Cormac´s Travels

Brazil, the home of the largest and most famous street Carnival in the world was next on the agenda, and luckily I planned it conveniently to coincide with Carnival.

I would be lying if I was to say I was 100% excited about arriving in Rio. The most common topic of conversation about Rio with fellow backpackers was regarding how dangerous it was. Supposedly 1 in 4 tourists in Rio get mugged. I heard 2 seperate stories about guys getting mugged 3 times in one day. So as you can imagine I was a tad nervous about my arrival. The fundamental advise for Rio was to bring nothing outside the door that you don´t want to loose. So consequently that meant leaving my camera behind for the most of it.

This was what I had heard but the reality for me was "Luck of the Irish" as the yanky doodles say, combined with a bit of cop on that is. The language of Brazil is Portuguese so unfortunately alot of the spanish I picked up in argentina was useless. To me it sounded completely alien to Spanish and sounded more like a mix of African and Russian. The people here all smile from ear to ear, it was a great welcome ,contradicting all forewarnings.

Besides from some seriously heavy rain for 2 out of 5 days I was in Rio, it was a fantastic time. Here´s a few pics.

Christ the redeemer. Apologies for the pose, everyone else was doing it!
There was perfect views of the whole city from here. The statue was immense when up there. There´s even a chapel inside.

Spectacular views with "The Sugar Loaf" in the back ground.

One of my long awaited goals, to have a Coctail on Copacabana beach.
This is a Caipirinha the famous Brazilian cocktail, made from buckets of Lime, Ice and the most important ingredient, Cachaca.

To make up for missing a football game in Buenos Aires I more than made up for it by seeing a game in Rio. We were lucky to see two of the biggest teams in Rio play, Vasco v`s Botafogo. Well what an experience. The game was played in The Maracana stadium which holds about 90 thousand. It`s totally enclosed within a dome and once again gives you the impression that your very close to the pitch no matter how far back you are. The game was pretty average but improved towards the end, when Botofogo, the home team scored a penalty to go 3-2 ahead. The crowd absolutely lost it! The wracket from the crowd for the whole game was absolutely deafening, but when that penalty was scored you couldn`t hear yourself think. There was flares going of all over the shop and enormous flags being pulled down over the crowd till it would cover the whole terrace. The buzz with the supporters really made the game. I`ve never experienced anything like it. You don`t even have to get out of your seat for food. Beer, hot dogs and crisps are being brought to your lap every few minutes. What more can one ask for!
Botofogo won 3-2 and the football chants lasted for our exit from the stadium, the whole way down the road to the train station, for the whole train journey and down the streets of the city. It was the most amazing atmosphere I`ve ever been witness to.

The Carnival definately lived up to the high expectations I had. These guys seriously know how to party! I thought the Irish knew how. It was literally 24 hours
a day for 4 days continuous party.

Here`s a few snapshots

The street party`s were excellent. There was gordeous street food being sold on every corner, the salsa dipped meat skewers were delicious.
The one surprise that I did get was that the main Parade doesn`t actually go down the public streets. A huge stadium called the sambadrome was purpose built for all the samba schools to compete. It`s just like a stretched stadium which is 700 m long. It cost a few quid to get in, but wow was it worth it. Those Brazilian gals sure know how to shake their booty`s!

Some of the floats were very impressive looking and must have taken a seriously long time to make.
The parade starts at 10pm and ends at 7am the next day. We only lasted till 4.30. It was a fair effort, I may say.

Here`s a few of the hats that were thrown from the dancers.

The next important thing besides from all that partying was to meet my new group, who I`d be travelling with for the next 7 weeks. The group was 32 in all and consisted of 16 Ozzy`s, 4 Canadians, 3 English, 2 Kiwi`s and a good 7 Irish.
It was going to be an interesting 7 weeks....

So in a strange way I was glad to see the back of Rio. It was a uniquely beautiful city, however 4 days in a city for me is long enough.

Off we went, my "big brother bus" and I, travelling south along the stunning Brazilian coast. It was such a teaser to be driving past so many idylic deserted beaches and not being able to spend time at them. A taste....

