六日五夜在行山人天堂- 小”W”之旅 - Torres del Paine - 下篇

第四日一朝早便出發，愈往河谷上走愈覺得前夜的決定正確，因為沿途上落不段，極耗體力。之前我跟迎面來的行山人傾談已聽到他們在這前段已耗不少體力應付較後的旅程。雖然如此，這段路到了後段我們見到龐然大物Grey 冰川。中間一個大島把冰川分開兩邊，非常雄偉狀觀。中午到了Refugal Grey，第一次付鈔在營地紥營，貪它有熱水沖涼，熱水任添，營地也整潔，還有小賣點可以進點糧。紥好營便盡快出發走近冰川，沿途還是燒焦的樹林，一遍蒼涼，可想像當時的火勢及使人心傷的破壞。

時間及體力關係，我們只走到Los Guardas營地附近的冰川觀賞點，有幸可以給我們看到大幅冰牆崩塌的壯觀景象。別人付鈔幾百塊乘船來這裏也沒我們那麼近，而且還限時離開不如我們可以呆等幾小時看塌冰川。在同一地方看夠了，我們也輕輕鬆鬆回Refugal Grey。煮食沖熱水涼，對於我們四天穿同一套衫出汗兼無涼沖，這裏實是天堂，當然付錢的話，沿途的refugal皆可下榻有涼沖有飯吃有酒飲，這條W綫真是豐儉由人，可以舒服點四日三夜便可走完小W(即是不走進很深的段尾)，我們這些省錢的，走小W也要六日，因為最後一段走出W是可以每人付約港幣二百的小雙體船代步。我們不想付錢坐這半小時船，就只好走多一天了。這裏碰到來自南非的十天豪華團，大部份是中年人士，他們要走大W，沿途住房(每位約港幣250一晚，當然可以選擇住營)。我和領隊談幾句，也發覺他是喜愛大自然的人，心想做導遊和歷奇訓練人的分別，前者只是帶一班人，他們開心就成，開心收錢；不如後者要考慮安排不同經歷次序已達到自省學習的機會。回顧旅程，心裏盤算着活動安排，希望日後能帶香港人在這大自然天堂作教室而得到學習及自省更生。

第五天本以為只需要走6.5小時(約21公里，但後10公里多是平路)，心便閒了下來，怎知道原路下山的一段(Refugal Grey至Paine)不如想像般可以快一點走，老婆連日行山也勞累了，速度慢了下來。其實對於毅行者也未參加過的她，能完成W已經超額完成。我也不能怪她，心裏感激她陪我走這些路。

好不容易到Paine已是下午四時，我們只有三小時日光時間走10.5公里，心裏有點着急。幸好之後路段是草原平路，心想大部份乘船離開的人看不到這草原上雪山景。

走了三小時多，終於到了Las Carretas營地，營地只有我們沒有其他人了，可享受漫天星星的夜景(之前的營地均有樹遮蓋所以不易抬頭看星，況且天冷我們較早睡)，但因為沒有甚麼遮蓋，晚上特別寒冷，這是眾晚最寒冷的了。早上起來草地盡是霜，連外營也較霜硬了；厠所沖水也被雪硬，令我感厭惡的是只用來放厠紙的箱被人亂拋垃圾。

最後一天我們只在燦爛陽光下走了兩小時草原路，輕鬆到了公園行政中心，看了些展品，特別是看看有哪些鼠類動物會偷吃我們的食物。一大袋垃圾當然是我們出了小鎮Puerto Natalie才丟棄。

這是一個畢身難忘的旅程，W綫可讓行山人盡覽雪山河谷大湖草原大石冰川，應有盡有，豐儉由人，下次我會來個大迴環加大W把這裏走通透。再一次感謝主給我們非常好的天氣，這幾天沒下大雨，白天太陽高照溫暖，使寒風不難受。這六日五夜樂透了!

