All posts by thecuriousdoc

61, semi-jubilado (rewired). Married 35 years - yes, THIRTY FIVE YEARS! Unbelievable. To Clive. Both ex-NHS workers, thus still in recovery.

South Africa

Home. Meh.

December 2, 2024 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

A wild spotted eagle owl seen in Cape Town Botanical Gardens.

We arrived home at 5am to a house that had been unheated for 2 months. The heating ap informed us we were in 85% humidity. My plants have thrived. It basically felt warmer and drier outside. And it was raining. But the village lights are gleaming and the pub has a roaring fire, where we stumble in, mud covered, (I slipped in my wellies), and soaking. We bump into an old friend and gossip by the pub fire drinking pints of real ale. As we walk home in the dark, there’s only two street lights between us and home; we pass a near neighbour in the gloaming with a head torch on, putting his outdoor christmas lights on. When we ask him why he says “Because I am so excited” in a deadpan way. We are home.

Anyway I’m only here as Clive wants a record of our holiday and I haven’t done the last two weeks. I didn’t expect to want to. South Africa, Garden Route. An afterthought really.

Oh My God. What a beautiful, wild, weird, dangerous place it is.

So I thought I’d try doing a photo montage rather than much in the way of writing. But you know me. Can’t help myself. So if I ramble on, ignore me and just look at the photos.

Route 62 to Little Karoo.

We didn’t start on the Garden Route, we started further north, on the Route 62, to the Little Karoo. I mean that’s a song, right there. To reach Prince Albert we decided to go across the Swartberg pass. The first but not the last time we realised that we should have hired a 4 by 4.

We only stayed in Prince Albert for a night. Beautiful place, very chilled, people all ages and colours cycling up and down the main and only road on clanky old bikes, often laden with gardening tools, shopping, or dogs, sometimes all three. It rained thunderously in the evening as we sat under our storm porch. No wonder everywhere is so green. It has been a very wet winter, and the summers are cooler. This makes very good wine, apparently.

Most of the buildings in Prince Albert are Victorian.

The Valley Of Ferns.

From here we headed to Knysna, without the K, pronounced Neyesna. Possibly. Again, we went the mountain pass route, this time through Prince Alfred pass, sold in our guide as not as gnarly as the Swartberg. Wrong. It’s a single dirt track about 65 km long. We drove so slowly it took us all day and views were few and far between as it rained.

The sound of the valley of ferns, heard on the way through the pass. Worth doing just for this.

Knysna

From Knysna we went on a day trip to see the end of the Garden Route at Storms River. Do not bother. It is rammed with coaches, tour groups, and people people people. I realised the way to travel is to check the Itinery of a country – everywhere is an Itinery now – and then not go to those places. Might work. A beach near our bnb called Brenton -on -sea stretched sandily to infinity. We ate sushi, which is really cheap and delicious here, drank chilled white wine, sun-bathed and paddled – the currents here are so dangerous, and cold, despite the sea being the Indian Ocean, few people are ever seen swimming. I can’t remember if I have said this bt the food and drink here is crazily good value, and delicious.

Perilous pathway.

At a beautiful place just up the road from Storms River called Nature’s Valley, we took a circular walk up from the beach to a salt river. Then we ignored the sign saying that the coastal path has fallen away and this is extremely dangerous. It was.

Almost becoming one of those annoying couples who have to be rescued by the SA version of the RNLI as they are on cliffs in a rising tide. If they have an RLNI SA version.

To Tides River.

Taking the ferry – oops.

Ignoring advice is our speciality.

Despite our Airbnb host warning us not to use the ferry as it is often not working, we rocked up on the wrong side of the river; luckily the ferry was having a good day, as the detour would probably have been around 100km, on dirt tracks.

We came here to see De Hoop, a vast nature reserve. It took us hours to drive anywhere as we kept stopping to photograph the birds we’d never seen before.

A blue crane, the national bird of South African.

The sound of the wind whistling through the trees and across the water at Tides River will be one that I hope to remember on my death bed; so lulling, so soporific, I am falling asleep just remembering it. We wondered why there were no boats. Then when we swam in it we realised – it is so shallow you can walk across to the other side at low tide.

Tides River

Cape Agulhas.

Here is the geographic southernmost tip of Africa where the Indian and Atlantic ocean’s meet. A place of gigantic 100 foot high waves. Also briefly of a very excited Clive on the look out for a yellow mongoose. Which he spotted running across the road and then being sadly squished by a car. So no photos – although the inaturalist ap does have a section for dead animal photos. Macabre.

The last few days in Hermanus.

Hermanus is an hour and a half from Cape Town. It is a place you can stand on the cliff tops and see whales and dolphins, often as many if not more than on a boat trip. Even at the end of November when we were there the second time, and the whales have mostly left for the Antarctic, we saw a mum and baby right whale, and a pod of dolphins, on our last morning.

Happy Christmas everyone.

The first time I have heard any Christmas music this year so far.

Continue reading →

Namibia

Confession time.

November 16, 2024 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

I have a confession to make. We didn’t camp quite as much as we’d hoped. It started well in Waterberg, although the shewee’s one outing ended in failure. I’ll just say it needs a wide legged stance not suited to standing on a camping ladder, to avoid leg sprayage. Also some snuffly animal appeared outside the tent just after I’d been and zipped myself back in and thereafter I never got up. The thought of having to put on shoes, not flip flops due to snakes and scorpions, descend the ladder, fend off jackalls that unlike the feared lions do circle your camp in the hope of nabbing a lamb chop and who knows, a nice juicy ladder-descending buttock, kept me pinned to my matress until dawn broke. However we had our own private bathroom along a little path, a bbq, a shaded table and chair area, and delightful little pools surrounded by the shade of bird-crammed trees where we could drowse and cool down during the midday heat.

We’d taken a walk up to the plateau where our guide showed us the shocking site of a white rhino’s poop on top of a back rhino’s. This meant war, he told us. The white rhino is saying “I see you, black rhino.” Did this mean a fight to the death will ensue soon, someone asked? “Oh no,” he replied, scornfully, “They are not that stupid, they want to live. It stops with the shit.” If only the human world had as much common sense. Stinky, but bloodless.

At this point I decided that this is the life for me. The tent on the roof took less than 4 minutes to set up. Once the sun went down, sitting in the balmy warmth with burring ciccadas and moaning lions our audio-backdrop, I decided we’d sell the house and buy a gigantic camper van and travel the world! Yeehaa!

First night making complicated BBQ sauce. You can take the girl out of the kitchen but….

But….

The sun rises at 5.30am and sets at 7.30pm, during which it is mostly above 35 degrees. We moved on from Waterberg to the state run camps in Etosha. We’d decided on these rather than the usually nicer privately run ones outside the park as you can only do night and dawn game drives when you are inside the gates. Facilities became shared, and more basic, with little shade. They had an amazing waterhole where we sat and watched lions, elephants, zebras and all the familar animals we’d met for the first time at Harnas – ostriches, springbok, Eland, Oryx (forever childishly in my head called “Olivias”), who came and drank, because at this time of year, there’s no water anywhere else.

Waterhole at Halili Camp, Etosha.