Our first detination was the the Colonial town of Paraty, famous for it beautiful Churches, cobbled(sometimes bolders) stone streets and the hundreds of deserted islands off it`s coast.

Besides from strolling around the streets taking in the chilled atmosphere we also went on a boat cruise for the day. Did a bit of snorkelling, some dive competitions of the top of the boat and had a scrumptious lunch. It was a great way to get aquainted with the group.

Paraty was also my first introduction to the 60% camping for the trip. Not a great intro I have to say. It`s rainy season here so when it rains, it pours. Try putting a tent up in that while keeping all your stuff dry. In heinsight it wasn`t such a bad thing, as it prepared us early for what was to come. It also made us appreciate the dry days alot more!

So the natural route for most of the Patagonian group was to travel north to Buenos Aires which was great as I had people to party with and sight see with in Buenos Aires. BA which is know for having an amazing night life does not actually come alive till about 11pm when people go out for dinner. The clubs don´t actually open till about 1am and close at about 7am. I had a few amazing nights out here and there was some great dance music.

Everything is ridiculously cheap here so we would out for breakfast, lunch(steak) and dinner (steak). Taxi´s were the preferred mode of transport, as to get any where in the city cost about 3 euro.

The first sightseeing that was done here was the Ricoletta graveyard which is famous for it´s grandiose and wealth. This is where all the past presidents, aristocrats and wealthy were buried. Eva Peron was also buried here, however her grave was quite basic compared to some of the extravagant Mausoleums that dominated the place.

e.g this is just a typical Mausoleum. It just goes to show how wealthy BA was and still is to a certain degree.

Boca, a famous BA neighbourhood, was the next stop and is known for the BOCA JUNIORS football club. This is where Maradonna became what he was - a Legend, and to this day is worshipped as a saint no matter what mad exploits he gets up to.

You can get tours of the football ground which was pretty impressive. When you enter it´s unreal how close you feel to the pitch. Unfotunately we couldn´t get to a game as it was off-season. It´s meant to be a memorable experience with an amazing pandemonium, curtousy of the crazy Boca fans.

Boca is also known for the vibrant colours of the neighbourhood. Here´s a few pics to illustrate.....

I really liked Boca, there was so much going on and also some fantastic street Tango shows. The more you watch this dance the more you come to appreciate the skill involved.

I must have looked fairly skilled myself, as when walking down the road in Boca another tango fan asked if she could pose with me!

Maradona seems to be stuck for a few pennys these days. It was about 2 euro to get a pic taken with him. Had to be done, the Legend!

This is the government building where Evita Peron made most of her famous inspiring speaches to the people of Argentina.

Along the docks in Beunos Aires reminded me a bit of how Dublin will look when the new Samuel Becket bridge at O2 will be completed. Mmmm

So that was it for Buenos Aires for a while and next I had to make a decision of what to do with my remaining time before my next Organised trip. Instead of travelling further in Argentina which would have involved huge distances and time I decided to go to Uruguay for a week as it is so easy to do from Buenos Aires. It´s literally a 4 hour ferry ride over the estuary and your in Uruguay, so why not ad another country to my tally. I also heard that there´s some great beaches up the north coast which I felt drawn to after not seeing any in Argentina. So the only remaining person from the Patagonia trip, Bhavana and I set of on the ferry ride to Colonia, which is a port town in Uruguay. The ferry was state of the art and better than any ferry I´ve been on in Europe. A very brief stop over here and then onto Montivideo the Capital of Uruguay.

Unfortunately Motivideo was very quiet due to the summer season when most of the population head to the beaches for the weekend. Here´s a picture of an impressive building from the main Plaza.

The rubbish in Montivideo is left out on the side of the street where cowboy type bin men come and sift through for all the paper and card board, which they then sell on for recycling. Beats the Green bins if you ask me! The photo was justified because if you look closely you´ll see that the horses don straw hats while on the job. Caring bin men, good to see... Anywho

I wasn´t too keen on staying in any city for longer than needs be
, so a full day and two nights was ample time for Uruguay´s bizarrely quiet Capital. So this next leg was going to be my first time actually travelling on my own as my friend Bhavana had to head back to BA. This time, I was really looking forward to for the "New" experience.