Couch-surfing in Puerto Natalie

It was an urgent request for couch-surfing in Puerto Natalie. We asked one day before going there, even checked in a hostel. There we got online and found Gloria accepting our request, so we left the hostel in the rainy night and went to her home with our already-bought dinner. We were surprised to find that there were other couchsurfers at her home, then realized that Gloria was a very generous host who turned her home to a couchsurfing family with new people coming every now and then. She served dinner too. Then we had a traditional homey Chilean dinner on our arrival. The dinner included beans and fish stew. I like the fish stew a lot that I kept adding on my plate.

As for our room. We stayed in a room with two bunk-beds and we were on the bottom of one. The carpet was a bit filthy, no wonder all people wore shoes instead of slippers (or because it is cold here). All couchsurfers (one Spanish and one Chilean girls, a Belgian couple and us) shared the same bathroom which was also kept warmth by heater (good to dry clothes). There were also heaters in the living room and the dining room, but not in our room and it was quite chilly in there. Gloria also sold bus ticket to Torres del Paine and other nearby place, like a travel agent. Viewing that we lived at her place and she served us meal, we let her be our agent for bus tickets, although we guessed she made some money by being agent. There were also camping gear available for borrowing. I could take 1/3 can of gas for the hiking trip because we were too late to buy one before the shops closed.

After we were back from the hiking trip, we were happy to use her kitchen to bake and made dinner (chinese fried noodle and sweet and sour pork at that night, and fried rice for the next). Maria was happy too to bake cake (apple crumple and banana cake) in the oven. Our stay in Gloria’s place was short but we felt like family there.

At Rio Gallegos

We went to Rio Gallegos for the sake of going to Puerto Natales, in Chile, where the famous W-track of Patagonia located. We heard comments saying that if you only got 3-5 days for hiking in Patagonia, the W-track is a must visit, as it carries all of the best landscape of Patagonia, including mountains, lake and glaciers (although the Argentine may not agree).


By road, we heard that Rio Gallegos is the gateway to Puerto Natales, however, when we get there, we found the bus going directly from Rio Gallegos to Puerto Natales does not run daily, only Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from two different company, Ar$100 each. However, alternatively, there is daily bus, at 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2:30pm and 4:30pm from several different company heading Rio Turbio (Ar$118, 4 hours), where there are many different companies offering frequent service to Puerto Natale (70km).


Due to the bus schedule, we spent a day going around town of Rio Gallegos.

Maria's first time in youth hostel dorm

It's a small town with only 3 buses running, Linear A, B and C. Not too frequent and we are told that it take at least an hour circulating the town, hence the hostel guy, Mikel recommended us to take a cab instead. 10mins taxi costing around Ar$20. Our budget travel however, got us walking.


Despite the chilly breeze from south pole, it was not difficult to get around town by walking, with a map.

a museum near the hospital having generous showings of fossil

The main street is on Roca and there are quite a number of museums, though many closed early or simply closed down.

The casa was a nice one though. It is a small house with the coal heater still in use. Inside was a collection of old town photos, Edison telephone, typewriter, sewing machine, soda water machine, coffee grinder, meat grinder and the stories of its past occupants. A cozy and well presented museum with entrance fee on voluntary basis.

On the seaside was the train museum that was already closed down, we managed to sneak in the wires and witness the train cemetery.


The best about Rio Gallegos for us is the succulent cordero (lamb), costing only Ar$30/kg in the carnicería, while lomo cost Ar$65 to 78/kg (and we are told that in Patagonia, cordero has better quality than beef)! We grilled the lamb rack for lunch and had pan fried lamb shank with stewed mixed vegetables with its bones for dinner. This is heaven! It's juicy, sweet and extremely tender!

the lovely dog in bus station

The next day, we headed for a bus to Rio Turbio at noon.

Hitch-hiking from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos

Leaving our lovely couch host, Dr Yamila in Puerto Madryn, we headed off south of Argentina.


Our target is a town named Rio Gallegos. It's a small town of 90,000 population (as told by LP) with some of the continent’s best fly-fishing nearby and 'where most travelers stop here just long enough to catch the next bus to El Calafate, Puerto Natales or Ushuaia.'