The zebras are leaving, it’s the impalas’ turn. Western cattle egrets in the foreground.

It also felt extraordinary to be driving ourselves across the bush and come across giraffes, zebras and wildebeest.

Driing across Etosha with a giraffe.

On a night drive (not driven by us) we came across a freshly caught zebra, still struggling as the entire pride, babies and all, piled in. Literally a little too close to the bone, we then had an added frisson of excitement as a tyre burst. But the driver seemed supremely confident that the lions were too engorged with zebra to be interested in his skinny bod, and he was right.

A zebra feeds 9 lions.

We worked around the heat by booking camping for one night inside parks and then fleeing in the mornings to lodges with air con and shade. One day we spent most of the day in a swimming pool, lolling like hippos under the water. Some of the lodges had vast amounts of food available and indecently green lawns.

On our way out of Etosha to see rock carvings and paintings, people were waving us down with empty water bottles asking for food. The bore holes have dried up, and there is no water now in the North. Had you been spying on us in the mornings at lodges, you’d have seen us making huge piles of cheese and ham sandwiches, some bacon and egg ones (messy), piling extra plates with large amounts of fruit, piles of dried seeds, bananas and nuts, all shovelled into my rucksack when I thought no-one was looking and then redistributed on our travels along the roadsides, together with lots of water we bought from supermarkets. We were searched for poached meat on leaving game parks. You can’t blame people for poaching oryx, which is plentiful, and delicious – sorry Olivia!

Clive sipping G and T in the lodge we pillaged.

Ancient rock art.

Seeing the 10,000 year old Koisan art on the rocks, together with the drought made me wonder. The San were the first people of the earth. Would they also be the last?

In Brandberg, the site of “The White Lady”, who is actually a male shaman, we stayed in our first lodge after several days camping. It felt like a different holiday, one where me and my clothes weren’t in a constant state of sweaty sandiness striding like adventurers through the wilderness. To have our own shower! A bed! Clive immediately blocked the sink after washing his socks and pants as the plug didn’t work, leaving an embarassingly grey pool of water we had to fess up to the owner about like guilty school kids.

A trip to the coast, and to the darkest depths of despair.

From here we headed west to the coast. I fondly imagined sea air, empty golden beaches, gambolling seals. How wrong I was. Never have I encountered such dreary, depressing, bleak scenery. Mile after mile of chilly grey nothingness, steeped in sea fog, the coast line occassionally dotted with ship wrecks. There used to be millions of whale bones washed up along the beaches from the whaling industry, hence it’s name, The Skeleton Coast.

As each mile passed, I felt tendrils of despair creep around my soul until by the time we reached the cheerily named ”Saint Nowhere”, the campsite we were supposed to stay at, I refused point blank to get out of the car, and kept driving in the hope we’d find somewhere less suited to mass suicide. Which we did, a delightful refuge with a roaring fire and squishy sofas where we played backgammon, drank copious amounts of red wine to assuage the guilt felt that we hadn’t camped again, and slept on a deliciously soft matress to the sound of crashing waves and the wiffy pong of the largest seal colony in Namibia along the bay at Cape Cross.

The largest grey fur seal colony in the world.

Lost baby seal

Cape Cross, so called as Diogo Cǎo “discovered” it in the 1400’s and planted a cross here. Actually the San had been here 11,400 years earler.

Searching for the Small Five.

We have a blissful three night rest up in Swakopmund, strangely like a mini-Germanic Bournemouth supplanted onto the Namibian coast, again, ahem, not camping. There is a lot on offer here, from sky-diving to dune surfing, and we go for a morning on quad bikes, looking for the “Small Five” – a side-winding puff-adder, a Namaqua Chameleon, a shovel-snouted lizard, the transparent Palmato Gecko, and the white spider. Our guides find 4/5, as the spider had gone on walk-about.

Big Daddy Hides in Sea Mist

Then we made for Big Daddy and Deadvlei, a giant sandune and a small 1000 year old dead forest. Like lemmings, having read that sunrise is the best way to see this, we were up at 5am as the gates opened and followed in convoy all the other campers doing the same as us. It is a real palaver to get to them, as after 60km you have to drop your tyre pressure for the last 4 km as it is a pure sand road. Cars often get stuck, and one did when we were there. Feeling like we were in some kind of race we triumphantly reached the final carpark to find the famous sand dunes swathed in sea fog, the imagined perfect photo of a dead tree against a blue sky and orange sand dune was not going to happen. By the time we got back to the car park and reinflated our tyres, the fog had burnt off and so we returned to do the whole thing again via shuttle this time. Comically the dune all the early risers had sat along at the top wasn’t the top at all. Once the mist burnt off, we could see it unconquered quite a bit higher than the one we had all scambled up.

A ghost town.

Sat in a sunlight filled loft apartment in Luderitz, the regular afternoon wind was building but not yet at the levels when we arrived the day before when we drove through a sandstorm, hitting a small innocuous looking sand dune across the main road into Luderitz which nearly blew a tyre. Originally built as a diamond mining town, it is like a cross between Shetland and the Wild West, somehow managing to be cosy yet industrial. There are less tourists here because it is in the back of beyond and a 6 hour drive from anywhere. There’s an abandoned diamond mining town nearby called Kolmanskop where we stop by as we leave.

Fish River Canyon.

At our last stop before heading 8 hours drive back up to Windhoek we are in Fish River Canyon gawping with everyone else at the view.

Twelve German friends on a luxury tour offer us two of their G and T’s with copious ice. They clearly think we are insane to camp; I suspect most of the men have prostate issues and would be up and down that ladder most of the night. Would I swap our camping trip with their luxury one? Yes I bloody would. But back in Windhoek I see several pristine white 4 by 4’s parked-up waiting to set off on their trips. Rather like the shifty-eyed reassurance given to a very pregnant woman asking if labour is painful, would I lie if they asked us how our experience went? I’d tell them they need the bladder of a camel, to stay away from baboons especially if they’re female, and take plenty of small change to tip the many desperate people they will meet on their travels. But in the same way labour is indescribably hard yet you find yourself doing it again, we’re already planning another camping trip.

A quiver tree, so called as the San made arrows from the branches.

They were Russian, not Italian. Excuse my swearing.

Clive’s Go-Pro of the milky way.

Namibia

Noon massacre.

November 7, 2024 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

James’s experience of School. His choice of vet medicine as a career is probably wise.

School – but not as we know it.

Hearing Maria call out the dreaded words “Cheetahs are in school this afternoon” struck fear into our hearts. We’d seen the exhausted Crocs as they staggered back the night before, heading straight to the bar. We’d seen Simon’s point blank refusal to ever do it again; (he seemed to have a golden ticket to do whatever he fancied, I suspect his frequent assertion that he is leaving all of his money to animal charities might have something to do with that. And being 78, so no longer giving a fig.) We’d seen James’s video of a few of the 5 year olds massacring a white doll. Make of that what you will. The crocs had stayed until 6pm, thowing down a gauntlet. The instruments sent to me by Sue Bullimore, an old school friend, helped enormously. For around 10 minutes. Then we played a version of “It” that was perhaps unwise in 40 degrees. Clive managed to then muster enough energy to play football with the balls we’d brought, but the rest of us could only lie on the floor in a pool of our sweat while the children bounced on our heads. The quiet stillness of their teacher, a quizzical smile on her face as she sat behind her desk watching us slowly dehydrate from grapes to raisins, showed the way it should be done. We sidled off at 4.45pm, on our hands and knees, muttering “never again,” and in my case “Mother, I salute you.” (she taught primary school children for 40 years).

