for a couple of hours through beautiful ancient forest. Then when we came to the end of the forest and thought we must have reached the top, we spent another 2 hours scrambling up the scree (throwing a few snowballs on the way) to get to the very peak where we caught our breath and admired the view of the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia city.

Katie and our dog for the day. It followed us all the way up and down the mountain for 6 hours!

We were early to bed that night after our first hike of many to come. Then, the next morning we got the bus to Tierra del Fuego national park to do a couple of walks around the park with Jeroen and Liesbet, a nice belgian couple that we met in the hostel.

A couple of gentle walks turned into another 6 1/2 hours of hiking. Beautiful but again, knackering. We need to get fitter than this for the next few weeks of trekking! After the first five hours of walking, we got to a spot that looked hopefully like a cafe and we all needed a seat and a hot coffee so we wandered over, ignoring the funny looks we were getting from the locals on the way, just nodding at them and saying the occasional friendly, 'Hola'. It wasn't until we got round the back of the shack that we were heading for that we realised that is was a private barbeque that some of the locals were having. Very embarrassing but we all quickly recovered when they asked us to join them and we were offered enormous 'Chorripans' (choritzo sausages in baguettes) and drinks!

Monday was our recovery day off, cooking nice food, reading and exploring round Ushuaia.

On Tuesday, we took in a couple of museums in the morning and then went on board the 'charming' (ie: oldest and cheapest!!) Barracuda boat for a trip round the Beagle Channel to see sealions and lots of cormorants:

Legs (nearly) back to full working order after a couple of days not walking, on Wednesday we decided to tackle the hardest trail in the national park to Cerro Guanaco. The muscles are obviously getting used to all this new work as the trail up the mountain is said to take 4 hours and we did it in 2hr 20 mins - champs!! ; )

The view at the top was absolutely amazing, we were able to see across to Chile, miles down the Beagle channel and across all the beautiful lakes and mountains of the national park.

We had an hour left in the park once we reached the bottom so decided to walk/run another trail at the bottom along the shore of Lago Roca 4km there and 4km back to the Argentinian/Chile border for a bit more training. (Felt great at the time but not so smug when we woke up the next morning - poor, broken legs!).

After a day in the fresh air, we were well ready for a huge meal of steak (2lb of steak for GBP 2.50 and a lovely bottle of red for a quid - Argentina is so cheap!):

(This was just James's - and you know that isn't a joke...!)

Thursday was our last day in Ushuaia so we went to have a look at the old prison and maritime museum, got ready for our 16 HOUR bus trip tomorrow and cooked more steak!

Books we read: In Patagonia (of course!), Bruce Chatwin

Buenos Aires (Argentina) - Week 18

16th - 18th January


No more Central America!! We arrived in Buenos Aires about 6am and headed straight for the 20p (for two people!!) 2hr bus ride into the city centre. No hostel booked so we winged it and went to the first one on our list Che Legarto, in San Telmo. They had space - phew. After putting our bags down we got that morning´s free breakfast, ham, cheese and baguette with coffee with 10 mins to spare before breakfast was over. Afterwards we went for an explore with the end goal being an all-you-can-eat buffet (tenedor libre) recommended in the book - Gran Victoria. The food was really good considering the buffet cost 2 quid each. We had grilled beef shoulder and chicken, loads of tasty salad, lasagne and chinese. The city was very hot (33C and 80% humidity) for exploring but we headed down to the newly renovated dock area for a looksey. After just a couple of hours sleep on the flight that wiped us out so we headed back to a cinema we had found that had a deal for two films back-to-back for 1.13 quid per person. After watching the first film (The Departed) we started to watch the second film (All the Kings Men) and gave up due to tiredness and the naff southern american accents. We headed back to the hostel for a crap nights sleep with drunken idiots coming into the dorm room every half hour or so...



Next day we looked round the main plaza, Plaza de Mayo, where the Catheral and Goverment buildings are. One building, Casa Rosada, had the famous balcony where Eva Peron made her speech.

Plaza de Mayo

Statue of Christopher Columbus behind Casa de Rosa

Next we got rudely spoken to by the staff at Teatro Colon who basicaly just laughed at Katie for no reason when she asked when the theatre would be reopened after renovations. The Buenos Aires men can be wierd, rude and annoying, most are okay but some... We thought food was in order so went to Guerrin´s, a traditional cafe that hadn´t changed for 80 odd years. After a massive meal of pizza and ascado (beef shoulder BBQ´d) and a bottle of good wine for 2 quid. Next up was a subway ride back to San Telmo and a little square, Plaza Dorrego, for a couple of beers. As we sat there a couple perfomed a Tango and a traditional dance.