By bus from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos is around 16 hours ride of over 1000km and about Ar$480-528 (around HKD1000 each).


We heard a lot about how easy it is to hitchhike in Patagonia, so we decided to try our luck.


We met a guy in a hostel of Puerto Madryn that hitchhiked his way from Ushuaia in 3 days; while another greengo discussed loudly about his plan of hitchhiking from Ushuaia to Chile on the bus from La Plata to Patagonia.


Yamila drove us to a roundabout on the edge of town on Route 3 and bid us farewell. In merely thirty minutes, a kind truck driver stopped and picked us up for 54km to Trelew and stopped us at a gas station.


From there we waited almost 2 hours before we got another kind truck driver, Carlos, taking us almost 300km to Comodoro Rivadavia. It was a 4 hours ride and he asked me to sleep in the bunk rather than dosing off in the centre without seatbelt.


The patagonia highway was flat, long and rather boring. The road was nicely paved in the middle of some neverending plateau, with small dry bushes, no trees and occasionally some running ostrid, rabbit, sheep and qwanako. Everything was flat, even the mountains.


As there was no light, and the land is so flat, the starry night is amazing. Carlos stopped the car and let us enjoy the sky filled with stars, while he took a leak. The galaxy is just above us and we don't need to look up to see stars! They are all in front of you. In Hong Kong, this is impossible.


The wind was getting stronger at this point, when the sun was gone and we started to get the feel of the coldness of Patagonia.


We arrived a gas station at around 9:30pm. The kind-hearted driver was concerned where we stay for the night, as he said most truck drivers would rest at night and head off around 7am again.


We hold the whiteboard 'Ruta 3 o Rio Gallegos' for another 1-2 hours and thought we don't have much luck for the night. Hence, we found some deserted location at the back of the gas station, behind 2 trees and set up our tent for the night. It was so windy all night but we managed to get some rest.


The next day, waking at 6am, we packed and parked ourselves at the gas station cafe. With toilet to refresh, heater for warmth, microwave for making rice as breakfast and buying a relatively expensive cafe con leche (Ar$12), we stayed until the sky lightened up.


Comodoro Rivadavia and its proximity has numerous patrol plant and early morning at the gas station are vans after vans of workers heading to work in the oil fields stopping to get some breakfast or lunch.


We stood outside the gas station with our thumbs up. It was until almost 9:30am that a van which had finished sending workers to Oil field picked us up for 100km to a town named, Caleta Olivia, where the driver, Daniel George, would rest at home and drive for another 3 rides again later in the day.


Daniel stopped us on Route 3, outside town. Apart from oil fields, road under construction, strong wind, blowing sand and birds, there were only cars that went back to town through the roundabout or trash trucks picking carton boxes to the recycle garage nearby.

We had some left over empanadas that I made in Yamila's lovely home to change our luck. Right after our short lunch, we got picked up by a 4x4 driver, who took us to a gas station in Tres Corros.


Apart from the flat plain, straight paces road, the only stopovers are the gas stations, with small shop, cafe and hotels. Otherwise, there is almost nothing between towns.


We met another 4x4 with two tourist, who looked like Germans, with a driver. We tried asking for a lift and found that they are hitchhikers too and also heading Rio Gallegos. They said their car is full and no more room.


Well, so far we have reached half of our way, although we need to wait some 2 hours at every point on the second day. We have confidence that if we are lucky, only another one or two more cars, we could reach Rio Gallegos on the same night.


We found some disposed box and write bigger letters of our destination and hold with our thumbs up for another 2 hours.

Another petrol plant staff van got us and took us almost 140km to Caleta Olivia.


We waited there and met those German hitchhikers again at the gas station. They waved again and we bid farewell with jealousy in our eyes.


We managed to meet 2 other trucks at the gas station heading for Rio Gallegos, however, both are full, with companion next to the drivers.


We waited for another hour and to our amazement, a 4x4 stopped some distance ahead. We were not sure if it meant to take us or it only stopped for checking out the map. Adley ran to the car and we are really lucky to found that Luis, the driver do welcome some companion, speak some English and was heading to the same town!