Uruguayan country side along the Altlantic coast, was characterised by lightly coloured green rolling hills with the odd cluster of tree´s. There seems to be very few fences of hedge rows seperating private fields. Instead I think livestock is just let roam free and then rounded up by the Gaucho´s(cowboys) when needs be.
img=http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/134855/ur_tree_clusters.jpg]

There was also random Palm tree´s which seemed totally out of place for the area.

The beach I decided to go to was called Punta del Diablo, which is 5 hours north of Montivideo, was supposed to be a quiet surfing village where it´s alot less commercialised, just what I needed for some badly needed chill time.
My first experience actually travelling on my own was a memorable one. Nearing the end of my bus trip from Monivideo to the beach I asked the Bus driver to let me know when my stop was. Don´t think he understood with my superior spanish ;-), but anyway a Uruguyan guy, with perfect english, sitting behind me told me he was going there as well and he´d let me know where to get off. He was a really cool guy and told me he´d show me around the town and where´s good to go out. So we arrived up in the village, which seemed very basic with dirt roads and shacks for buildings. Nicolas, my new Uruguyan friend, said that we had gone way past my hostel, but that his friends who were most likely on the beach had a car and might be able to give me a lift there. I have to admit I was feeling a bit paranoid with this, as any innocent Dubliner might be in this kind of situation. After a bit of mental torment I decided to tow the line and see what would happen.

We walked down a packed beach, me with my backpack and all my gear, looker for his friends. I was thinking how the **** are we meant to find his friends in all this. Needle in a...
After two minutes we see a huge gang of young people sitting down in a circle. Before we got about 50m distance from them, one after another 12 of them all ran up to give a customary hand shake, kiss on the cheek and introduction to see who the gringo(me) that Nicolas found was. It was a real honoring experience. I felt like a star for a few minutes. They all stood around me talking one after the other practicing their english, while Nicolas found the friend with the car. We then headed off in the car to find my hostel which Nicolas supposedly new the location of, this ended up taking about half an hour. Yes Paranoia was kicking in again, driving around in a paked car with a load of locals I never met. Anyway after 3 u turns and 40 enquiry´s we finally found the hostel.

Hostel Tranquilo Diablo.

I then got invited to a feast at their rented beach house. They told me it was their last night there and that they were having there one and only Asado(A Uruguayan Barbecue) They´d been saving the best to last, apparently they had survived on rice for the week to afford such a party. I was wrecked after the Journey and was hesitant but when I heard it was their last night I decided I´d be mad not to.
I think it was without doubt the one of the best decisions I ever made.

I got picked up an hour later and driven down the road to the beach house and once again treated to the film star experience. This was the Asado barbecue and let me say the Asado de Tire(ribs) were better than any Argentine stake I´d had. It was indescribable how nice the meat was.
The boys had met a gang of young Argentine Chicas that day and also invited them along. They all arrived with some kind of dish they had prepared, again filed past me with more kisses and introductions. The dinner was laid out, eaten, stories were told and the guitars came out for some Urugayan folk music. These guys took me in as a friend and treated me like a celebrity, it was fantastic and was a truly a memorable unique experience. The night turned to morning where we all went down to see the sun rise on the Atlantic. This is the kind of experience one will never have when on an organised tour.

A great bunch of lads!

As I wasn´t fast enough off the mark to get a photo of one of the typical locals, who drink copious amounts of Mate(the Argentine drink I previously described), I got one of the lads to imitate, and pose for a photo. Every second person in Uruguay walks around like this. They´re serious Mate heads here!

Tranquilo diablo was a really chilled out place. You can really loose track of time here, with a hammock on the balcony overlooking the ocean. I was fairly lucky as there was a group of hippies staying there, who were basically in town to play folk music and perform fire dancing and the likes. It was never boring there, with the hippies warm up folk sessions and interesting people to meet.

Uruguyan girls like Irish guys..... ($$$No money changed hands for this pic $$$)

This was picture of the local fishing boat fleet I took as I reluctantly walked for my bus back to Montivideo. Punta Del Diable was one of the most memorable experiences I ever had and was very sad to say "Slan".