One of the Cheetah team pushes a child on a tyre swing.

The Lifeline clinic.

The Naankuse Life line Clinic in Omawewozonyanda.

The clinic is around an hour’s drive away and a source of great interest to many of the volunteers. Helen Bennett, a nurse from Clive’s art group in Minstead had given us a defibrillator as well as a spanking new digital thermometer and 10+ sats monitors. We also had 12 contraceptive injections and bags of sanitary towels. Theo, the clinic’s manager and chief nurse, had put the defib at the top of a wishlist sent to us in the UK. He received it with such joy and enthusiasm, the battery having expired 18 months ago on their previous one. Due to an admin snafu they have had no doctor for the last two years.

Theo with the new defib donated by Helen Bennett from Minstead.

We had come with 6 “special guests”, Austrians staying at Harnas for two weeks like us but only doing “fun” jobs like cleaning the lion’s den, which is fair enough, I am sure they paid a lot for this. But they showed very little interest in the Clinic, spending most of their time smoking in the shade of a bbq area. A shame as so many of the, shall we call them “bog standard” volunteers, wanted to come and see it and even a short time in this place might have influenced their choices in life. The clinic itself covers a vast area, Theo sometimes driving 100 km to deliver babies as the ambulance service is busy elsewhere. There is a massive problem with malnutrition, fulled by a drought that means they can’t grown their own food, and are dependent on imported South African food which means inflation is stratospheric. Unemployment is also a real problem. They deal with a lot of drug addiction, depression and homeless children left because their parents have committed suicide. There were only two volunteers working there, Maria a medical student from Brazil and Jessica a nurse from Romania.

They cooked a huge vat of mainly vegetables and pasta every morning and then doled it out every lunchtime, to all comers. They came to Harnas at weekends, and found the sheer amount of food given to the animals quite shocking compared to what they had to give to the people in village. It is true that the Harnas meerkats get better quality meat than the Naankuse clinic kids,, each meercat getting a succulent piece of horse meat twice a day, while there is a small piece of meat cooked more to add flavour than calories to the village pot.

One of the special guests, whom I will call “Brows”, kicked off about having to wait to drive back to Harnas so that one of the local women could have her depo injection. She had been seen throwing her teddy out of the pram on several occassions while waiting at the bar. It’s fair to say this ran on “Africa time.” A favourite saying I heard a few times – “I will do it now-now,” means sometime, maybe soon, maybe not, depending. They were also extremely busy, and had to cope with frequent power cuts, which I loved, as the silence washed over us, the only sounds the lions moaning in the distance, birds clamouring in the trees, the parrots kicking off as soon as anyone raised their voice, Olivia the three hoofed Oryx’s snuffling breath as she snuggled up to your ear, gas lanterns throwing light across the happy faces of our fellow volunteers as we drank together at the end of our own busy days.

We now head up country, to pick up the camper van and head off for more adventures.

James, three sheets to the wind, dancing with Maria.

Bush bird sounds.

Namibia

HARNAS WILDLIFE CENTRE

October 31, 2024 thecuriousdoc 1 Comment

Looking out at Harnas from the morning briefing area.

Two baby crocs have done a runner from their enclosure and an escapee baboon is lurking on the roof at breakfast eyeing up the croissants. No-one seems especially worried about the crocs but a man with a slingshot turns up 10 seconds behind the baboon. The newbies except us are excited to see the baboon; the old timers, mostly Germans, are terrified.

“They are NOT friendly” Nicole shouts “they are HORRIBLE”.

A quite menacing looking morning visitor.

Harnas History

Harnas wildlife Foundation started with an abused vervet monkey rescued by the Van Der Merge family 46 years ago. Over the years it has expanded to play a major role in conservation. A large focus of the work achieved at Harnas is preserving the San culture, one of the most ancient in the world.

The San people – digging up roots for water, medicine and food.

Survival tactics.

We have learnt to stand stock still when threatened by an agressive goose, and to run for your life if a baboon or ostrich attacks you. Or make like an ostrich by putting one arm up in the air and flapping your hand. I am not kidding. However the ostriches seem pretty chilled, and love a spray down with the hose from our garden. Threatened vervet monkies apparently distract you with lots of false feints while one makes for your jugular. When feeding the crocs you keep your back to the wall and all sphincters on high alert.

In the absence of climbable trees, we are told to run away from a charging rhino in a zig-zag as rhinos don’t turn quickly. Neither do I, frankly.

The leopards miaow and purr like cats – who knew this about cats?!! They are leopards in disguise, but less likely to eat your face off when you get too close.

There is a particularly perilous narrow corridor where you have to walk between the mean, grasping arms of the vervets on one side and the garden sprayer on the other; the water is semi-treated sewage water I think, although when you ask any of the staff they become very vague. It certainly adds an extra layer of jeopardy in getting from A to B.

Our igloo – we stayed here for two weeks. Most of the volunteers stayed in the volunteer camp with single sex dorms, two toilets, and some particularly annoying imbecilic lads. Like two ancient dogs, we are too old to be seperated.

Silly things humans do.

At the induction yesterday, Maria, our San tribe leader, regales us with tales of the hapless things volunteers have done in the past. Reaching into the lions’ den to take a better picture, trying to get a selfie with the rhinos, stroking a mongoose and losing a finger, carrying a baby giant tortoise the wrong way round and everyone watching in amazement as he suddenly threw the tortoise up in the air after it bit his penis.

We are also told to hide from poachers, as they will kill us aswell as the rhino. If caught they will be in prison for life, so have nothing to lose.

The Volunteers.

They are a sociable and friendly group, mostly 18-30 ish but with a few young at heart outliers like us, Christine (50) and Simon (78). There are very few Americans, one in fact, a Mexican lad who when he goes accidentally leaves behind a litre and a half of tequila, much to the unbridled joy of Toby, Philip and James sharing his bunk room.

Rhino tracking.

The 6 rhinos on the reserve have to be accounted for daily in case of poaching. Poachers can be in and out of the reserve in 10 minutes. The poachers put bottles in the electric fence to see if they’re still there the next day as if they are, it means no one is patrolling. The two San tribe trackers start at the watering hole and fan out from there.

Our San trackers took 2 hours to find these rhinoa.

They follow their tracks, which are both footprints and troughs where they have dragged their feet to mark their territory. They also leave enormous piles of poo which I thought would be a composters dream but it is apparently very dry and mostly grass. I thought their skill in finding these creatures incredible.

The Worst Jobs.

Farm work.

Filling holes.

There is no upper age limit on how much fun it is standing up in the back of a truck that’s rattling along dirt tracks, wind in your face, wild grin spreading ear to ear, sand between your wind blasted teeth. Our job was to hop on and off the truck to shovel sand back into holes that various hopeful animals from the outside – cheetahs, aardvarks, porcupines – have dug under the fence in a bid to reach Harnas’s watering holes and delectable selection of impala, springbok, dikdik and goats.