It was a long 4-5 hours drive and it's the first time for Luis in Rio Gallegos. But he got GPS and was greeted by some people from work when he reached town.

Luis owned an engineering consultancy and was working with oil company on pipes. The company had arranged him a room and he brought us there as well. But Ar$250 for a double room was way out of our budget, compared to the camp site of Ar$10 each mentioned by LP. He wished to take us there but his car with pipe and machines forbid him to drive too far around town, so we thanked him and went to the camp site by walking. His local contacts was astonished by our idea of camping in such cold weather and also suggested us to take a taxi, while there is no bus available.


We walked to the campsite as told by Lonely Planet and found that they only offer football field but not hospitality at this season.


We went to a small restaurant for dinner and they only offer chicken with vegetables of Ar$50 per person. We shared one and the owners seeing how cost saving we were, offered us an extra warm vegetable soup, bread and a free 500ml Sprite.

"greeted" by dog while finding the hostel

With our belly filled and after some more turns in the quite, windy town, we arrived another cheap hostel suggested by Lonely Planet, named as Hospedaje Casa de Familia Elcira Contreras, it was near the bus terminal, with bread shop, supermarket and carnicería nearby and costing Ar$70 per person for dorm, with a room of 4. And it was low season, where we got the whole room.

my first time in youth hostel

It's a nice hostel, with heater, wifi, warm water, fully equipped kitchen and free coffee and tea in the morning. We had a good rest in the cozy room.

Couchsurfing in Puerto Madryn

 

After 15 hours of bus trip, we were 1,000 km away from La Plata to Puerto Madryn. There we met our couch surfing host Yami, her name should be “LLamila”. As an anesthetist she led a middle-class life in the town, which is not her own town but there she could earn better and took less time than her working in Cordoba. She needed money for her expensive dental surgery and missed her friends and family in Cordoba. She liked dogs a lot and was happy to see our photos about dogs on the way. We spent four days and three nights in her comfortable apartment, where we could see sun rise from the sea and cook (also bake) in her kitchen. Her English was good and we had a good time speaking some Spanish with her teaching us and our exchange of English as well. We hope she liked us about the cooking; we enjoyed cooking more than her and we can share some cooking effort from her.

With sufficient time basing in there, we could go to different place in the area: Peninsula Valdes famous for seeing penguin, sea lion and if lucky orca hunting young seal on the beach; Punto Tombo for seals enjoying sun on the beach at closer distance.

We would like to thank Llamila even more for her sending the mobile phone I left in the room by courier from Puerto Madyrn to Rio Gallego. Not only was she very friendly and eager to learn our culture and cooking, she was helpful about travelling information. We wish her a good time in the year in Puerto Madyrn and success in going with Medecins Sans Frontieres, so she could travel in Africa. We hope that she could make it for the Asia trip when she would come to HK four years later for an anesthesia conference, then we could host her and take her around Hong Kong for good food.

A day in Peninsula Valdes

we were first greeted by the photogenic bird at entrance

We were lucky to find Rich and Mariana from Australia to share car with us for the visit of Peninsula Valdes. Having been reluctant to pay for 240 peso(each person) for a guided tour, we were finding among hostels to find people sharing our hired car, and then found them when seeing the couple hiring bikes riding out. I had a hard time familiarizing myself on the manual car, after the last rental with automatic. Rich the very competent driver did the driving for the whole day and we thank him a lot for that.

We started off at 8am and went along the coast which was supposed to see whale, but we saw nothing and later heard that the first entry of whale was a few days later (while we were hitch-hiking to Rio Gallego). We went straight to the peninsula and passed the center of interpretation, something like a tourist center. We should have visited that so to check the tide hour. We turned out not going anti-clockwise as we heard from advice in the bus station. The consequences was that we were on the less likely spot of orca-seeing during high tide and, as mentioned later, we slid the car and flattened the tyre that took two hours to repair.