Did somebody mention there´s a Carnival in Rio soon??.....

So on further south we travelled towards the southern tip(up tipp!) of the continent. On our way to our next destination we went to a penguin colony. Cool little guys these were. I never get tired of seeing them waddling along with such determination. They´re also suprisingly good jumpers. We were lucky as it was fledgling season and all the couples had young. All of the chicks were partially covered in fluff which was quite funny as some of them looked like they were wearing varies combinations of clothes. Check this guy out, looks like he's got a balaclava and gloves on.

After that we beelined for our next destination Puntas Arenas on the straight of Magellan. Punta Arenas was one of the words largest port towns for a long time after Magellans discovery of, a route to get east by travelling west. It was a real melting pot of every nationality for hundereds of years. This all changed when the Panama canal was built and completed in 1914. Now it's really just another Chilean town with no real claim to fame. The only things worth mentioning are - A massive statue of Magellan in the central plaza, packs of dogs roaming the streets causing havoc, and impossible pool table's with about 1mm clearance between ball and pocket. Also, I tried boar for the first time, which was very unique and can certainly say won´t be having it again.

Early rise again the next morning to an old Estancia along the coast. Estancia´s are basically sheep farming stations that are the only sign of life in the massive wildernesses that cover patagonia. They were first inhabited about 150 years ago when the Argetintine government realised the lands potential for sheep grazing. Then they offered huge tracts of land to whoever wanted it for very cheap. Most Argentine civilians weren´t interested due to the isolation, however foreigners effected by war and unrest in their own countries saw it as a great opportunity. For example, there´s still Welsh speaking towns here.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid even jumped at the offer so as to escape the Authority´s, who at the time were hot on their tails in the states. They bought a huge tract of land and started a farm. Then they got bored of that "mundane life" and ditched it for bank robbery´s in Argentina. They ended up being chased to Bolivia where they allegedly died in a shoot out.

This Estancia was won of the largest in Patagonia and had up to 60 staff at any one time. It was a very eerie place with sheep carcasses and derelict houses all around the place. There was also two huge ancient ships that had run aground along the shore, which only added to the spooky atmosphere of the place.

Tierra Del Fuego which is an Island about the same size as Our Republic, was our next stop on the trip. It translates as ´land of fire´ and was named by Magellen when he first arrived here.He could see numerous smoke trails, which subsequently turned out to be camp fires from the local Indians. It wasn´t like the flat featureless landscape of patagonia as I expected it to be, but more like I´d imagine Alaska, with Lakes, snow capped mountains, and vast forrests. They say the rivers here are some of the best in the world for trout and salmon fishing, unfortunately I didn´t have time to sample it :-(. We stopped in a famous bakery along the way which supported the fishing claims as there were pictures of Monster Salmon all over the walls. Never seen fish that size in my life.
Tierra Del Fuego is also nearly perfectly divided between Chile and Argentina, who had been fierce enemies for a long time. It´s a bit pathetic though, because as you go over the border of this small Island, from Chile to Argentina, you have to put your clock forward by an hour. Mmmm.

Here´s some Argentine graffiti which illustrates how some Argentines have still not gotten over there defeat in the falklands(Isla Malvinas) war. This area of Argentina lost the majority of soldiers due to them being young and inexperienced. The second one says "Ingles=pirates"

Some "Lomo Completo" which is literally some eggs, chips and the essential ingredient of cow thigh. It´s become very popular among some of us in the group. Not a bad combination! Still not sick of stake, is that possible???

Ushuaia which is famed for being, "the most southerly town in the world" is our last destination on this particular trip. :- (

Here´s some proof that I was there.

Ushuaia

Down town Ushuaia.

Lucky enough we had 3 full days here which was nice as till now it´s been go go go!
We needed that time to have a few last group meals, say goodbyes and do some last activities. Here´s a quick snap shot of what we got up to at "The end of the world".

We went to yet another national park for more hiking and walking. We are defo spoilt by now after seeing Torres Del Paine and the rest. The only distinguishing feature here was the green bearded tree´s, as seen.

