Tourists in Rio

We decided to be tourists in the city of Rio, so we booked ourselves some tours. Our first days tour was to Sugarloaf mountain and the Statue of Christ (Corcovado). We decided to pay a little extra and go in a small group rather than a bus. As it turned out, we had a private tour in an old American Jeep. It was cool.

Driving through the tunnels in the back of an open top Jeep with the traffic weaving in and around us was quite an experience.

First stop was Sugar Loaf mountain. Two cable cars to get to the top and some pretty astounding views when you get there.

View of a part of Rio

The thing about Rio that I didn't 'get' until I went there was that Rio is a collection of very distinct areas. These areas are created partially by human geography (like they are in many other cities, but mostly out of the physical geography as the imposing hills get in the way. The hills (of which, many have near vertical cliff-faces) are totally part of the city in the way that the parks are part of London.

Copacabana Beach, from Sugarloaf mountain

Each strip of sand is a beach to itself (or in the case of some, more than one beach) and the city has a goodly number of these beaches on the Atlantic coast in the Southern Area.

The lagoon, Ipanema and Leblon

After Sugar Loaf, we went up to the statue of Christ Redeemer on Corcavado. There is a funicular railway up the mountain which predates the statue (and was partially why the statue was put there in the first place) but we didn't go on it - instead we drove a good deal of the way up, parked and then got a collectivo. There was a reasonable Police presence, as the road up to the Statue seems to be a favourite place to relieve tourists of their belongings.

Can we be any more touristy?

The statue itself is more impressive from a distance, but the views from the hill are amazing. The weather was absolutley perfect - clouds came in just as we sat down for our coffee and pasties after taking our pics.

Back to the hotel for some well earned sleep.

Road to Rio

We got up at a sensible time and trolled down to the bus station to pick up our bus to Rio. After helping to avoid a near disaster (some silly tourist standing in the way of a bus) we boarded the bus. The first thing that struck us was the other passengers. Gone was the Argentine reserve, in its place was the party spirit.

We stopped at a service station and got food and provisions. We saw Sao Paulo through sleepy eyes and finally arrived in the main bus station in Rio at a reasonable time (1pm).

Our Bus

Watching our possessions like hawks, we got a taxi to our hotel. As we passed through the streets of Rio at speeds approaching Earth Orbit escape velocity, we saw some of the sights we had only seen on TV or in magazines. Christ the Redeemer was clearly visible, rising above the streets.

We passed through endless tunnels and ended up at our hotel. The beach across the street was stunning. There were people surfing and playing volleyball - just like you might expect. There were a few too many blokes in Speedos for the common good though.

The Beach in Rio

Three in One

After our trip to the Brazilian falls, we decided to return by public transport. So, we got a bus from the park to the center of Foz. One idea was to look around town and perhaps find a Portuguese phrase book (B.T.W. we have decided to go to Rio de Janeiro for a few days and see if we like Brazil.)

After seeing Foz through the bus windows, we decide that maybe we'd go to Paraguay instead. (Actually, I wanted to do this all along, but T wasn't desperate to and didn't see the point - women!) So, we found the bus to Paraguay and got onto it.

After ten minutes or so on the bus, we got in a big queue to cross the border over a pretty stunning bridge over the Parana river.

There seemed to be a new type of traffic on the road: the motorcycle taxi. Given the congestion and queues - this didn't seem such a bad option. If you don't value your life very much I suppose.

We got off the bus on this big, wide street and wandered around some shops. I still harboured some desires for a Nintendo DS lite and I still owed T a birthday present (nearly 3 months ago). She fancied an iPod.

Lots of haggling and stuff later, we knocked the DS on the head, but got a good deal on a 30G iPod. Unfortunately, my credit card didn't work with their system, so we had to go and get cash.

We left the arcade with the shop in it into a downpour. The streets were, basically, torrents of water and the rain was wetter that the waterfalls nearby.

After alot of searching and asking, we finally tracked down an ATM where I got out a million and a half Paraguayan ibbles (or whatever that are called). I hoped that was about 140 quid. We will see :-)

We found a bridge over the road/river on the way back and returned to the shop to pay for an iPod.

All we had to do now was get back to Argentina.