We headed back to the hostel for while and then headed out to a historic cafe, Cafe Tortoni. This place had barely changed in over a hundred years, with lots of famous writers and polititions frequenting the place over the years. After another bottle of wine we spotted an Irish bar on the walk back. The temptation of Guiness to James was too much after 4 months so we stayed for three and a hangover for Katie next day!!

Cafe Tortoni

The last day in Buenos Aires we thought we should check out the Evita angle so we headed to Recoleta Cemitary to see where Evita was buried. It was a very eirie place with lots of mausoleams with visible cofins.

One mausoleam was the burial place a young girl who fist time she was buried was actually in a coma and not dead as they thought. She banged so hard on her coffin that workers at the cemetary heard the noise and let her out!!

Also we saw one of the dragons from the Dragon´s Den on BBC2. He was a bit of a twit, as we overheard him say "...when you´re in business as long as me you tend get a bit cynical..." Dickhead.

Avenida 9 de Julio, the world's widest street

This is just a tiny part of Buenos Aires - we are going back for another week (and a Boca Juniors football match!) later in the trip...

Books we read: On Beauty, Zadie Smith

Panama City - Week 17 & 18

8th - 14th January

We arrived in Panama City a little shocked at its size after the cosiness of El Refugio and all the little villagey places we have been in the last few weeks. After crossing the Puente los Americas bridge into the city made our way to the crappiest hostel yet - Voyager International Hostel, a grand name for a dump!! We took a bed each in the dorm with the world's smelliest bloke. He was some sort of cyclist that refused to wash so the room stunk of his feet. In the three nights we stayed they we didn´t see him change his clothes once let along hit the shower - minger. The result was we spent minimum time in the hostel and explored the city. First up was Casco Viejo, the site of the second city built by the French during their falied attempt to build the canal in the 1880s. Lots of colonial buildings and streets to wander. We visited an emerald museam, the national theatre, monuments and the like.

Puente de las Americas

Katie & Ally with banking district in the background

The first night was the night James had been waiting for - Jimmy Bond, Casio Royale followed by Doner Kebabs in Niko's. Life doesn't get better.

On the second day we went out to the Metropolitan National Park for a walk round the forest. It was amazing being practically right in the city but seeming like a world away. Great views of the city from the top of the forest, too. After that bit of healthy walking we headed to our first shopping mall for some prelimary looks at the bargain buys...

The next day we tried to get to Isla Toboga but after a mix up with the boat times we headed off to have a look at the Panama Canal at Miraflores Lock, the Pacific Locks. So, the locks briefly: 1913, Americans (well mostly the carribean and african workers or slaves?!) dug a big ditch through the continental divide, killed loads of workers with malairia and yellow fever, dammed a couple of rivers to create a huge lake up in the hills to provide water to work the locks and built locks at either end. The ships are raised about 60ft up from the Pacific Ocean in Miraflores and San Miguel locks in three lifts. They then go into the cut through the mountains and then onto the lake, where they are then lowerd down 60ft in the Pacific/Carribean at Gatun Locks in Colon. The whole jorney including waiting time takes about 24 hours and costs each ship on average $60,000 in tolls.

Ships anchored up wating in the bay

That night we went for a curry with Caroline, a girl from our dorm, which was a welcome change from rice and beans. Afterwards we tried long and hard to find somewhere for a drink but it was too early, everything open about 10pm in Panama City, the only place left was Hooters!! After some convincing of the girls that Hooters was not a seedy strip joint but a place suitable for families too - even going as far as saying that there would be a family inside - we went in. When they saw the family eating inside they were okay. (So were the Hooters!! - James)

James, Katie, Ally and our lovely host Diana!!

The next day we were successful and got Isla Toboga, a small island off the coast, for a one alst day suntanning for Ally. After a very hot climb we reached the top of the island for a good view back to beaches.

A hermit crab bucking the trend for a shell and going for a modern plastic set up!!

Thursday night we went out on a big night in Panama city starting at midnight in a little pub with pool table where Ally and James thrashed a few people...