Wooding.

It’s another morning and we are sent to collect wood. I began with great girl guide level enthusiasm, hauling huge logs out of the bush and hurling them onto the lorry, she-woman style. But by the second collection, shallow breathing the hot air, huge sweat droplets stinging my eyes, I lurked in the shadows, hoping no-one would notice my reduction in productivity, and wandered what symptoms preceed keeling over from heat exhaustion. When I told this tale to Tanya, the research manager, she laughed and said “now you know why you see 5 people at work in Namibia and only one of them is working while 4 are resting”.

The Best Jobs.

Lion feeding.

This is definitely a fun activity. There are at least 10 lions, five cheetahs, and two leopards, in various massive enclosures. Some are there because their mothers have been hunting farm animals and have been shot by farmers, who then ring Harnas to collect the cubs. They often don’t know the full story, as they don’t want to discourage people from asking them for help. There is an 8 year old leopard that used to be called Ingwe, an African name for Leopard. Bottle-fed and hand-reared alongside the many dogs at Harnas at the time, his feral instinct kicked in a little earlier than at the expected 2 years old. At 16 months he blotted his copybook overnight by eating all the dogs. The volunteers renamed him Hellboy.

In another enclosure there are five lion brothers all reared in Marietta’s kitchen – the lady who started Harnas 25 years ago. Flown across the border by a mysterious man, they were destined to be cuddly fluff balls on a Botswana game reserve and then shot for sport in an area no bigger than Trafalgar Square. But their Botswana heritage means the Namibian Governemt will not help rehome them. So there they are, five muscle bound testosterone fuelled beasts all vying for territory they shouldn’t be sharing. To reduce the fighting potential, at feeding time we have to strat them at one end of the enclosure and then race in the truck to the other send, the lions giving chase, so that each one is fed as they arrive.

Making the brothers work for their supper.

Letting Old Lady, an ancient vervet moneky, pick out my feas.

Olivia, who lost a foot (?hoof) in a trap. She is still a baby at 7 months old.

I have yet to regale you with tales of the school and the medical clinic but think I’ll post this as we are going up to a wifi free zone for 4 days – Etosha.

South Africa

Getting trollied on a tram.

October 19, 2024 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

But first – shark news:-

Bouncing about in a cage in a force 5 with sharks skimming past a few centimetres from my nose was way less scary than I expected.

Inside the shark cage.

Visibility in the cage is very poor. The best place to see the sharks that appear once they throw the baited ropes into the sea is on the top deck of our boat. Best to avoid the front of the boat with the pukers, easily spotted with their green/grey complexion and sick bags glued to their faces.

I thought it strange that the sharks didn’t just wolf down the bait straight away but Clive thinks they like to have a nibble first to see if they like the taste. They are copper sharks, aka bronze whalers.

There are no Great Whites about as the Orcas have been eating them, in particular their livers, so they’ve all buggered off down the coast to Mossel Bay. Why it’s safer there, I don’t know.

The on/off wine tram in Franschhoek.

The wine tram is kind of a scam, as it’s really a very short track of train and mostly buses, but no-one cares as we are all trollied and can barely remember our names let alone write a Trip Adviser review.

We arrived at our first vineyard at 11.30 am as three separate small groups, but when we reboard the bus an hour later we are a decidedly tipsy unit.

A happy band of 7.

By the third vineyard the Zulu/ Leeds contingent are singing three part harmonies to a goat and the Dutch couple we have been chatting to are losing not only their English language skills but their Dutch too.

This place sells painting by Pigcasso. You can see him doing this to the sound of our group talking bollocks.

The Franshoek vines were originally planted by 300 French Huguenots who fled France in 1688 after King Louis XIV banned Protestantism. Shout out to the Holmes family on Clive’s side of the family, as they were Huguenots but fled to England.

The vines bake on North facing hillsides producing delicious wine varieties, although I couldn’t tell you which wine to buy as by the third vineyard they all tasted the same. But as a fall from grace after 9 months of sobriety it took some beating.

Visiting a township.

Cape Town is a city of two halves. Part polished and beautified, with fantastic food and wine, sandy beaches, a freezing sea, and Table mountain looming above it all. It has its share of historic buildings, many of which have troubled histories. The court house, where if they really couldn’t decide if you were coloured or white they stuck a comb in your hair.

If it stayed in, you were coloured. Fell out, white.

Nearby is The Slave Lodge, which is still called “The biggest 19th century brothel in Cape Town” in some aricles online, with no mention that the women were slaves.

Most visitors don’t see the other half of Cape Town because it can be dangerous to visit. A British surgeon was shot while driving back from whale-watching in Hermanus. His wife, mother and 2 year old child were also in the car and survived. The main freeway to Cape Town being shut due to a strike, his GPS had directed him through a township adjacent to Langa.

We visited Langa with Louis, a local tourist guide, who had spent 2 years during Covid living under a tarp being fed by kindly neighbours. The first Township, Langa was built in 1923 to segregate the black African community from urban areas and served as a labour resevoir. It still does. Visiting a Township felt like a difficult call, but I wanted to see for myself where the majority of coloured people still live.

Our guide told us that they want tourists to come, and that his job showing us around had been a revelation to him, meeting white non- South Africans who unlike the local whites were interested and cared about their situation (his words). He told us that the Township is bigger than ever, as squatting laws mean if you build a hut i.e a 1 meter square corregated iron box, and remain there for 48 hours, you have the right to remain there.

Watching a group of children dancing and singing to a crowd of local people chilling in Langa on a Saturday afternoon I felt simultaneously interested to see African music performed for African people and hugely conspicuous in our nosy whiteness.

Poverty Porn is the idea that by writing about it I am objectifying it. But by not writing about it I’d be sweeping it under the carpet. But watching a performance by local artists who have not been wheeled out for us, the tourists, to gawk at did feel different. The main streets have surveillance cameras overlooking them, but Louis took us deep into the heart of the Town, to show us the streets that regularly flood, the water pump serving hundreds on a street corner, the portaloos. It is difficult to imagine how people get to work in places like the waterfront in central Cape Town looking spic and span when they live in these conditions. But they do.

Langa’s Saturday afternoon dancing and singing in the square.

We’re now in Harnas, a wildlife sanctuary in Namibia. We are properly busy, exhausted, and the wifi is crap!

Cape Town, Gansbaai, Intaka Island, L'Agulhas, Shark

Shewees and sharks in Africa.

October 10, 2024 thecuriousdoc 4 Comments

The shewee arrived with an hour to spare before we left for Heathrow. Strange to think that this might save my life. I’ve read that lions think a zipped up tent is an impenetrable wall, and I don’t want to shatter that illusion by clambering out in the night for a pee. Short of catheterising myself every night the shewe it is.

Here it is. Disgusting, yet liberating. I could have a wee at the side of a road if I wanted to. Must remember to use it the right way up, unlike friend Margaret.