We wandered across the street (the rain was pretty light by this point) and the first bus said 'Argentina' on it. We hopped on and the driver made sure we knew we were going to Argentina. Many others got on with their Paraguayan purchases (Paraguay has no sales tax and seems to have stocks of things that simply aren't easily available in Argentina). Fluffy bedcovers seemed to be unusually popular. As were umbrellas - but only in batches of three for some reason. Perhaps there is a '3' related umbrella based superstition - who knows.

Although there is a bridge between Paraguay and Argentina, this bus went from Paraguay to Brazil to Argentina. Nobody was allowed to get off in Brazil (except the chap who was taken off by customs, much to the displeasure of his missus). Border controls were pretty much a formality. No entry stamps to Brazil and no sign whatsoever that Paraguay cared about anything.

Thus ended our three country trip. Brazil we are to explore more fully soon (as fully as one can explore a country that size in a couple of days) and Paraguay is, well, wet.

23

On the buses that we take from place to place, they show films pretty much continually. Sometimes they are in English with Spanish subtitles; sometmes vice-versa and sometimes just Spanish. From memory, we have seen:

• Some Spanish film in Spanish
  
• Swordfish
  
• Driver
  
• You and your stupid mate
  
• Deja Vu
  
• 23
  
• A Night at the Museum
  
• Catch a Fire
  

Sometimes the sound is piped over the PA, sometimes you need headphones. Anyway, the final film on the Santiago del Estero to Puerto Iguazu bus was 23. It's a dark film with Jim Carrey playing a serious role. I'm not going to spoil anything by saying that part of the plot revolves around some people feeling that they are being persecuted by the number 23 and feel hounded by it.

Well, I know how they feel. The very day after seeing the film, the couple below were sitting on the train at Iguazu falls right in front of us.

Polo 23

Then, our bus ticket ended in 23

Bus ticket 23

At this point I started to feel that the curse of 23 was transferred to me. The change I got from my next purchase has the following serial number ...

Banknote 23

9 9 3 0 3 2 1 2.

Now, if you add up all those digits, it comes to 29. But, clearly, as it is a two peso note, you then need to subtract 6 (four for the two twos in the serial number and two for the fact that it is a two peso note.)

29 minus 6 is ....

23

Scary.

And it doesn't stop there, oh no. Our room number at the hotel was ...

503.

O.K. maybe it did stop there.

Utter bollocks.

Iguazu Falls

We have come up to Iguazu to see the falls. We arrived at the bus station (after copious quantities of ham and cheese sandwiches, naturally) early in the morning. I had hardly slept on the journey and so T was dispatched to fact find whilst I rested.

In the same way that Niagara falls is shared between the USA and Canada, Iguazu falls is shared between Brazil and Argentina. T had discovered that the bus would go to the park for 66p each; as had just missed one, we got a taxi instead.

Once in the park, we walked a fairly long way, then got a little train and then walked along a raised walkway for about 15 mins to arrive at a viewing platform at the top of one of the falls. It was quite funky, but both of us felt it was missing something. The problem being that all you could see when you looked down was spray. No sense of scale.

The butterflies were cool though.

We had planned on getting wet in a boat under the falls (a kind of Extreme Sports version of the Maid of the Mist) but time was pushing on and my lack of sleep meant that food was more important. We planned to come back the next day and went back to our hotel.

The next day was cloudy, so we decided to do the Brazilian side and hope that the weather improved. Again we took a taxi, this time over a border, to their Park. There was a cash machine, so I got out some Brazilian pennies and we went in.

On this side, there is no train - just a bus system. We got the bus and started to walk along the path. The views were spectacular:

A part of the falls

The thing that is amazing is the sheer scale. Niagara (our common point of experience) is pretty cool, as you can see the whole thing in one vista. Iguazu is a whole series of sets of falls, the volume of water and the number of different places it is continuously falling actually seems to make it less comprehensible. Some aerial pictures capture it, but the lasting impression is just 'big' (or, 'massive' to coin a term)

Five Musketeers

In the lower tier are two sets of falls, on the left are the three musketeers and on the right are the two musketeers. D'Artagnan misses out completely.

Under water

After getting thoroughly soaked (see below) there was an opportunity to take a picture right beside one of the cascades. Pretty stunning (and amazingly noisy).