 

Back to the trip, it was a long drive of 100km on a flat land to Punta Norte, which was the most popular spot of seeing orca in high tide. On the way we saw different animals such as guanaco, armadillo (mulita), mara, mactineta copetuda, liebie (rabbit), fox. It was like safari trip of patagonia version. They went away when our car on gravels scared them. In this long trip we chatted and heard from the Australian couple how they sold their belonging to travel around for one year. They were married three years ago in Bali. Mariana who was a counsellor would have a project in child center in east Africa so they would have a chance to go safari there. After 1.5 hour we reached Punta Norte, the famous national geographic pictures and videos about the orcas catching young seal on the beach were filmed there. More information about higher chance of seeing orca, you can visit our travel tip. When we got there,finally it was low tide and saw many patches of green sea bed showing. Seals were playing happily among them. There were also sea-elephant sleeping in comfort under the sun. We also saw other people going the same direction with us, which had made me feel less discomfort about no luck on high-tide (and south wind) and orca seeing. Human is like that. According the self-fulfilling properties and other social or cognitive theory of psychology, I tended to think the way that made me feel more composed of a reality which was less expected or favorable. If I let myself less composed by accepting the cruel fact of failure and less self-competent (for example, having good memory about previous information by Yamilla that the tide in Punta Norte was 3 hours after Puerto Madyrn), it was a challenge of self-composure. Life would then be a difficult one with consistent challenge of self. With this journey of consistent problem-solving, one more was a bit much for me.

 
We then went to another point of interest, Cere Valdes, where Magellan penguin bred. It was my first time seeing the penguin so near to us. Lots of baby penguins herded a few months ago and now they were larger kids with changing feathers. Their walk was always funny to watch. They were enjoying the sun and playing around in the water and on land. Seal could come to catch them but the low tide closed the sea opening of the sand dome; the penguins were safe. There were English descriptions on the information box telling us how to differentiate male (with a higher bump on the top of the beak) from female. We had some good time enjoying just watching the penguin moving around. Seeing more of the same penguins in Punte Tombo (which was 100km away from Trelew, another 60km from Puerto Madryn) seemed not necessary for us. But the hope of seeing orca was still lingering with us.

The hope shattered after we visited Punta Canra where we walked an educational trail about wild life but not much was seen except a few sleeping seals and sea elephants. We tended to drive the big circle passing Punta Delgada, but it slided on one downhill slide and luckily the car did not flip over. One tyre leaked. There was spare tyre in the car but no tool. Rich ran for four kilometers back to the ranger house to borrow one, but it was not working. We went to the ranger’s 4x4 and Rich drove the car slowly back to the ranger’s office, where I changed the tyres for the first time. The ranger(ess) put a lot of effort to ensure that there were no gravels stuck in the tyres; that took us two hours before we went back to the road. We had to return the car by 8pm so Rich drove all the way. We missed the hat-like island (Isla de los Pajaros) which inspired the little prince’s author Antoine de Saint-Exupery about the snake with elephant in it.

We left with some regret not to see the orcas, which were still hovering in our mind when leaving.

Orca in Punta Norte, we cannot see one, just to show the youtube of the place we visited, it just happened a month ago. Such catching behavior only happened here from the whole world.

The Greetings

In Argentina
Maria kisses on Julio's left cheek when they say hi and goodbye. While Adley kisses on Julio's left cheek when they say hi and goodbye.


In Brazil
Maria kisses on both cheeks of Pedro and Julia, while Adley kisses Julia on both cheeks, but should not kiss Pedro. Unless they are father and son or lovers. They might shake hands instead.


In Paraguay
Maria kisses on Eduardo's left cheek when they say hi and goodbye. While Adley does the same.


In Uruguay
Maria kisses on Felipe's left cheek when they say hi and goodbye. While Adley does the same.