We are hiring a 4 by 4 with a tent on top to cross Namibia in a few weeks time. We are doing this purely on the basis that my sister told us “everyone does it,” although she didn’t camp, and no-one we’ve met who’s been to Namibia has either. She did have three small children with her and although I am sure the prospect of one of them being snatched by a baboon might have seemed attractive at times, I can see why camping might not appeal. I hoped that Namibia being mostly desert might confine the lions to the parks where there is water, but they have adapted. Baboons know how to get through locked doors and form raiding parties, so I can’t imagine they’ll find zips very taxing. If the lions and baboons are in cahoots, we’re in trouble.

We are now in Cape Town. My mind is completely distracted from the last few days of hopping on and off a tourist bus and whale watching as we are swimming with sharks today. Clive keeps emitting little yelps of excitement and yips of joy, to a background of a quiet keening sound, like the wind currently whistling across our balcony, which is me. Why why why did I say I wanted to do it when my inner psyche is screaming with fear? Well, my outer psyche got the memo too late. There is a shallow fish filled corridor of sea around Dyer Island which is very popular with sharks.

The sea off L’Agulhas, where two oceans meet. (Atlantic and Indian).

It’s near Gansbaai, on the way down towards L’Agulhas, the southern most tip of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans merge. The two oceans are around 5 degrees difference in temperature, affecting the wind, clouds and precipitation as well as bringing nutrient rich eddie’s of cold water up from the deep, attracting all manner of wildlife.

After a brief burst of false hope when the driver couldn’t find us we’re now on our way. Pray for me.

Ecoparc Buenos aires, Puerto Madero, tierra santa, tigre

Christmas vibes are lacking

November 30, 2023 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

There’s a small, sad, plastic Christmas tree on the way into Jumbo, our local supermarket, and although the market stalls are selling decorations, it’s 30 degrees in the shade; I just wasn’t feeling it. Until we went to Tierra Santa. It sits on the north coast under the flight path of BA national airport, with couples on garden chairs with cold boxes sitting in the shade enjoying the sea breeze on the road side opposite, the place empty except for us and a few Argentinian families. We went there to chortle and snigger at the plastic animations,but as we toiled up a steep hill there are three bodies hanging from crucifixes, gambling Roman soldiers slouched on surrounding rocks , and women with their arms raised imploringly at their dying mens’ feet, all plastic statues. The broiling heat, just as there would have been two thousand years ago, the silence, and the suffering, stop us in our smirking tracks. A nativity scene playing Handels Messiah, and giraffes, elephants and lions creaking out onto the stage for the creation, Adam and Eve eventually appearing with their nether regions covered in green polythene holly and artfully arranged hair, is quite joyful though. I may be an atheist, but I love all choral music, especially this stuff, and I am in heaven. The reason we were there was to see the hourly resurrection, and it doesn’t disappoint, although perhaps you had to be there.

The resurrection

Although I can’t deny how much I love the sun, in the galleries we have visited all over Buenos Aires I am drawn to the winter paintings; bleak leafless landscapes that remind me of what we are coming home to, Brueghel’s transplanted census to snowy Holland, Paris in the winter rain, I love them all. But there is one artist I have never heard of called Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida whose paintings are just so evocative of light and the beach on a summer’s day you can almost hear the kids’ shrieks of joy, the horses grunts as they haul boats out of the sea, the waves lapping at the sand, that would make the most ardent winterphile yearn for summer.

Joaquin Sorolla.

Yellow fever drives out the rich.

The cobbled streets, bougainvillea tumbling from metal balconies and bars on every corner make San Telmo feel like 19th century Paris, when the rich people living there fled with just the clothes they were wearing as yellow fever swept in, leaving their fully-furnished houses to be divided up into low rent tenements. There’s a small central raised square where couples tango before passing around their hat and a central market selling slabs of tortilla sliced from huge yellow potato-studded motherships made the night before.

San Telmo

The disappeared.

The white head scarves are now painted onto their route around the obelisk.

We were not sure if visiting the Remembrance Centre might be a form of dark tourism, peering at dimly lit attic spaces, freezing in winter and stifling in summer, where poor souls spent their final days before being anaesthetised and turfed like rubbish into the Rio de la Plata on so-called death flights. But then we came across the “mothers of plaza de mayo” walk in around the pyramid in front of the red house, the equivalent of the Houses of Parliament in the UK. They have done this every Thursday at 3.30pm since 1977. They wear white headscarves, and movingly, there are only three or so women left, in wheelchairs fronting a large crowd who walk slowly chanting the names of the 30,000 or so people who “disappeared”. The Remembrance Centre lies in the far West of BA, and was formerly one of over 750 clandestine detention, torture and extermination centres in Argentina between 1976-83 when the military dictatorship ruled. In addition Milai, the president in waiting, has denied the numbers of people involved, and his running mate, president, Victoria Villa Rruel, and presumably next Vice-president, is an outspoken apologist for the Junta. All good reasons to go and bear witness ourselves, I feel.

The March of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

Our flat’s an old warehouse.

Our flat is in a converted warehouse in Puerto Madero, on the east side of San Telmo. This area used to be the first port in BA, but fell into disuse for 90 years until cleaned-up and gentrified. Between us and the river Plata is a huge eco wetland that has been left to re-wild.

We see a Tiger Heron, and loads of birds we have yet to id.

A day trip to Uruguay

One day this week we crossed the Rio de la Plata, so-called because the Spanish enticed immigrants with the promise of silver = “Plata”, that no-one ever found. Reminiscent of a trip from Lymington to Yarmouth, but with customs, we’d been warned the food in Uruguay might be bland, but we stuck with spag Bol, and as always, it came good. Colonia had a chilled, laid back green leafy vibe that made us kick ourselves for not bringing our binocs because the birds were crazy in their variety. There really wasn’t much to do there after lunch, as we and pretty much all the day trippers on our ferry could be found in Colonia’s’ every nook and cranny lolling about on patches of grass, slabs of beach and benches in the park waiting for the 6 o’clock ferry back.

Another death defying day in paradise.

The only way to see Tigre, an area of hundreds of small islands a 30 minutes train ride north of central Buenos Aires, is by Kayak, a blog I found tells me, as you cannot walk between the islands. What I hadn’t bargained on was the kayaks being proper sea going ones with splash hoods and the stability of a three-legged giraffe. We set off with Adrianne and her assistant, a retired armed police officer, reassuring if we get mugged by gun-toting kayak robbers, and head straight into the main thoroughfare where the wash is huge and the chances of flipping 180 degrees feel high. I fear my fib to our guide that we know how to kayak will now lead to our deaths by drowning, and fess up so that I get a quick lesson in what to do if I capsize. To be fair we have pootled up and down Beaulieu river a few times, and even owned a blow up double kayak which I seem to recall went round in circles and ended up gathering mould by the side of the house. We paddle like maniacs across this M1 of rivers and are relieved to arrive in a series of much smaller, calmer tributaries. The places hidden in the greenery vary from stunning glasshouses to one roomed beach houses, all on stilts as they regularly flood. There’s a shopping barge that brings vital supples, a rubbish barge that takes your refuge hung from the end of the jetty, and it must be magical at night, although a mossie heaven no doubt.