It was wet down there

As we had got thoroughly wet already (and as the weather appeared to be getting worse, not better) we decided not to go back to the Argentinian side, but went to Paraguay instead. (a whole blog entry in itself)

On the Way to Iguazu

From Mendoza to Puerto Iguazu is a 36 hour, two night, bus journey. We had already done an overnight, 19 hour journey from Bariloche to Mendoza, so (as long as we could book posh seats) we were happy to do that distance. However we felt that we should break the journey into two chunks.

Deciding where to stop by time; we elected to alight at 13:30, which meant a city called Santiago del Estero. It is Argentina's oldest city, has a copy of the Turin shroud and is a capital of its province. The best hotel in town is a four star affair, running at GBP34 per night for a double room.

And that's about all we knew about it.

We boarded the bus at the station at about 9:00 pm and T was out like a light. I dozed for a bit until getting to the land of nod in the early hours. We (in posh class, remember) were treated to breakfast.

Breakfast - Andesmar style

Breakfast is three different types of sandwich.

1. A sandwich
   
2. A vegetarian
   
3. A Milanese completo
   

This needs some explanation: A sandwich is, de facto, cheese and ham. (Tostado is toasted cheese and ham, but I digress). You can request completo (which adds lettuce and tomato) and you can ask for no ham. I say you can, but if you do, expect to have to repeat yourself a couple of times and then, as the panny drops, be asked if you are (hushed tones) vegetarian. It is not worth trying to explain that you are not vegetarian but are just sick of highly processed dead pig. Trust me.

A Milanese is breaded veal (or cow). A Milanese completo sandwich is a Milanese with cheese and ham, (No tomato and lettuce this time).

Therefore, our breakfast was three types of ham and cheese sandwich. Yummy.

Oh, and a biscuit with Dulce de Leche (posts passim) in it.

After our culinary treats, we dozed for a few more hours until we rolled into Santiago del Estero. After the usual scramble for bags, we tried to get a cab. We had to wait a good ten minutes before one arrived and took us to the hotel. About half-way there I realised that there was no meter and that we hand't asked how much it would cost. Stupid tourist makes schoolboy error I thought to myself - right until he asked for the princely sum of 33p for the journey. In a spirit of unparalleled genorosity, I gave him 50p.

Our hotel was OK. The pool wasn't and the checkouy time had been changed in an effort to extract an extra fiver from late sleepers, but we had a nice room with a balcony overlooking the square.

Santiago del Estero by day

Arriving on a Sunday, mid-afternnon, the place was pretty much dead. We ended up eating a very poor lunch in the hotel and having a siesta.

The town woke up at night, but we were too ensconced in bed to venture out further than the balcony for another picture.

Santiago del Estero by night

In the morning we packed and vacated without incurring the lazy-tax and I did some internetting whilst T pootled around town.

We then both went out to get some lunch. First stop was the market, just for a look. It reminded me of Bolton market. T was somewhat shocked to walk past some bizarre looking meat things hanging up. Bull penises. We were too suprised and embarrassed to take pictures.

A yummy (and cheap) lunch with a very nice waiter and a ridiculously cheap taxi later and we were back on the bus.

Which is where I am now. Listening to Gotan Project and typing up the blog.

We get into Puerto Iguazu in 12 hours. There may well be more sandwiches before then. Wish us luck.

Valparaiso

Due west of Mendoza lies the old port town of Valparaiso. We discovered that it was a seven hour bus ride away and so decided to visit it for a couple of nights. I had heard about it, but wasn't really sure what it was all about. I knew that it was an old (and current) port and that it had lots of funicular elevators - I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. I also had heard that it was 'cool'.

So, with little thought of why we were going or what we expected to see when we got there, we set off on an early bus.

In addition to going to Valparaiso, we also had the treat of going through the Andes on a pass that is 2,800m above sea level.

We had mentioned to our guide on the wine trip that we were off to Valparaiso and she said that she goes there quite often (as do quite alot of Mendocians, apparently) and told us to get a taxi to Corre Conception - wherever that might be - and stay in the British hotel - or something. Armed with such detailled insider knowledge, we felt we could hardly fail.

The bus journey was astounding. Well, the pass part was. Two hours of flat Chilean countryside was bit tedious - but the pass. Wow.

