Thursday, March 22, 2007

Chile-ing Out.

After haring round NZ like a rabbit out of a trap it was time for a bit of R&R. Rest and Re-tox that is. After a week getting Pisco Soured in Santiago (a much nicer city than it ever gets credit for and brown is the new black after all), re-aquainting myself with the extensive vegetarian options of the Iberian diet ("I can't eat that do you have anything else?" "This?" "Sorry not that either. No, nor that. Or that" "This then?" "IsnĀ“t that what you offered me the first time?") I was once again ready to take on the beautiful nature.

Conehead.

Another day another volcano, this time a relaxing, full day stroll up the vertical, snowy slopes of Mt Villarica. If the altitude gain of over a thousand meters and the stunning veiws don't take your breath away, the acrid fumes belching from the sumit like B&H from a betting shop window will. During our all too brief break I inhaled the equivalent of my duty free allowance and pondered life's eternal questions (why is there always some bint who's hire gear fits and looks great while I get the oven mits and pants from Help The Aged Clown?). Then we were initiated into the sport of Esliding (that's 'sliding' to those of you unfamiliar with the niceties of Spanish pronunciation) for the fast track home. This is basicaly toboganning with your arse and a plastic bag at 1000 feet. We've all done it, none of us were sharp enough to think of convincing tourists to pay for it.

The End Of The World Is Nigh.

Or it will be after another 18 hours of straight-to-video and scurvy. By which time your arse will have passed peacefully into the next life with it's family around it. Patagonia, where men are men and so are a fair percentage of the women. Where brutal winds whip through the Plaza De Armas (one in every tinpot town, like the horse), waiting round corners like a gang of tooled-up teenagers to relieve you of your reason, cash and any important documents not stapled to your person. Where the street dogs wear a permanent grin more often seen on their car-bourne cousins. Where the magnificent, corkscrew columns and vertical granite pillars of Torres Del Paine national park reflect in duck-egg blue glacial lakes. Where even the most annoying been-there-done-thats have had their jaws wired open. A land of brooding, untamed beauty (and that's just the chaps who staff the refuges) where you can watch condors floating over glaciars and lamas lunching on a peaceful Patagonian plain then sleep so soundly that even the brick lobbed through the next window by disaffected yout' will fail to wake you. Patagonia where Nature

Right, I'm poping next door now to have a word about some islands and a certain football match. The hand of God beckons...