The mesmerising effect of our boat’s wash on the reedbank

Tara for now

Well, this is over and out for this trip. Things I’ve learnt are – I really don’t need many clothes, even in cold weather, I can make do with a very limited repetoire, and wow does it make life easy. I have hardly any eyelashes left from the dreadful make up remover here. But they’ll grow back. I feel my pants should get some kind of medal having lasted this long and not being that saggy in the gusset – I think they even have another trip in them! I haven’t lost that many things since the last list, the most annoying is my headphone case, no doubt still languishing under the chair on a bus somewhere, and a second pair of sunglasses that lasted 24 hours – lucky I never spend much on them for that reason.

The things that have been life savers:

A phone with 5G. I actually don’t think we could have done this trip without one of us having access to google maps etc all of the time.
Squalling babies? Brazillian families who don’t stop talking at all on a 12 hour bus trip? Someone, somewhere, watching their videos on full volume? Noise cancelling headphones.
Ear plugs. There is not always another bedroom to retreat to when the snoring reaches 4 million decibels. Note that sentence has no subject.
Our fanny packs, as the yanks fondly call them. I fully attribute having one to not losing my phone and credit cards, and they are difficult if not impossible to pickpocket.
A charge free account like Starling. We discovered rather late in the day that using a debit card gave us a rate close to that on the black market.
Photocopies of our passports. You practically can’t breathe here without knowing your passport number, in fact people have been stupified that we couldn’t reel it off by heart.
A plug I bought Clive online that has three adapters that worked in Chile, and Argentina, but also has loads of inlets for USB’s and stuff.
A power pack. Great when everything’s dying, there are no plugs and I am at a vital point in my book/on netflix with god knows how many hours of limbo ahead.
Having US dollar bills in big denominations.
A magnifying mirror and tweezers, obviously.

So home we go, to the rain, cold, friends, and family, the last two of which I have really, really missed.

Puerto Madryn, Puerto Piramides, Southern right whales

Remember – be nice to each other.

November 15, 2023 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

A sign saying “”Ceda El Paso” (give way to penguins) with four penguins on it. — I’d love to steal this and put it on the corner of our road.

There’s a storm in Buenos Aires and no seats left in the departure lounge as all the flights are delayed, toddlers are going off like grenades left, right and centre, and the queue for the ladies loos is predictably gigantic. Eventually it’s clear that all our flights have been cancelled.

Team work prevails.

I wait for our luggage while Clive dives into the morass of people at check-in trying to get out of Buenos Aires. He is third in-line but unfortunately a German girl at the front wielded even better team work and her 12 ebullient compatriots appear with all of their luggage, ecstatic that she has nabbed the last of that evening’s remaining flights. There are no flights left until the day after tomorrow. Our final trip, to Puerto Madryn and the whale watching trip, might be the one that got away.

Will our brains explode at 2 am?

Eventually we are offered flights at 4am, to Trelew, half an hour’s drive from Madryn, which we accept. There are only $600 a night hotel rooms left in BA, so as we would be sleeping in the airport anyway, we figure we might as well go for it, although with some trepidation. Apart from rare events when we might stay awake until oooooh 2am, we never go to bed after midnight, and are generally tucked up and snoring by 11pm. We are genuinely scared that our brains might explode after 2am. Hence Clive’s “Remember to be nice to each other” as we make an uncomfortable camp for ourselves in Burger King, no doubt expecting me to bury my teeth into one of his carotid arteries at 3 am when he says something (he thinks is) innocuous.

A pod of dolphins passes by our window.

We eventually arrived in Puerto Madryn at 8am. I dreaded it being like another La Serena in Chile, blowing a hoolie up a gazillion mile long sand blasted beach with circling vultures. But it’s more Hove circa 1960, and getting back to self-catering is a joy, especially when we spot a pod of passing dolphins from the living room window.

After a day of recovering, we head for the Valdez Peninsula, to see some wildlife, especially whales. Our guide is at the extreme end of pessimistic, preparing us all for disappointment. He explains that the mothers are teaching their babies how to swim, to dive, and to feed, and they will be gone by next month, down South to the Antarctic. They spend a lot of time diving to feed on krill, tiny little prawns they sift through keratin curtains lining their mouths. Hence they aren’t seen at the surface much.

I am 100% prepared to see nothing at all.

The tail of a Southern Right Whale whale as she dives. — The beauty.

A Southern right whale coming very close to our boat - they are known to be curious and friendly. — The beauty.

I lost count of how many whales we saw – all Southern Right whales, all in possession of a 100 -200 tonne baby whale. They come to this bay near Puerto Piramides because it is shallow. This keeps them safe from Orcas, whose preferred method of hunting baby whales is for one orca to swim above the baby while another swims below it. The lower orca shoves the baby towards the surface while the other orca blocks its blow hole.

A very long stretch of beach with blue blue sky and blue blue sea and a line of female seals resting along the sea edge. — Caleta Valdes and seals. Not the best view of seals we’ve had tbh. This is where Orcas have been seen to hunt by deliberately strand themselves.

Puerto Piramides is a cool little village that reminds me of somewhere on a Greek island. We decide we’ll stay here when we return.

Elsewhere on the Valdes peninsula, which you reach via an isthmus near Puerto Madryn, is one of only two places in the world where Orcas have learnt to intentionally strand themselves to hunt the seals snoozing obliviously in the sun. The mothers have taught their children to do this, and interestingly the seals haven’t done the same and taught their broods to move away from the sea edge. Like lions, it’s the females who hunt, as the males are too big to be stealthy. The male only joins in if they need a bit of muscle, otherwise he holds back while looking after the babies.

Little armadillos, walking across my floor.

Although a rather flat and unexciting landscape, there’s a tremendous amount of wildlife here. After the whale watching we are as high as kites. As we get off the bus to see some seals, Clive says

“I feel lucky- I AM going to see an armadillo today”,

And Immediately, one scuttled past. They were much smaller and nippier than I expected, and not afraid of humans. I have a strong suspicion that their diet includes snippets of ham and cheese sandwiches nicked from the tourists in the tea house but our guide says they are there for the fresh water.

A long tailed meadow sparrow with orange breast, blue grey tinged wings. — A long tailed meadow sparrow spotted at Caleta Valdez.

A green and black speckled lizard called liolanus melanops. — A long tailed meadow sparrow spotted at Caleta Valdez.

Wales transplanted to Argentina.

A Welsh colony arrived here in the mid 1800s to escape the English yoke that banned the teaching and speaking of the Welsh language and religion. On a day we went to see yet more Magellan penguins at Punta Tombo, we popped in for a carb fest at a cafe in Gaiman, aka “Welsh tea”. Welsh is still spoken here, although I am not sure if that’s a first or second language. I would dearly love to tell you the waitress bowled up and said “”Helo, what’s occurring?” But she spoke Spanish, disappointingly.

A welsh tea - basically bread and butter, scones with jams (but no cream!!!) and cakes , cakes, cakes galore. Plus a brightly coloured knitted tea cosy centre stage, and a lady who seems to be laughing at me. — The old train station in Gaiman.

Cramming for a Spanish language test.