現場報導 - 體育會主場迎戰歌利亞, 雙方打成平手

如果唔係呢場波, 我哋可能一早離開La Plata。場波啲飛要當日走去球場先買到 (球會會員可以之前兩日買)，仲要好似買藥咁喺個好細嘅窗度買，麻鬼煩。 最後買'general'企位 (男嘅60peso女嘅40peso,因為要吸引多啲女球迷入去呢個一向陽剛味重嘅活動)，希望可以感受下氣氛。小部份在瑒側嘅座位係俾VIP,但d觀眾較靜，只會乖乖哋坐。

球隊主場對當地係大件事，差不多成個La Plata城嘅人都去支持，球場附近迫得水洩不通。一個個排隊入場，要搜身，唔准帶樽 (玻璃免問)驚人飛樽入場。我哋企喺石屎板凳的看台睇波。點解石屎? 因為我哋會不斷跳，唔跳就代表你唔係自己人 (其實無乜嘢，只係啲人會以為你係遊客)。

 

球賽開始前，球迷會不斷唱球會歌，又會有旗海示威，當然又會不斷跳，跳到啲石屎凳震哂。男女老幼都大聲唱，好熱鬧。當然時不時都聞到草味。

講番場波，其實係乙組賽事，實力有限，主隊位居第五，和客隊位居榜首打成拉鋸戰(其實都有啲悶)，我哋覺得客隊實力較強，交波較準，主隊只有拼勁攔截，射門把握麻麻(這個當然唔會同主隊粉絲Leandro講)。（M:但主隊個龍門截得好，仲好似幾靚仔。）最係互交白卷，我哋志不在球賽，而是睇下啲球迷點用粗口鬧球証及對方球員。如果佢哋認為球証唔判，男女都會問候佢娘親。

賽事完畢，魚貫離場，另加節目食燒腸包，街邊檔生意滔滔不絕。賣成10peso賺死佢，老婆口痕難抵引誘光顧。其實睇球賽喺阿根廷也是賞心樂事，有得瘋狂有得鬧人發洩有得食，過癮。(M:場內仲有不少青春少艾的美女睇波，曾先生當然高興！）

銀城遊踪

由於不太懂乘巴士，里安度也不太懂，我們也不打萛因為留三天而花時間學，這幾天我們都是步行遊歷。當中看過當地的大 教堂，它是全阿根廷最大的教堂，但我們所參加的彌撒是在小教堂舉行，我心想:起咁大間嘢 (起咗一世紀)把拓咩? 我唔覺得咁大座嘢會令人同神近啲距離囉...

令我哋目不暇給的還有自然科學館，裏面有恐龍化石，好多好多動物標本，亦有中南美土著生活館 (原來有好多土著文明，我太孤陋寡聞了)。
 

 

波利維亞的嘉年華服飾

免了40peso那麼貴的入場費，我們在外面看 Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (較多人認識嘅 Le Corbusier) 設計嘅前衛建築 (喺30年代咁樣已經好前衛，但係其實呢位老兄無見過個客，只係畫兩畫，又無喺現場監工)。從外面看，好多高柱，使裏面的空間很大，棵樹其實在建築物裏面。

我們也經個銀城馬術會，可以進裏面隨便看，發現有隻年輕的雌馬在散步，我們有幸可以和她相處一下，她也散步得有些悶，經常走過來看看我們，我們亦餵她吃點草，她就讓我們摸摸了。

我們在銀城的日子很愉快，比原定的三天過多了二天。亦很高興見到里安度的姪女Carolina，她非常可愛，在家裏受萬千寵愛。 我們離開里安度的家有點趕，因為他們要早些離家去他姐姐的生日派對(我們只在兩小時前才知道)。我們還是感謝他的款待。

在車站渡過四小時，我們跳上巴士，往 Patagonia 進發。 

Attending a concert of local La Plata bands

Due to an opening of a building in a university, there was free concert by local La Plata bands. Leandro took us to the concert and with three Colombian girls who couchsurfed at his home previously and would stay in La Plata to study for 5 months (we heard that studying in university in Argentina is free but one has to pay for the living expenses).


The first band we listened to was Pampa Yakusa, which mixed folk song into bandsound. We enjoyed that a lot. There were many young faces around us (we were at university), so were beer and grass.

The second band was more famous and more mature band-men. The songs were less energetic and more pop music. Compared to creativity and originality, we like the former band more.