Ally with the guy who thought he could play pool...

...and his pool glove!!

Next stop was the casino where we met up with some locals who told us they knew a great place with cheap beers so we all piled in their Rover 414 with them (5 in the back) and got to the promised cheap beer - a pole dancing club!!!

After being threatened with being thrown out for 'pole dancing', we left at 6am for breakfast kebabs and a few hours sleep before a day of shopping started on Friday.

Shopping was not ideal with minimal sleep and maximum handover but we all managed to spend lots of money in the malls because everything was half the price of home. Ally left Panama city this morning for her flight home with an extra 12kg bag of assorted rubbish we have sent home! Thanks Al!

Books we read: The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

Playa El Palmar - Week 17

5th - 7th January

After the morning in La Pintada we got back on the coach on the interamericana highway and stopped 45 mins down the road in San Carlos. From here we took a 2 min taxi down to the coast at Playa El Palmar and stumbled on a great place to stay, El Refugio:

This was Russ's family home which he has opened as a B&B and is run by his son Jay, Jay's girlfriend Marlene (who, incidentally, is the number 4 female surfer in Panama!) and Phil & Parker, two Candians escaping the rat-race. The whole family (and all friends, we met tons of people coming and going all the time!) were so welcoming and helpful and the house so lovely that we had a fantastic time.

Ally, Katie, Phil, Russ, Parker and James

We were right on the beach which was great for swimming and the house had a lovely pool in the garden. Five minutes after arriving we had all kicked off our shoes, had a beer in hand and felt like we'd been there 3 weeks!

So we basically mooched around for 3 days, swimming, reading, chatting late into the night and eating great food (one day a fisherman turned up with enormous shrimps for sale that he'd just caught that morning - delicious on the barby!).

On our last day, Ally and Katie managed to drag themselves out of El Palmar and caught the bus an hour up into the mountains to El Valle, a little village set in the crator of an extinct volcano. The air was fresh, the surroundings stunning and the shops full of bargain Panamanian things that Ally just HAD to buy ;)

Books we read: Spycatcher, Peter Wright

Penonome & La Pintada - Week 17

4th January

We left the highlands of Boquete on the morning of the 4th to travel down to the Pacific coast and some real sunshine and beach. On the way, however, was a tiny town in the mountains to visit just off the interamericana freeway with a cigar factory and great little artisan market so we stopped in Penonome for a night and spent the next morning at the cigar factory and at the market in La Pintada.

The cigar factory was just a little hut with lots of school desks where the workers hand roll the cigars:

At the market, we bought molas which are the hand stiched parts of the Panamian women's traditional dress and met the women that stiched them:

Boquete - Week 17

Jan 1st - 3rd 2007

Well, check this out, James has allowed me to write in the blog!
Guest Writer Ally here.

New Years Day we managed to drag ourselves out of bed and be at the Water Taxi stand for 10am! Even with Katie´s usual ´hangover sickness´ we enjoyed a beautiful sunny (first) day trip over the Caribbean Sea back to mainland Panama. The scenery was AMAZING.
Arriving in Almirante we started the 1km trek to the nearest bus stop. The Panamanians are very caring people and before we knew it we had an offer of a lift to a safer bus stop further out of town - CHECK! You don´t get offers like that every day so Katie and I, with a couple of Canucks, piled into the cabin of the 4x4.... and James in the open truck with the backpacks!

Weather was blue sky and hot and so off we went on, in the words of James ´the least stressful day of travelling in Central America´. Not only did this guy take us to the nearest bus station, he then offered to take us to a town called David, a three hour drive away!

The road led us high up into the moutains overlooking Costa Rica and Panama and soon we were in the clouds.... poor James out there in the cold and wet, tee hee hee! (We were more concerned about our bags!). Inside the A/C cabin us girls enjoyed singing along to Coldplay blaring out of the CD player, very surreal.

Arriving in David our ´chauffeur´ dropped us off to the Chicken Bus Station, for a less pleasant drive up into the mountains to Boquete, even offering to take us to a party that evening.... which we declined owing to New Year celebrations catching up on us!

Next morning, we took ourselves off to a local Coffee plantation, Cafe Ruiz. A four hour tour later we are now Coffee connisseurs and will never drink NoEsCafe again! I´ll pass you over to James to go through each process in refined detail, with photos!