The Argentine side of the pass is quite a long, shallow incline for a couple of hours. Pretty much accompanied the whole way by the river, which sits in a vertically-sided gorge about 30-40 feet deep. Also going through the same pass is the (sadly defunct) railway line. Usually it is on the opposite side of the gorge to the road, which allows one time and scope to really see and appreciate the engineering miracle that it must have been. Apparently there is talk of rebuilding it (a pretty major undertaking in some places by the looks of things). I hope they do - it would be a truly stunning journey.

The Border was reasonably well organised (we are becoming quite the experts on Latin American borders - our fumbling around in no-man's land between Belize and Guatemala seems a world away). Chile and Argentina seem to be in a different economic trading bloc (Argentina is in Mercosur, along with Brazil, Paraguay and others I forget - Chile is not) and, as Chile exports fruit, meat etc.. to Europe, the border is strict about the importation of fruit, honey, semen and seeds (i.e. it is forbidden). One Argentinian woman got caught trying to bring a big bag of fuit across - she got a bit upset - the border guard was a model of a polite, firm, patient official (really - no sarcasm). Not only did she have a bag of fruit in her checked luggage, she also had an orange (which was discovered and confiscated with a phlegmatic shrug) in her hand luggage. Amazing.

The Chilean side of the pass is breathtaking. I don't know the statistics, but the road must drop an astounding distance as a series of zig-zags clinging to the side of the hill. T made a bus-friend - a Chilean bloke who told us a bit about Chile and was the source of the Border processing information. He said that he had learned English from chatting on the Internet. His English was pretty good (much better than our Spanish, I am embarrassed to say). We stopped in Vina del Mar which is a Chlean beach tourism destination about 10 Km from Valparaiso, and dropped off all the other passengers. T and I arrived in Valparaiso, mid-afternoon.

We had discovered that the British hotel on Corre (hill) Conception was called Hotel Brighton. With that kind of Karma, it would have had to have cockroaches; a dog pound outside our room; a poo-pot and be underneath a Tango dance school for us not to stay there.

Hotel on a Hill

Hotel Brighton was a little, um, rustic. But it was cheap and it was authentic. Corre Conception is th Bohemian, arty Corre and it has a real chilled-out vibe to it.

At some point over the last couple of days I'd started to feel a bit cold-y and, by the time we hit Valparaiso, had become a pathetic creature, incapable of regulating my own temperature - great for marching up and down hills - not. So, I went to bed and T had a mooch about. Then we both went out for a brief stroll and used the Corre Conception elevator which was cool. I dragged myself up for a nice meal and we went to bed early.

The view in the morning was beautiful. The concrete high-rises sort of spoil the view, but, at the same time they do help one to realise that this is a living city and not a tourist attraction. The legislature of Chile meets here (in a "love it or hate it" architectured building) and it is the capital of the region as well as a financial centre and a working port, not to mention a serious Naval base.

Morning over the bay

We took a walking tour of the city. It started with the first elevator being out of order, which did not help my condition, but then proceeded to be quite interesting, if a little sketchy on detail. The woman giving the tour seemed do do alot of "Look at that House" pretty enough, to be sure, but not any historical context. Oh, and if I had a centavo for every time she told us to go to Vina del Mar (where she lived) ...

Painted Houses on Corre Conception

The afternoon (for me) was spent in bed again; T did some hanging around the hotel and environs.

Trudi, just outside Brighton

In the evening, we walked down the hill and found another elevator (we took 3 of the 15 that the town has to offer) which was well hidden and went up to a recommended Thai restaurant on Corre Bellavista. It was O.K. We sat outside even though it was probabaly a teency-weency bit too cold to do so sensibly.

An early night, up for the bus back the following morning.

The trip back was just as spectacular as before with two exceptions.

1. Argentine customs was a ridiculous charade. They certainly know how to make a border crossing painful.
   
2. T obviously got illness-envy and spent the whole trip trying to sleep off an awful migraine. (I was quite fine by now). Pobre Trudi.
   

We did little in Mendoza upon our return, just laundry; shopping; eating and last minute wine tasting before catching our bus, Iguazu bound.

Wine tasting

We were picked up from our hotel in a minibus along with seven others and taken to a series of small wineries.