Some of the girls in the group arm wrestling in the Irish bar which ended up turning into an international competition among us. Lots of money passed hands that night. Another one of Cormac´s better idea´s!

A seriously pityfull attempt at learning Tango. They definately thought us too much too fast. Dancing aint for me, full stop!

A seal colony in the Beagle channel

We took a boat ride out into the Beagle channel, which is named after Charles Darwins ship, the ship that made the historic voyage to the Galapagos Islands, which led to his theory of Evolution.
There was some beautiful views back to Ushuaia. We were really lucky with the weather as it can be quite nasty here.

So as a very famous man once said "Sure twas good while it lasted". It was unfortunate for such an adventurous and awesome trip to come to an end. The landscape and features certainly weren´t what I expected, but then again when you come this far from home it´s hard to know what to expect. The group were great and I will certainly stay in contact with some of the friends I made. So back to explore and enjoy the sites of a place I only had a tiny teasing taste of, - the magnificent Buenos Aires. Can´t wait.

A Pilot strike what!!! ah here......

So after 2 days of relentless driving we arrived at our destination El Chalten.
El Chalten is really just a gateway town to the beautifully scenic Fitzroy national park.
Dirt trafficlightless roads, mountaineering shops, cozy bar/restaurants and of course the alluring Empanada
bakeries. Empanada´s are much like Findus Chrispy pancakes. Pastry filled with any thing from
Carne(meat) to cheese and ham(a big favourite among the Argentine´s) or just chicken -veg.
They make a scrum-diddly-umptious snack.

This is Fitzroy peak enjoying clear weather as we arrived in El Chalten. Typical, when we were to hike around it the weather turned for the worse. We were supposed to be going ice trekking on an adjacent Glacier but after an hour and a halfs solid walking got to the base camp to find out it was called of due to bad weather. The beech forrests that cover most of the lower slopes were haunting. Some of the areas look as if armagedon had struck. There was dead wood everywhere and I don´t know how most of the "Living" tree´s were still standing as they looked as dead as the felled. A real enchanted forrest. Plan B was to go for another hike where we´d supposedly get even better views of the peak. This was the start of the longest and most strenuous walks I´ve ever accomplished. 9 hours with about a 45mins lunch break. It was the 60 degree mile long slopes that really tormented me. Anywho I survived to tell my tale and no more moaning. It would probably have been alot more enjoyable if the weather and views were better.

Some UFO like clouds. Seems to be a unique feature of the area as there was also some post cards in the local shops of it.

The day after we got lucky with the weather and went to treck on another Glacier. What an experience. It´s one of natures true wonders. Never having seen a glacier in a picture or on TV, made this an ultimately unique first time experience.

Closer views of Glacier front show a dazzling blue glare off the lower more compact parts.At the Glacier edge we fit Crampons to our shoes which gave essential traction for walking on the glacier. Once up walking on the Glacier, which was great craic by the way, we were told we were going to get a surprise up a bit further. Around the next jagged ice peak we arrived to find 2 of the guides hacking at the ice with ice picks, while catching the ice in plastic glasses. What the!
And low and behold out comes the bottle of Baileys. I love it - Baileys on Ice (Galcier that is) What a delicious treat!

The ice burgs created by the Disintegrating glacier were magnificent. Another first time .

From El Chalten we had a 5 hour journey to el Calafete, the home of the Perito Moreno Galcier. Yes you may think this guys really ranting about these Galcier things by now, and your correct I am. Mmmm. Perito Moreno glacier is THAT awesome that in order to describe it sufficiently some minor plagiarism from Lonely planet was warranted. - "Few Glaciers on earth can match the activity and excitement of this blue hued glacier. It´s 60m jagged ice-peaks shear off and crash land with huge splashes and thunderous rifle cracks, birthing small tidle waves and large bobbing ice burgs - while your neck hairs rise a tingling. " It measures 30km long, 6km wide and 60m high and is constantly advancing at about 2m per day.
This is exactly how it was. Magnificent. One of the splashes was so big I thought it was going to sink a near by tourist boat.

Some of the common Gaunaco´s photographed on our way to our next detination Puerto Natales in Chile.

