In Patagonia

The title of this entry pays tribute to the wonderful book 'In Patagonia' by Bruce Chatwin, a great travel book, written in 1975 after a 6 month tour of this corner of South America. Chatwin descibes brilliantly the Patagonian way of life, from dour exciled Welsh miners to gaucho ranchers to American outlaws and Tierra del Fuegan Indians - a stunning read. I read it 17 years ago and have been fascintated with the place ever since, and this is my first visit. I have also been a loyal purchaser of the outdoor clothing, from the US manufacturer; Patagonia, whose logo was inspired by the jagged backdrop of the Patagonian Andes. The founder of the company Yvon Chouinard has also been a constant inspiration to me throughout my career.

We are here in Punta Arenas (the gateway to Chilean Patagonia!) for a week, it is surprisingly cold and very windy. There is a stunning view from the 6th floor bar of our hotel looking out of the Magellan Straights. Not a piece of water I would ever want to navigate, the conditions are benign at the moment and the cruise ships and tankers that I can see from the roof are struggling to maintain any sort of straight course, I cannot imagine what they would be like in stormy weather.

The town has a real wild, last frontier feel to it, gorgeous Spanish Colonial architecture fused with communist grey government buildings – sort of Bonanza meets Milton Keynes. It is claimed to be the most southerly city in the world and with the wind and the cold it certainly feels it.

The thing to do here other than photograph penguins, is to kiss the toe of the Patagonian Indian who is sculpted into the base of the the Ferdinand Magellan statue, I am trying to avoid picking up any germs at the moment so I opted for rubbing it instead – as with all these types of statues, they are meant to bring good luck or everlasting fertility or something.
All our food and equipment has arrived, but as it is a weekend we cannot get access to it until Monday. We will have to hire a truck and a small warehouse to organise all our equipment, the packing of the sledges will take us at least 2 days. So we have some time to recuperate from the long flight and late night last night, as we stayed up late to greet Clare as she arrived at the airport.

On landing yesterday, we saw the huge Russian Ilyusian jet on the runway that will take us and all our equipment onto the Antarctic continent next week, the flight will last about 4.5 hours and is reputed to be very exciting.