First up was one which got very good marks in some magazine or other and they seemed a bit pretentious about the whole thing to me. It was nice, new and clean; but when they started yabbering on about yield density and other things, I wondered if they really didn't just decide to do everthing as 'perfectly' as possible just to dare the wine community to say it ended up tasting crap (which it may or may not have done - I don't know).

Anyway - as it was our first stop - we were instructed in a way of tasting wine. We tasted a few. They tasted like wine.

There was one set of three bottles that supposedly had the same grapes; treated the same way; blended the same way etc etc, but from different places in the valley. The idea was that you can taste the difference in the terroir. Who knows?

Not me, that's for sure.

Ah, yes! Red Wine

(at 9.00am, whilst a little -ahem- delicate.)

We then went to another winery which wasn't even open properly. It was on a much larger scale and, as we were told, designed with typical Swiss attention to detail. Apparently the layout was a wine-makers dream. We walked past some fellas in one room and were told in hushed tones that he was one of the top winemakers in Argentina. Our guide knew his face from wine magazines. He was drinking wine - I bet he could taste some differences.

More tasting - this time with an amazing view to break up the monotony of trying to taste anything important about each of the different wines.

A view of the Andes

Come to think of it, endless pictures of the same thing (e.g. the Andes) and endless different types of the same thing (i.e. Red Wine) have alot in common - only of interest to a select few.

We had a lovely lunch (apart from the bored and pretty much useless staff) with five courses and a different wine with each. This time we were allowed one glass-ette of white.

After luncheon, our last stop was at a very small winery belonging to a local winemaker - Carmello Patti. Now he seemed to really enjoy what he was doing and also seemed to have a real affinity for his product. It was a really pleasant change from the previous sterile environments. He also had a kitten. Everyone except us bought wine from him. Maybe because it was the end of the tastings, or maybe it was his charm, but his wine did seem pretty popular.

Carmello and a bottle or two

We returned to Tapiz to get our bags

Pinot Noir

Finally, we went into Mendoza to recover before setting off early for Valparaiso.

Wine Country

We spent a couple of quiet days at Club Tapiz. It is a small winery, just south of Mendoza, which has relocated operations and turned the old buildings into a 7 room hotel and very nice restaurant.

I had got quite annoyed with the laptop having periodically flaky WiFi connections, which I guessed were sometimes due to the US/UK differences in implementation (I've had this issue before). So I left lady T to recover in bed and went for an explore to the local Wal-Mart.

The hotel had an extensive wine cellar.

Wine Cellar - extensive

We had a little bit of a tasting session each night. I'm no wine buff, but we are planning on doing some more tastings soon and so I thought I'd try them out. They tasted like wine.

Once Madam had recovered sufficiently to be fit for public consumption, she spend a goodly number of hours in front of the fire in the lounge.

Relaxing in the lounge

We had a lovely meal in the restaurant and chatted to a journalist and a professional tango dancer (who also works as a data warehousing consultant).

Mendoza

Tired and hungry, we bickered about where to eat as we wandered around Mendoza for a while. The problem is that we were starving and it was only breakfast time (11:30 am). All the non-breakfast places were either shut or (worse, apparently) empty. Eventually we spotted the Liverpool Pub, full of old men drinking coffee - but smart enough to say yes when we asked for food at such a ridiculous time.

Liverpool Pub

It was quite a pleasant change for the music to be the Beatles (what else could they play in the Liverpool pub? - Dead or Alive? Echo and the Bunnymen? Space? The La's? Scorpio Rising? Frankie goes to Hollywood? - I rest my case). Anyway, what was nice was that it was the Beatles and not the CD that seemed to plague us on the Cruce de Lagos of "Andean Beatles" i.e. Beatles songs murdered by the Pan Pipes. I half expected Awatinas to jump onto the ferry and start moaning about the PA at any moment (an especially bizarre moment from my student days).

After a nice lunch (including, due to a miscommunication, a bottle and not a glass of white wine) we took our leave and went off in search of tourism.

We weren't drawn in by the marketing of the first company we passed - for some reason:

Perhaps not aimed at the Brit market

After a siesta, we then popped into the nearest one to the hotel (which I had seen in some guidebook) and were sorted out with a lovely place to stay (which Tourist Information had said was fully booked - liars) and a wine tour.

