Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig. The plan.

Probably our most ambitious and certainly our most meticulously planned venture so far. We are flying 8000 miles South West to Argentina and Chile with a special focus on the Welsh Colony in Patagonia. The whole undertaking will be completed by public transport. As a bald list it looks like this;

Home to Spalding station bus, Spalding to Heathrow train, Heathrow to Rome fly, Rome to BuenosAires fly, BuenosAires to El Calafate fly, El Calafate to Rio Gallegos bus, Rio Gallegos to Puerto Madryn bus, Puerto Madryn to Esquel bus, Esquel to Bariloche bus, Bariloche to Puerto Varas bus, Puerto Varas to Puerto Montt bus, Puerto Montt to Santiago fly, Santiago to Mendoza bus, Mendoza to BuenosAires fly, BuenosAires to Rome fly, Rome to London City Airport fly, London City Airport to Spalding train and finally the old bus pass home again.

     

In 1964 when I was 15 years old I learnt about the Welsh "colonisation" of Patagonia in a Geography lesson at my school in North Wales. I was intrigued and decided that I was going to visit this distant part of the world. Two significant things happened in 1965. Firstly it was the centenary of the Welsh landing in Puerto Madryn on the ship Mimosa and my favourite Uncle, George, gave me a leather passport holder for my 16th birthday with the words "You'll need one of these to get to Patagonia". Well I still own it today and at last, 50 years on we are both going to fulfil that ambition. However in the rest of these blogs when I write we, I am referring to my dear Helen who, under the circumstances has bravely agreed to share this experience.

And this is that passport wallet. It must have done a few hundred border crossings but never one in South America let alone Patagonia.

Look again at the map of Argentina and I shall try to add some detail of the trip. A number of the places we are visiting are not mentioned on this map so I shall describe their location. We fly into Buenos Aires where we have an apartment for a few days and from here we intend to visit Uruguay before flying down to El Calafate. Look for Rio Gallegos near the southern tip then go directly west to the Chilean border and you are about at El Calafate. This is the location of the famous calfing glacier Perito Moreno and gives access to the Torres del Paine National Park, just to the north is the Fitzroy Range. The next part of the journey involves going east to Rio Gallegos then following the Atlantic coast north up to Puerto Madryn and the westerly Welsh settlements. If you find the Golfo San Matrias the River Chubut Estuary is just south of the little peninsular (Valdes). Some of the Welsh migrated east following the valley towards the Andes Range. there they founded the town of Esquel. We shall follow them. Next we head north in the foothills of the Andes to the Lake District area, centring on Bariloche where we are making our base for a few days. After this we "hop" over the mountains to the Chilean coast and stay near Puerto Montt which gives us the chance to explore the rugged Pacific coastline. Back on a plane and north to Santiago where we have an apartment booked.  We now start on the run for home which involves a bus trip back over the Andes  ( going round Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside the Himalayas) to Mendoza. Overnight there followed by a flight back to BuenosAires and,eventually home. Simples. A special hello to Adrianne.

Here's hoping for a bright Icelandic night Mon 23rd Nov

Morning brings us darkness, rain and wind. Lots of the latter. Limited indoor activities would seem to be the order of the day. Hot spring bathing is a quintessential Icelandic experience and an outdoor all weather pleasure. We could do this by booking a trip to the Blue Lagoon at the cost of  £50 each and that's just the start. All activities come at an extra charge. Or we could walk to the local swimming pool which has a steam room and two hot massage pools. The cost of this including costume and towel hire is £3.50 each. Guess what we did? It was great, the outdoor hot pools were 42°C and 38 respectively, the indoor pool clear for length swimming and the steam room almost too hot.
After the physical it was time for a bit of spiritual so we headed next to the Hallgrimskirkja church. This building stands on the top of a hill in the centre of Reykjavik.  It dominates the city, though not the Cathedral which is older and next to the parliament building in the heart of the old quarter. Let's have a look at it.

The dominant west front looks somewhat like an Art Deco Ziggurat and the inside Puritan plain with gothic overtones.  The competition for its design was won by Guojon Samuel in1937. He was inspired by the formation of basalt rocks in cooling larva. The commission also wanted the tower to conceal the radio mast for the country's infant national radio service. Samuel was responsible for most of Iceland's significant buildings in the first half of the 20th century. The building wasn't started until 1947 and the nave not consecrated until 1989. Internal decoration is Scandinavian minimal. The 5750 pipe organ is the concession to opulence. 

The other attraction is the trip up to the top of the tower. It costs 800 krona (£4) a head to go up. Fortunately this can be done by lift but as by now walking against the wind on the ground is nearly impossible, we wondered what it might be like at the top. The answer was very, very windy but Iceland is well used to this and designs to ameliorate it. Look at the views. The lift Incidently is up and down all day. A nice little earner at  £24 per ascent. 

