our quantum leap

mrs. hmm's travel stops.

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wowza! day 1 on the carretera austral.

it’s impossible to put into words the breathtaking scenery we saw at nearly every turn so i’ll just let the pictures do the talking.

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slightly hair-raising but absolutely stunning drive to i can't remember where!

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sylvia.

our first pitstop with sylvia, our 4wd stallion for a two-week roadtrip along the carretera austral. people often say it's the one good thing pinochet did for chile, building this road, even though 100s of people died in the 20 years it took to complete (although it's not quite finished yet, truth be told).

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torres del paine.

i was going to let mr. hmm do this one on his own. everything i read talked about howling winds that literally blow you off your feet, pouring rain and hordes of tourists. basically five days of misery that you pay for the privilege of experiencing. there are two circuits that people “do” (i walked mine) - the “o” which is circular and takes nine days, and the “w” which strangely takes the shape of a w and takes five. no prizes for guessing which we chose.

don’t believe everything you read people. there was hardly any wind. it rained only for a bit. on the final night it snowed with huge flakes the size of which i’ve never seen before which made for a magical final morning’s walk, ending in brilliant sunshine. we even saw the torres (many people don’t due to the weather).

the chief of pato’s panos ™ was also in chile and made up the third musketeer. you can see for yourselves how beautiful it was.

[templeofhmm]

Valle del Elqui, Coquimbo I walked alone. Nothing stirred but the dust under my feet and the cactus flowers fluttering amid the spines in the hot wind. The path climbed higher and higher into the hillside until the town shrank before me in the valley below… little houses, little cars, little roads. Somewhere amongst them, my invalid wife sat in the observatory kitchen, making tea, filling forms. A voice spoke clearly behind me. I turned around to meet a man from the Bible. His arms were outstretched as if to hug me, but he could not. His head was bleeding and his robe blew open. I pressed on in the dry heat. More cacti, more dust. The course of an ancient river, now barren and sad, snaking its way through the desert. From the summit I looked down upon vultures and a condor silently wheeling in the thermals. Giant birds with simple wishes, spiralling ever upwards. At the observatory, later that night, I dreamt of the Bible man’s beard, shaped into a cave. Inside I found perfect fossils of myself protruding from the rocks. I ran my fingers over the indentations and sneezed.

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this.

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a childhood dream come true.

a land of volcanoes, lakes, mountains and deserts, at the age of 10 i couldn't get my head around the topography of chile. how could a country be so long and thin? (all the maps we saw when there were divided into two parts.) how could the south be colder than the north? how can you have snowy mountains in the desert, etc etc?

we spent a short four months there experiencing tremors and volcanic ash - everyday occurrences for a chileno. we learned about astronomy, drove through wildernesses and met some beautiful people, many of whom lived through pinochet's dictatorship. writing this makes me realise how much i loved being there. i'm so glad they won the copa américa. i can't wait to go back.

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sorry people but there’s a LOT of catching up to do so use your imaginations, or google, to find out about the historical delights of antarctica including: recipes for penguin soup, drinking homebrew in the ukrainian research station in a pub decorated with women’s bras, finding all sorts of knick knacks from the 1950s, the list is endless…

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solitary brother...

furs, crabeaters, elephants, weddells… often to be found lolling about on ice floes, or in the mud. they’re huge and cumbersome on land but are like dancers in the water.

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p-p-p-pick up a penguin!

actually, don’t. but it would be so easy to do as they don’t obey the 5 metre rule. always amusing, they also stink to high heaven.

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ice, ice baby.

it’s b e a u t i f u l!

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zodiacs.

we loved going out on excursions in these little babies, sometimes to spot wildlife, others to go onshore. very cool. and very cold.

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views from the deck.

breathtaking.

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the akademik ioffe.

this beautiful russian vessel, one of two sister ships, was our home for two weeks. it carries 96 passengers and a russian crew. it’s still not allowed in u.s. waters as they think it’s a spy ship - in their former lives, both ships were used for hydro acoustic research with a vast reach, one being used to transmit sound waves, and the other to receive them.

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ushuaïa.

and then suddenly we were hot-footing it to the southern tip of argentina, worried that winter would prevent us from visiting patagonia’s great landscapes. but seeing snow-capped mountains through the plane windows made my heart sink. my feet were in trauma - i hadn’t worn socks in eight months - and my waterproof coat had gone walkabout a few weeks before. the hostal we’d booked had staffing issues so we couldn’t stay there. and i caught a cold within five minutes of landing. first impressions were not good.

a spanish environmentalist we’d met in our last few days in nica told us he’d bought a last-minute trip to antarctica from ushuaïa a few years before. we spent the next few days exploring our options whilst trying not to panic about the cost of everything at the end of the world. should we book antarctica and bust the budget, or keep to the plan and extend our trip? we decided to do both. best decision we ever made.

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the nicaraguan canal.

although it’s not a new proposition - a canal was mooted as far back as the 1700s - this time around, the potential for irreversible damage to this beautiful country is far greater. this article in the guardian gives a great but disturbing overview on the potential destruction - environmental and personal - the canal will bring. what it doesn’t mention is that hknd, the chinese firm in charge, are under no obligation whatsoever to construct the canal ie. they can sit on this project for 50 years with no recourse. they are also under no obligation to employ nicaraguans in its construction.

we fell in love with the amazing people, incredible landscapes and unbelievable wildlife of nicaragua. it’s so sad to think that many of the places we visited will be destroyed. many of the people we got to know will be displaced, and animals endangered.

nicaragua is a poor and little-visited country. do poor people not matter? and can destroying our environment in this day and age really be progress? once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

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eight kids and counting!

hats off to this rama lady who’s had eight kids - all girls, all gorgeous. el chele is convinced they’ll keep on going until they have a boy in which case i hope it happens soon so she can have a rest!

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jungle survival skills with the guardians of the forest.

an adventure with mr. salomon, mr. hilary and mr. salomon’s daughter (whose name i forget). the rama are very old-fashioned - old-fashioned english - in their address. it’s mr or miss so-and-so, no matter how well you know someone or what age they are. kitted out with rubber boots and a massive raincoat, we headed for the río indio and into rama territory.

only 2,000 rama now administer nearly 50% of nicaragua’s landmass with no proper government support. the proposed nicaraguan canal is a huge threat to their ancestral land, as are mestizo farmers who illegally settle there. rather than sell their birthright to domestic or foreign investors or benefactors, the rama work to preserve the balance of nature. get lost in the jungle with us and we could now try and find you a red vine if you were thirsty, and know which palm leaves to lay as a path through the mud. but it’s probably safer to go with a member of the rama community. plus, they’re the only ones allowed to take you into this part of the jungle.