More admin was achieved at the bus station, as we booked tickets to Valparaiso, back to Mendoza and then on to Iguazu. We have busy week to look forward to.

At this point I should mention that both of us suffered from Travellers tummy. It may have been the Liverpool pub, or perhaps the toilet on the bus - which has a sign on the door that says "In order to prevent Cholera, please use only in an emergency." Who knows. At least we had a nice room to be in to run to the loo from.

Overnight Adventure

We arrived at the bus station at 12:30 for our 1pm departure. The bus was impressive.

Bus - impressive

We were downstairs in the posh bit.

Seats - posh

We had a really comfy trip. I didn't sleep solidly, but did manage to get a reasonable number of hours in. T fared better than I. It's really nice travelling in the bottom bit. There is a good deal of room and the seats recline pretty well.

We will do this again. Especially if we are going to soften the blow a bit by staying in a posh place the night after. For Mendoza we chose the Park Hyatt. Very nice. We got our money's worth though - checking in at 9:00am.

Bariloche

We stayed a couple of days in Bariloche.

A lake, some mountains - get the picture?

Our first night witnessed the exit of United from the Champoins League. That didn't go down well (mind you, thanks to the unlikely help of Man City and Arsenal, we've just won the league - woo hoo). We did alot of admin tasks in town. We sent another parcel of unnecessary stuff home. This was a lot easier (and cheaper) than in Belize. We also booked an overnight coach trip to Mendoza.

We got our washing done, bought provisions for the trip (chocolate) and booked somewhere to stay in Mendoza.

Bariloche was O.K. but we preferred other places in Patagonia.

Cruce de Lagos

We stayed in a nice place in Puerto Varas and had a very nice meal in the Merlin restaurant. I had cream of beer soup - which was very salty, otherwise it was excellent. Early to bed for the first day of a two day crossing from Chile to Argentina on the, apparently, famous Cruce de Lagos.

We were picked up in the morning and taken, along with a bus load of mostly Brazilians, to the boat on the Esmeralda lake.

Pretty Lago Esmeralda

A fairly relaxing trip on a lightly loaded boat, passing some interesting islands and a pretty waterfall, ended in the small town of Peulla. We were there at around about noon.

We had a forced stop at Peulla, as the 1st of May was the start of the winter timetable and so the 'in one day' option wasn't on.

Peulla is a bit of a tourist trap. There are two hotels; one is a hundred years old (and looks it) the other is one year old. We were in the newer one. The town contains lots of 'things to do'. We chose 'canopy'. The food and service were pretty poor. But the room and the location were quite amazing.

"Canopy" turned out to mean dangling from a bit of string at a great height above a stream. T had a practice a little closer to ground

Mountain explorer in waiting Wiseman

However, the sight of the stream a dizzying distance below proved a little too much, so T had a walk up a hill, across a rickety bridge and then back across the bridge and walked down again. I rolled down the wires a bit slower than strictly necessary and then was abseiled down the last tree at the end.

Going down

Interesting - but I'm not sure I'd bother doing it again.

In the morning, we started early for the second half of the trip. A short ride to the border and then a series of boats and buses were to take us to Bariloche in Argentina.

Basically it all turned a bit pear-shaped at this point. There was much waiting, faffing, carrying of bags (in Chile they had had the bright idea to put the bags in boxes and move the boxes around - in Argentina they moved all the bags by hand between three buses and two boats - madmen) and - worst of all - hanging about to wait for a group coming straight from Chile (so the winter/summer timetable thing was a lie).

Getting wet on Lago Frias

We sat on a boat in the pouring rain in the middle of a lake for two hours, then went to get the fast-track group and then sat on the boat in the pouring rain for another hour as we got near to Bariloche. Only when we'd tied up did it occur to our guides that they ought to tell us what to do next (to get another bus). However, they managed to give several sets of contradictory instructions and we just sat on the boat for another 1/2 hour as it got dark. We had no accomodation booked in Bariloche yet.

Eventually, we arrived in Bariloche and checked into the nearest hotel - which was fine. So ended the Cruce de Lagos, Badly organised. It is amazing to think that they do that every day.