See if you can spot the internal airport built by the British in WW2, the Harpa and the cold water tanks under a huge dome. All of Reykjavik is provided with Geothermally produced hot water. This takes care of all central heating and domestic hot water. 

Time for a late lunch some last shopping and rendezvous with our shuttle bus to the airport. The storm? Apart from not being allowed on the tarmac we weren't really aware of it and we arrived on time to a calm Gatwick. 

Here's hoping for a bright Icelandic night Sun 22 Nov

We woke up tired and a rather brisk walk down to our meeting for the free city walk didn't make things any better. The "free" city walk is rated #1 attraction by the contributors to Trip Adviser. Martinn, the instigator, gets rave reviews. Let's see if he is as good as he is rated.

He is! He's is a very engaging guy His talk is authoritative, candid, objective, but above all entertaining. This fellow could make a living in stand up. We walk around the centre of Reykjavik, standing at various sites where he goes into the history, culture and anecdotes about the immediate area but also he discusses  broader topics on Iceland. For example education, law and order, recent economic activities, the police  (lack of them ) impact of tourism, elves, attitudes like gender equality and many others. As I write this it sounds like it could be a little dry and dull. Just the opposite as his audience is so engaged. He sent us all an email with tips and recommendations.  This proved to be far and away the best online help you could ask for. If you want to learn more about the walk or Iceland in general, Google "Extras -Reykjavik City WalkRekyjavik City Walk".

Some pictures on and around the walk.

The rock that can't be moved, Elfin influence!

That took us up to and past lunch so we called in at the Cafe Paris for a repas.

After lunch it's time for a little retail therapy so we head off to the famous flea market. This is primarily aimed at local residents and sells local food products and second hand clothing and accessories. There are also tourist stalls with the inevitable woollies. Lundi is Icelandic for puffin. Throughout the world people love these cute little birds with the colourful beaks. In Iceland they eat them and here you can see the truth. Zoom the photo to see the oven ready little fella. Bless! as they say on Facebook when they see distressed animals.

Next we head off to the conference centre /concert hall called Harpa. This iconic waterfront building somewhat reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House and the Oslo Opera House was opened in May 2011. As with Oslo, the iceberg reference is inescapable and the glass cladding to the exterior really gives you the impression of ice and snow. It is equally impressive inside with a very light atrium feel. Another outstanding example of modern architecture at its best.

And at night reflected in the harbour water.

From here we walked back towards the hotel down the main shopping street in Iceland. It has some pretty swish shops catering for the cruise ship customer as well as us Easyjetters. The rain is now coming down hard and the wind is picking up. There is a storm predicted for tomorrow evening when we are hoping to fly home. Some people have been talking about extended holiday. 

Here's hoping for a bright Icelandic night Sat 21st Nov

Up at 7.30 am, down to a decent continental breakfast including some very tasty pickled herring and outside ready for our transport at 8.30. It's still pitch dark.

We have booked the Golden Circle tour. The trip is named after the Gullfoss  (means golden waterfall, cf. the name Force for a waterfall in NE England with Foss here) however I am getting ahead of myself. The first place we will look at is the reason why Iceland exists, the collision of two tectonic plates. The North American and Eurasian plates headbutt here. The result is volcanoes, earthquakes and Geothermal activity. We are generally used to looking at landscapes that are the result of fluvial activity, so we see v shaped valleys, rounded stones and gentle curves. Contrast that with what we see, fractured sharp rocks, straight lines with water pooling. This is a rift valley with about three and a half miles between the plates. No wonder it is so alien to us and often described as lunar.

It has taken an hour to reach our first sight of the rift valley. Now about 9.30 and the sun still isn't up. It, like me seems to rise with great reluctance. 

 It's on its way. The island you can see in the lake is a volcano cone. We are about 400 metres above sea and look at the weather. All the permanent human habitation on the Island is below 300m. Iceland sits between the 64th and 66th parallels. The Artic circle is 66 and a third parallel.

At last the sun breaks through. Today is going to be beautiful weather. We are very lucky.

Here I hope you can see the kind of landscape that  I was describing. We are standing on the edge of the North American tectonic plate and looking across the rift valley. You might be able to make out some buildings in the middle distance.  A chapel and about three houses. This is the old Althing (parliament) on the original 930 site. It's now in Reykjavik.

Here we are on the other side of the valley. We are heading on next to a Geothermal site with the original geyser that gave the name to all others.

There she blows!

It reaches the height of about 30 metres. On now to the Gullfoss.  This is a two step waterfall on a river which is glacial melt water. This is why it is much more impressive in the summer than the winter. 