My first impressions of the Chilean people was that they were alot more reserved and shy than their extroverted
and some times showy argentine neighbours. It´s strange how the people`s physic have also changed even though we have not travelled an enormous amount over a border. Chilean´s are more indian like, and a tad portly with rounded faces. All in all, a very warm friendly people.
Puerto Natales was just used as a layover for our entrance to the Famous Torres Del Paine national park.
This is where we started our 3 days of camping which was my first time in about 15 years. Apart fom the freezing cold temperatures at night it was a great few days. It plumeted from about 20 degrees in the day to about zero at night. A hat and five layers of clothes still weren´t enough to keep the cold at bay. However, to be able to wake up every morning and see such stunning landscapes was a real joy. We were quite lucky with the weather as it can really turn nasty at times here.

This is the slightly cloudy view of the towers. It was a five hour hike of which, 1.5 hours was clambering over
massive bolders to get there. But of course this wasn´t a bother to me after all my prior training. :-)

Once up the top a blizzard hit. A lovely setting for a well deserved lunch....

Here´s a few pics of the amazing scenary in the area. (Only photo´s can adequatly descibe this place)

On the second day in Torres a few of us chose to go horse riding instead of hours more hiking. We had some real genuine Gaucho´s guiding us. Including this Niño(Kid) Gaucho.

Rolling rolling rolling, keep those wagans rolling, raw hide!!
I couldn´t have imagined a more beautiful setting to go horse riding than here. They were really well looked after horses.

The days in this part of the world are very long, which was also helped along by the Argentine government putting the clocks forward one hour, supposedly to save on national electricity consumption.

This picture was taken at about 11pm.

The further we went south the longer the days got.
Calling Orsen, Nano Nano ....

Happy new year to all! It was definately the strangest new years eve I ever had, spent with 25 people I only met that night. Absolutely great group. A real international mix, Oz, Kiwi, Swiz, Belgium, uk,Canada and of course a couple of Paddy´s. I started of this leg of the trip in a small town called bariloche in the Argentinian Ande´s, it is as I´d imagine a typical alpine town in Switzerland in the summer. Lakes, snow capped Mountains and stunning architecture everywhere. If only we could get away with using a bit more timber in construction at home, looks a hell of alot nicer. For new years day a couple of us hired mountian bikes and biked around some stunning scenery. The weather was perfect, nice and fresh and not at all humid like Buenos Aires. One of the Irish guys with us that day is a triathalon runner so needless to say he totally put us to shame, repeating ascending some of the huge hills twice before we got to the top for the first time. Feckin show off .....

This is Barilchoche´s signature land mark, Hotel Lhao Lhao. (Reminded me of the hotel in the movie "The Shining")

Next on the agenda was two serious days travel down south to Patagonia of which some of the few things it´s renowned for is relentless winds that would cut you in half, Exiled people from wars throughout the world (They still have Welsh speaking communities)and Gaucho´s which are the Original Cowboys.

The Bus or Truck that we´re travelling in is state of the art and very comfortable. There´s tables for playing cards,a large safe and a cooler for keeping the bevy´s on ice. It needs to be a beast for travelling the thousands of miles of dirt roads in South America.

Here´s Frank as they call our Transport. Simon, the driver caught a glimpse of an Armadillo out the side of his eye
while driving and decided to catch it for our entertainment. Mad thing!Felt sorry for the poor little critter, he shit all over Simon, ha! This is the group of international misfits snapping by the way.

Patagonia is much like a desert only it gets more rain. Thousands of miles of wilderness and nothingness. The clowd formations are spectacular though. The only real wildlife seems to be Gaunaco´s which are in the LLamba family, Rhea´s which are like small Ostriches and heeps of Eagles flying around.

Here´s me drinking the National drink, Matee. It´s a type of herbal tea that you see a lot of the local people drinking. It´s basically a small coldron filled with herbs, a metal straw with a filter at the bottom is then insert to the bottom of the herbs. A thermus flask is used to pour hot water in to the mix which is then sucked on by the drinker. Tasted very like Green tea. I´ll stick Barry´s me!