We are back in Buenos Aires and due for a Spanish language test this afternoon as we are going back to school. My overwhelming feeling is excitement that we have 19 days to explore this beautiful, interesting and sunny city. The weather is warm and sunny.

I am frantically cramming sentences that are way beyond my proper level as I don’t want to be in the beginners class, and as a class A crammer, a skill honed to polished perfection at uni 41 years ago, I am optimistic. Deseame suerta!

Patagonia, Penguins., Ushuaia

Nature, red in tooth and claw, and hairy legged.

November 8, 2023 thecuriousdoc Leave a comment

Whenever I’m in a bus or taxi here, waiting at a crossing, and a car pulls up alongside us, a lone driver patiently waiting for the lights to change, I am so jealous of them I want to wrench them out of the driving seat, jump in and drive, goodness knows where. My car is a slice of personal space, of autonomy, me-time. Here I am never further away from Clive than a King penguin and it’s baby. I don’t miss my garden at all, as it’s November and is probably under water; instead of pruning my roses, I tend Clive’s eyebrows. But boy, do I miss my car.

Since we’ve been in Patagonia, where ropes are strung between lamposts so you can cling on to them rather than be tossed rolling down the street like tumble weed, I have worn the same clothes for two weeks, maybe longer now – black action pants, t-shirt, snug, coat, thick socks, walking boots, woolly hat, gloves +/- thermals.

Man clinging to rope so he’s not blown away.

We stay for such short times in hotels I can’t face opening my suitcase, putting on make-up, taking it off, wearing jewellery, getting out my pj’s, moisturising, brushing my hair. My face is reptilian, wizened, dry and scaly from the wind and cold; my legs hairier than a baboons. I draw the line at not cleaning my teeth; even baboons have standards. It’s 90% liberating and 10% unhinging to be so free of any aesthetic concerns. Our waistlines, despite us being much fitter, are no thinner as our diet here, born of late night arrivals and early morning starts, centres around croissants, bread, crisps, chocolate, beer and fanta orange. I know “No friday night feeling!” is the complaint of some retirees, but the opposite can also be true – every day is a Friday.

We’ve gone feral.

King Penguins.

King penguins don’t care what I look or smell like. It is difficult, as we peer through our binocs off the coast of Terra del Fuego, not to attribute human feelings to them. A large wobbling ball of brown feathers shuffles alongside their smaller parent squawking up a storm, beak wide open, never more than 3 mm away, and as they gently peck him on top of his head to get him to give it a rest his head keeps popping back up, beak ever wider, squawks ever louder. A nice little metaphor for parenthood right there. They are 10 months old and in a few weeks will moult and be sea-bound, and on their own. Only around 60% of them will survive to breed. There will be about a weeks gap and then their parent will have a new pregnancy on the go. Brutal.

Most of the baby’s bulk is their feathers.

When they’re in the water they look more like seabirds than land animals.

Ushuaia.

Defies expectations.

I am always struck by the difference between my expectations of a place I’ve never seen and the reality, as they rarely match (Santiago, I’m looking at you.) I thought Ushuaia would be a cruise terminal with a few scattered tourist offices, restaurants and hotels, teetering on the end of the world like the bus in The Italian Job. It turns out it’s a vibrant, smart, port town that caters for skiers in the winter and cruises in the summer, with an alpine vibe, timbered restaurants, expensive adventure gear shops, weather that turns on a sixpence from blinding bright sunlight to sleeting snow, and a bone-chilling wind blowing up the Beagle Channel straight from the Antarctic.

Old and new- the wreck a reminder that this stretch of water is perilous.

Ear wigging.

Eavesdropped gossip on our journey down, which involved our fourth passage through border control between Chile and Argentina, is that everything in Ushuaia is fully booked. Not to be disheartened, we decided on arrival to walk down to the office and try our luck.

Perseverance pays off.

We strike gold, booking one of the last penguin viewing slots that probably hasn’t shown up on-line. The English couple in front of us booked this 3 months ago and are only here to pay, but a Frenchman who did this has discovered that because he didn’t pay on-line, he’s lost his place. We’re all trying to pay upfront in cash, as it costs a third as much than if you pay on-line in dollars, but even more if you book it through a tour operator. Pirator is the only place in Ushuaia that has a licence to let people set foot on the penguin island, and they are only allowed to take 80 people a day in 4 groups. We also have to pay for a separate boat trip on a different day, which Clive is very sniffy about but it turns out to be tremendous, with several birds we’ve never seen before, including a blackish cinclodes:

They only ever come onto the boat at the lighthouse, to drink the fresh water that lies in puddles on the deck. A rather non-descript looking bird, nevertheless it is almost extinct and can only be seen in the Beagle Strait and The Falklands.

The residing alpha male seal top, a hopeful contender, bottom.

Be afraid.

We watch as a Southern giant petrel drowns a seagull and then eviscerates it to feed on its innards. There’s something psychopathic about this – you expect to see birds fighting in the skies, perhaps to the death, but the petrel just sits on the bird in the sea until it drowns. It turns out drowning your prey isn’t unique to petrels, as orcas do it too, lying on top of a whale’s blow hole so it suffocates; then it eats only the lips and tongue. Nature, red in tooth and claw.*

The boat takes us really close to a colony of cormorants and seals. Seals are coming up to mating season, the time for a lot of argy bargy when settled alpha males fight off young upstarts hoping to steal some of his harem of 20 or so females.

The petrol after drowning a seagull and then eating it.

Magellanic cormorant – no blue eyes, but has orange colour around eyes.

New Forest mud maestros.

The next day we’re walking to the Emerald lake behind Ushuaia, yet another glacial lake and hobbit walk through dense, dark woods, river beds, gnarly paths, steep climbs, but with the added thrill of mud, mud, glorious mud. I feel we are mud maestros, having walked in it, through it, over it with kids, dogs and grandma’s for 25 years in The New Forest – we know mud. And so it proves. We can hear the cries of laughter as groups get stuck sinking thigh deep into the infamous bog as we take the firm left hand side by the river, gratifyingly overtaking them all. (No-one dies).

I don’t know if it’s the altitude we have been at and all the walks we’ve been doing but we fly up to the lake and back, and when we share a taxi back to Ushuaia with a Canadian he jokes that we beat everyone on our bus, most of them under 40. Except him. Competitive – moi?

When a man is tired of penguins, he’s tired of life.

Below – penguins oiling their feathers on Martello island.

A Gentoo penguin nesting on their egg/son it’s stone plinth.

I move out of this Magellan penguin’s way.

On our last day we visit Martello island to walk among Gentoo and Magellanic penguins, and one stray King penguin. It’s a peaceful place buffeted by a gentle breeze around 20 minutes by rib from Harberton Estancia, a sheep ranch owned by an English family for 150 years. The farm was the first estancia (ranch) built on Tierra del Fuego in 1886.

Photos above show the estancia loo, sensibly placed I feel, then a barn oozing history and dust, and lastly Clive by the rib that took us to Martello island.

No selfies and no coughing.