It is pretty impressive however when harnessed in ice as the Icelanders put it. 

So we move on to another waterfall, this one called Faxifoss 

As you can see the sun is off for an early night. It takes at least another half an hour before we see this view. 

We get back to the hotel at about 5.30 just time for a short break and food before we have to leave for the Northern lights trip. Always tenuous at best, this trip,a bit like whale watching only even less predictable. This night proved to be very frustrating as we moved from place to place with no luck. In fact we repeated the exact circuit that we had done earlier in the day and didn't get back till 2.30 am. What did we actually see? Well......

This is not what we actually saw. It was more like this. 

We did actually see the lights but they were a faint green rim in the sky with a slightly brighter lump. They only lasted a few minutes and then disappeared. One clearly needs a more sophisticated  camera than my tablet to get any image. I gather most of the pictures that you see are in fact photoshot. I'm not sure it was worth the seven hours  investment of time.  Still, we can tell the grandchildren .........

I would like to offer you a selection of photos in a gallery taken by Helen and me with my bridge camera which gives you sharper focus and much greater flexibility. 

The sun is high enough to light the mountain range where the glacial water comes from.

The double step of the Gullfoss.

Rainbow visible in the water vapour from the falls.

A mini geyser bubbling away.

Is my tiny hand frozen in swan lake? (spotted and snapped by Helen)

Faxifoss and the last of the afternoon sun.

The salmon ladder made in 1966.

A cheeky town dwelling fieldfare.

There is also something organically insectivorous about this building

The buildings are the old Althing, Icelandic parliament'

Sun nearly up

At last some bright light, but hardly any heat.

Here's hoping for a bright Icelandic night Friday 20th November

It's further to Iceland than you think. Gatwick to Keflavik Airport is a three hour five minutes flight. I thought that you could pretty well get to Greenland in that time. The transfer from Keflavik to Reykjavik takes an hour and a quarter (I thought that would have taken you across Iceland and off the other side). Add to that the three hours Spalding to Gatwick drive and it was becoming rather a long day.

After twelve hours travelling we arrived at the Cabin Hotel. I had read that the rooms are rather small and that those facing the ocean were the best. It is always worth asking for an upgrade, so I did. What I didn't expect was to be upgraded to another hotel, much better location in central Reykjavik and only just opened with bigger rooms. Not only that the manager paid for our taxi ride. He really must have wanted rid of us! He also ensured that the various trip pick ups were informed.

Have a look at part of our room. This is beauty, the beast took the picture.

I have been reading Bruce Chatwin's book In Patagonia.  He was a wonderful observer and his descriptive style sans pareil. Fact and fiction also seem to swim along quite freely so maybe we have something in common. I am going to try to work on my descriptive writing, without sliding over into pretentiousness, I hope. See if you notice any difference. We are looking forward to a busy day tomorrow. 8.30 am we embark on the famous Golden Circle tour, getting back at 16.30 then at 19.30 we we leave on the "Mystery Northern Lights" tour. I think the mystery is whether or not we will see the elusive lights. Disney would have had it better organised than this.  He would have put the lights there to stay. See how we actually get on tomorrow.

If you are coming from Facebook, here is the photo

Here's hoping for a bright Icelandic night. Background and the plan

                                     

Iceland, whose official name is Lydhveldidh Island , was settled by Norweign and Celtic (Scottish and Irish) immigrants in the late 9th and 10th centuries AD. It stands in the North Atlantic Ocean just south of the Artic circle.  The island is volcanic, with only 20% of the land habitable and straddles the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. Geothermal energy is one of its primary natural resources and the contrast of Ice and Fire ever present.

Every pub quizzer should know that Iceland boasts the world's oldest functioning legislative assembly, The Althing founded in 930 AD. The country remained independent for over 300 years, it was subsequently ruled by first Norway and then Denmark. Limited home rule was granted by Denmark in 1874. Full independence as a Republic was eventually gained again in 1944.
Fallout from the Askja volcano devastated the economy in 1875 resulting in wide spread famine and, over the next 25 years, 20% of the population emigrating mainly to Canada or USA.

It is, of course now a prosperous state which scores highly on world ratings for such things as literacy, longevity, social cohesion and income. It also had the balls to gaol errant bankers after the 2008 crash  (instead of blaming the Labour Party!).

                                 
Above and below you can see the Northern lights and this is what we are really hoping to see on our visit which starts on Friday 20th November.
                                 

Along with the Northern lights we are hoping to visit some of the famous sites like erupting volcanoes and umm........ isolated farmhouses.

I shall be publishing the blog itself between 21-24 November and you can read it by typing nigelduce.blogspot into your browser bar.