Ferry Trip - Day 3 and Arrival

Our last day had a bit less rain. I wouldn't go as far as to call it sunshine. However, we didn't really do much outside. I did see the tail of a whale disappearing, much to T's annoyance - as I'd only been looking for about 5 mins - her 1/2 hour in the rain was fruitless.

In the evening, we had "Bingo". It was a bit of fun. Apparently they sold 35 cards.

The first prize was given for getting one line.

T won

The second prize was given for getting two lines

T won

The third prize was given for getting three lines

T won and was banned from winning any more prizes.

The fourth prize was given for getting four lines

T didn't win (she was banned, remember), but was two numbers ahead of the winner (i.e. T would have won)

The fifth, and major, prize was for a full house.

T got a Bingo on the same number as the winner.

Then they started a new game for the losers (i.e. anyone who hadn't won a prize yet.) Everyone stood up and then sat down if their board had any of the called numbers on it.

After 4 (or 5) numbers, there was only one chap left. T, with the same board, had had no matches either. Basically, one board would have won (as far as we can establish) every prize had we not been banned.

What's the probability of that then? (yep, 1) O.K. but what's the liklihood? 75 numbers. Board as shown below.

Board yet?

Another night's sleep saw us arriving in Puerto Montt where we were disembarked by the cargo elevator and not the perfectly good stairs next to it, for some reason.

Moo

We got a transfer to Puerto Varas (15 km North and much, much prettier).

Ferry Trip - Day 2

Day two started much like day one - moo, Spanish, "Wake Up". However, after discovering the bar in the boat, it appeared that I was a tad unwell and skipped breakfast.

The scenery was ... not.

The "view"

In the deepest part of the journey, we passed a ship that had managed to miss the deep bit and not sink. The captain pulled an insurance job and got a prison sentence for his trouble.

Shipwreck

A mostly uneventful day.

Ferry Trip - Day 1

We woke to the lowing of cattle and the tinny voice of our guide announcing breakfast and the impending navigation of the narrowest part of the trip.

We are to go through the right hand channel here:

Camel? Needle?

We did get through and so did the cause of the lowing (but not much baaing - perhaps sheep prefer ferry journeys.)

Cargo, safely through narrow channel

We all know what a rainbow means ...

Yep - rain.

Rainbow

So, we spent most of the day in our suite.

Our palacial suite

I borrowed the film and we had our own private viewing. In the film, they showed Lago Frias on the Cruce de Lagos - we will be there in a few days.

Leaving Puerto Natales

Our last day with the truck was mostly spent arguing about what to do with our last day with the truck. Ordering important tasks like shopping; returning the truck; eating; getting our luggage to the ferry terminal; filling up with diesel and going on a litle jaunt south which all vied for our attention. In the end we went south for a bit - got to a bridge and then turned around.

We went just over 100km (62 miles) and saw one turning; one 'town'; a statue of Jesus; a bridge; an old road; a posh hotel and a couple of army checkpoints. We also saw a shrine-y thing.

Bottle Shrines

We are not sure exactly what is going on here, as the guide-book seems to be more interested in being clever about the relative fortunes of the Chilean and Argentine tourist industries than actually saying what the shrines are, and, perhaps more importantly, why they are surrounded with Coke bottles.

We also saw the ferry arrive.

Our ferry, arriving

Once we had done our chores we found a nice Internet cafe and coffe shop.
Unfortunately their DHCP server wasn't handing out any addresses, so we just bought chocolate and books and moved on.

We had decided to eat in a pizza restaurant that had been recommended to us. It was full of people with English accents, ready to board a ferry. We had nice pizzas.

We went down to the ferry terminal at 9:00 and boarded our boat. Unfortunately, my Leatherman somehow didn't manage to stay in my bag from the ferry terminal to the cabin. It's annoying to have stuff pinched - but, as things go - touch wood - that's the first issue of this sort we have encountered in the three months (yes - we are half way through) so far.

We attended the welcome talk, but were too tired to stay up for the film. This was a real shame, as it was "The Motorcycle Diaries" which T has just read and which has footage of the Andean Lakes crossing that we are going on when we arrive in Puerto Montt.

A reasonable nights sleep was punctuated by the periodic noises of the crew lashing down the cargo in the hold. I think I know what it would feel like to be a mouse living in a Timpani.