Our guide gives us strict instructions about staying 3 metres away from them, not poking them with a selfie stick or breathing near them. Avian flu is on the rise and they absolutely do not want it here. Some of the Magellan penguins didn’t get the memo though, and stand in our way on the path. There’s quite a few small children in our group and I am surprised by how good they are, even the toddlers tiptoing silently around the penguin who doesn’t seem bothered by us (they are very shortsighted out of the water).

Monogamous penguins.

The Magellan penguins are here year round and are monogamous on a yearly basis, and as they are currently breeding, we can see one or other parent down in their hole on the egg/s while the other is at sea feeding or oiling themselves down on the beach to stay sleak in the water.

Romance very much alive in penguin world.

The Gentoos arrive every October to mate. The 2-3 year old males display their worthiness by presenting single females with their best stone, rubbed smooth by the sea, to lay on their future nest. They lay their eggs on a pile of bricks as they think they’re on ice although they’re not; it’s touching to see their mate hovering near the nest, gently tucking in a stray feather here and a bit of fern there under their mates bottom to keep the eggs snug.

Next stop a Welsh colony – and some whale watching.

We are now heading North for some whale and dolphin watching in Puerto Madryn on the east coast, plus a spot of Welsh breakfast. It’s 25 degrees, apparently, which I just cannot imagine.

*Tennyson.

Patagonia, Torres del Paine

Glaciers galore

November 3, 2023 thecuriousdoc 2 Comments

The word for blue in Spanish is azul, which seems like the perfect word for the blue of the small glacial lake we’ve just climbed up to. On a scale of 1-10, 8 for me being Ben Nevis, this is maybe a 6. It’s only an hours climb, and quite steep. Our lovely airbnb host told us there’d be a 30 km bus ride and I’d imagined a number 59 bus taking us along a tarmacked road to the start of the walk; silly me – we took a bone rattling minibus crammed in with 14 others, along a rough old track alongside a river with trout making their way upstream, and mountains on all sides. It snowed intermittently, but we were lucky, and as we climbed through the forest the sun came out, and we made it to the top and the glacier. It turned out to be a good training walk for the big one we do a couple of days later.

Laguna Torre

With steep climbs requiring chains to pull yourself up, passing through gnarly old woods, dried out river beds, and paths laced with tree roots, it was quite the hands down hobbitiest walk I’ve ever done. A 24km round trip, culminating in another Glacier above a glacial lake lined at the edges with a lot of exhausted people, mostly a good 30-40 years younger than us – yay for the oldsters!

Stamp inflation

We have an amusing interlude in the Correa (post office), as it seems impossible to buy stamps anywhere else. The lady behind the counter sends us all , one by one, into a queue for stamps, where no one sits behind a counter, and she busily avoids our eyes as we eventually bond with the rest of the queue as we wonder why she can’t sell us stamps for our postcards, and how late Ng we’ll be waiting. Eventually another lady appears, the stamp lady, clearly, and shows us how to put the 12 stamps required per postcard costing £2.25 red rate onto each card. I end up buying 18 quids worth, due to my useless Spanish. Inflation has hit the stamps as well as the money.

Torres del Paine.

We left El Chalten and 8 hours later arrived by 2 buses in Puerto Natales, a very smart little town in Chile we’re using as a jumping off point into Torres del Paine National Park. In Spanish and a native language called Teheulche this means Towers of Blue.

There were several different aboriginal groups living in the area for thousands of years, both around here and down in Tierre del Fuego where we are going soon. Ferdinand Magellan called it “The land of fire” in the 16th century, because of the many bonfires lit by the natives seen on shore by the first European explorers.

Lakes are different colours due to the algae and minerals in the water.

Unbelievably, considering how cold it can get here, these people were often naked, even the babies, seemingly undisturbed by snow, rain, wind, whatever the weather brought. They used the fires to keep warm.

This mother and child were in a zoo when this picture was taken. The young girl died soon after it was taken.

One of the oldest photos of indigenous people.

In the 19th century they were almost completely wiped out by measles, brought by missionaries and settlers, to which they weren’t immune, but also by hunters, paid to find and kill them. Some were shipped off to zoos in Europe. The barbarity seems almost impossible to believe nowadays, done so that settlers could farm sheep on the land. The last laugh definitely goes to vegetarians, although it’s a somewhat hollow one.

This has a more in depth look at why they were painted in this way – https://commons.princeton.edu/patagonia/yaashree-h/

Packs of not very wild dogs roam the streets.

A ridiculously hairy, extremely friendly “wild” dog.

Puerto Natales has a lot of dogs, usually long haired ( because it is freezing here most of the time), and always friendly, that loll about everywhere in a state of stupor unless a motorbike or a car with a dog drives past when they suddenly all jump up and run at the car or bike, ibn a pack, barking like mad. The whole thing is hair raising to watch and no doubt leads to some horrible injuries to the dogs. These dogs look well fed and healthy, but aren’t owned by anyone, and have kennels on the side of the road and are clearly fed by someone, although who remains a mystery.

Mylodon Cave.

Another visit takes us to see a cave where they’ve found Mylodon bones, a long extinct giant sloth I’d heard of from Bruce Chatwin’s “In Patagonia”. It’s huge, very chilly, and not at all the safe, cosy hideaway I’d imagined.

The cave where they’ve dug up Mylodons’ fossilised remains.

Pisco Sours should have health warning.

Being back in Chile we are being very careful not to just pile into the nearest restaurant as prices are pretty much the same as in the UK, sometimes higher. However a Pisco Sour in the bar upstairs is only £4 and it is delicious. You should only have one though as they are very strong. So obviously I had two.

Musicians wearing traditional Chilean hat

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad

Route 62 to Little Karoo.

The Valley Of Ferns.

Knysna

Perilous pathway.

To Tides River.

Ignoring advice is our speciality.

Cape Agulhas.

The last few days in Hermanus.

But….

Ancient rock art.

A trip to the coast, and to the darkest depths of despair.

Searching for the Small Five.

Big Daddy Hides in Sea Mist

A ghost town.

Fish River Canyon.

School – but not as we know it.

The Lifeline clinic.

Harnas History

Survival tactics.

Silly things humans do.

The Volunteers.

Rhino tracking.

The Worst Jobs.

Farm work.

Filling holes.

Wooding.

The Best Jobs.

Lion feeding.

But first – shark news:-

The on/off wine tram in Franschhoek.

Visiting a township.

Yellow fever drives out the rich.

The disappeared.

Our flat’s an old warehouse.

A day trip to Uruguay

Another death defying day in paradise.

Tara for now

Team work prevails.

Will our brains explode at 2 am?

A pod of dolphins passes by our window.

I am 100% prepared to see nothing at all.

Little armadillos, walking across my floor.

Wales transplanted to Argentina.

Cramming for a Spanish language test.

King Penguins.

Ushuaia.

Defies expectations.

Ear wigging.

Perseverance pays off.

Be afraid.

New Forest mud maestros.

When a man is tired of penguins, he’s tired of life.

No selfies and no coughing.

Monogamous penguins.

Romance very much alive in penguin world.

Next stop a Welsh colony – and some whale watching.

Laguna Torre

Stamp inflation

Torres del Paine.

Packs of not very wild dogs roam the streets.

Mylodon Cave.

Pisco Sours should have health warning.

Whether I like it or not