The coffee beans in the fields. Coffee only grows between 1100m and 1500m altitude. The beans must ripen and be picked only when they have turned red. Most large scale productions strip the beans from the bushes by machine taking both green and red beans. Cafe Ruiz hand pick their beans leaving the green ones on the bush till they turn red. Fruit trees are planted between the bushes to attract insects and parasites to the fruit and away from the coffee beans.

Next stage is to put the beans in a floatation tank, the beans that float are unripe or bad and so are separated and named floaters!! These beans are inferior, bitter and get sold on to instant coffee makers, ending up as NoEsCafe. The beans are picked by indigenous workers who hand pick about 60kgs of beans a day for $20. They have all their accomodation, schooling, healthcare and fruit they can eat provided free by Cafe Ruiz.

The third stage is to ferment the beans for 24hrs to loosen the outercasing and disolve the pulp around the beans. The casings are kept and used as fertilizer in the fields. Nothing is wasted - very sustainable.

The beans are then washed and pre-dried. The beans are still over 50% water at this stage.

The darker beans drying in the foreground are the unripe floaters. The coffee beans before going into the driers.

The large drying machines. The beans are dried in these big drums for 36 hours to remove all the remaining moisture. The beans are then rested for 4 months before going on to be graded.

The three sections of bean. The outer casing on the left and a thin skin covering the bean. Both of these are removed and burnt to providing heat for the driers.

The fires burning the casing along with branches cut from oversized fruit trees.

The grading machine. The beans are graded according to size, shape, density and colour. The beans are they bagged for selling as "oro cafe" or gold coffee. The coffee produced by Cafe Ruiz has won many awards and can be worth up to $50 a lb!! The beans are sold unroasted so companies like Starbucks can make blended coffee, adding these high quality beans to lesser quality beans brought cheaply elswhere to improve the overall flavour once roasted.

Apparently we needed to wear these in the roasting area, seems like they just wanted to make the tourists look silly to me...

The beans on the left have been well graded and therefore are an even colour after roasting. The ones on the right haven´t been well selected and that is why you can see the smaller beans over roasted (black and bitter) and the larger beans under roasted (lighter and sweeter tasting).

The tasting session told us that what we think of strong coffee, very intense and bitter, is just a result of roasting the beans longer giving them a burnt taste. A good cup of coffee should not need milk and sugar to alter the taste. A well selected medium roast (latino) is lighter and uniform in colour and will taste sweeter. You will taste sweetness in the front of your mouth, and bitterness in the back. Also the bitter flavour will diminish quickly while the sweeter flavour will last many minutes. The strength comes simply from the ratio of coffee to water used.

The way to know if you have an even, medium roast is to look at the beans before they are roasted. If you buy coffee ready ground you will never see the quality of the beans used in the first place, always buy beans whole and grind them yourself. This also ensures that the beans are as fresh as possible. Another tip they gave us was that foil coffee bags have a one-way valve on the front to squeeze out the air once you have resealed the bag - we never knew that!!

End of coffee lecture, sorry if anyone dropped off there...

We also managed to fit in a peculiar attraction up here in the mountains, ´My Garden, Your Garden´.... clearly someone has too much spare cash and time on their hands when they create an open garden with pink flamingoes, windmills, wooden female figures in various positions (painting lamposts, sunbathing etc) and even a small church complete with pews! This did amuse us for a few hours!

Crazy - the owners must be on drugs!

January 3rd saw us in need of working off some Xmas and New Year excesses with a hike in the rain forest. Though the Volcano 11 hour gruelling hike was tempting we opted for the 3 and a half hour trek with Eduardo, a local guide.

Bananas for the walk - 1.5p each

We climbed from 1080 metres (Boquete altitude) to 2100 metres, from warm breeze to chillier wind! Scenery was as ever beautiful, and we got to see lots of local wildlife.... though unfortunately not the elusive Quetzal bird! Katie and James have tried to see the elusive Quetzal on three occasions, but the little critter is a bit shy. Eduardo took us on an alternative route on the way back, scrabbling up the valley side. Good exercise but we'll have to wait to and see how our legs feel tomorrow!

The elusive Quetzal

A 800 year old Ash Tree.

Tomorrow we´re going to head to the Penonome for cigars and Panama Hats, then the Pacific Coast of Panama to get some beach action in.... yay!

A blog entry wouldn't be complete without a bizzare photo of local signage. Not sure why babies need protection with Durex...