Popped out for a last go at the solemn creepiness of the hotel grounds. Quite a lot of stars visible tonight, was quite chuffed in a strange way to recognise Orion above the hotel. If I were to wax poetic I could say it was like seeing an old friend 5000 (surely it must be more than that way down here, but I don't know) miles from home. But I won't, it was quite cool though. Once my eyes adjusted there were actually a hell of a lot of stars among the clouds, quite impressive in a way though I recognised nothing else.
Oh, I asked the taxi driver/tour operator/shop owner about the cows and horses in the streets when he drove me home tonight. He says they are owned by careless people and it's not "right" that they are wandering around loose. I asked if they were dangerous and he said no, it was just the dogs (seriously).
Anyway, it's 11:20 and I need to have a shower, eat the leftover pizza, pack and get to bed. Unless there is mobile coverage on the ferry, the next update will probably be on Sunday night or Monday with lashings of detail about the joys and/or sufferings of the ferry trip.
Showing posts with label chile puerto williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chile puerto williams. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Friday, 12 February 2010
The Bertie Wooster Syndrome
I nipped down to the hotel bar but it was deserted. I uttered a slightly tremulous "Hola" and Maurice emerged from somewhere a minute or two later. He very kindly served me with a beer, although it was a little awkward sat there on my own drinking it, even less relaxing than the other night when there were a few other people in the bar.
I stepped out to the front of the hotel for ten minutes afterwards. I had thought a couple of days ago this might be a good place to see the southern hemisphere stars, and immediately afterwards realised it was so cloudy here there was next to no chance. After I'd been out for a few minutes tonight some stars did appear through a gap in the clouds, my vision must have adjusted. They had a vaguely cross-like shape, but then any small number of stars probably do, so I doubt I actually saw the Southern Cross. This is probably the most rural location I will be in at night, although maybe some of the smaller towns in northern Chile will provide another opportunity.
It was very still and dark out there, despite the lights of the hotel behind me. No noise at all, and while it must have been like that at other times, I guess there were probably a few birds, especially during the day. It was tranquil and yet vaguely creepy at the same time, and I am so glad I never had to attempt the journey back from the town on foot after dark. (There's still tomorrow night, but if I can get something to eat at lunch, I will definitely not be going into town tomorrow evening.) In this respect, if in no other, I clearly resemble Bertie Wooster:
I stepped out to the front of the hotel for ten minutes afterwards. I had thought a couple of days ago this might be a good place to see the southern hemisphere stars, and immediately afterwards realised it was so cloudy here there was next to no chance. After I'd been out for a few minutes tonight some stars did appear through a gap in the clouds, my vision must have adjusted. They had a vaguely cross-like shape, but then any small number of stars probably do, so I doubt I actually saw the Southern Cross. This is probably the most rural location I will be in at night, although maybe some of the smaller towns in northern Chile will provide another opportunity.
It was very still and dark out there, despite the lights of the hotel behind me. No noise at all, and while it must have been like that at other times, I guess there were probably a few birds, especially during the day. It was tranquil and yet vaguely creepy at the same time, and I am so glad I never had to attempt the journey back from the town on foot after dark. (There's still tomorrow night, but if I can get something to eat at lunch, I will definitely not be going into town tomorrow evening.) In this respect, if in no other, I clearly resemble Bertie Wooster:
I don't know why it is, but there's something about the rural districts after dark that always has a rummy effect on me. In London I can stay out till all hours and come home with the milk without a tremor, but put me in the garden of a country house after the strength of the company has gone to roost and the place is shut up, and a sort of goose-fleshy feeling steals over me. The night wind stirs the tree-tops, twigs crack, bushes rustle, and before I know where I am, the morale has gone phut and I'm expecting the family ghost to come sneaking up behind me, making groaning noises. Dashed unpleasant, the whole thingI omit the final part of the quote as irrelevant and so as not to spoil anything for Rab, should he read this, as I believe he is reading the book this comes from right now.
Slightly sappy wafflings from Puerto Williams
It's 9:30pm. I left the laptop uploading some more photos and went down to the hotel library and just finished reading Savage in there. Quite interesting, obviously the fact that I'm reading it on here on the island where some of the events occurred added to the 'romance'. The laptop still hadn't finished, so I am writing this off-line to post later, hence my overly detailed note about the time.
Perhaps as a result of reading the book I am feeling quite meditative, so apologies if this is excessively sappy.
I will be a bit sorry to leave here. In a way it's a good job I did stay at this hotel rather than at a hostel in the town. The bike trips were, for me, an adventure in their small way, and I doubt I would have done that if I'd been staying elsewhere. I popped out to the front of the hotel before I came up here, no one was around and it's not quite dark yet and it was really quite solemn and impressive, the hotel grounds with the mountains in the background.
I perhaps also feel a bit uneasy about the fact that the already planned part of the trip, at least until I go to Easter Island in mid-March, is coming to an end. I have a hotel booked in Punta Arenas when I get back and a flight from there to Santiago, but nothing else. I perhaps should be looking into the onward part right now, but I think I am going to leave it until I am in Punta Arenas on Monday. Apart from maybe going to see the mosaic the guy I met in Puerto Williams did, I have nothing I desperately want to see there any more. I am sure I can book a hotel in Santiago at short notice if I want to stay there for a night or two, and depending on the flight times I may plan to get a bus straight out of there and stay the first night somewhere else. (Having had a very brief flick through the guide book, La Serena is a possible stop-over point. Perhaps unfortunately it's only 7h north of Santiago by bus, so the chances of a decent-ish overnight journey seem limited, if I do go there and don't spend a night in Santiago first I would either be hanging around at the bus station til midnight-ish and/or getting to La Serena in the middle of the night. But this is all very speculative right now.)
I vaguely plan to be up early tomorrow to make the most of the last day here, although whether I can fight my disinclination to get up early remains to be seen. Depending on how exhausted I am after the ferry trip, my vague plan on arriving in Punta Arenas is to get to the hotel, maybe have a shower, then go out and get something to eat and a few drinks, perhaps in Cafe Pub 1900. It will be Sunday night but if the ferry gets in at 9pm I might hope to be there by 11pm and the culture here is quite late-night, even on a Sunday I think. I think it will be interesting to be returning to civilisation, so to speak. :-)
Perhaps as a result of reading the book I am feeling quite meditative, so apologies if this is excessively sappy.
I will be a bit sorry to leave here. In a way it's a good job I did stay at this hotel rather than at a hostel in the town. The bike trips were, for me, an adventure in their small way, and I doubt I would have done that if I'd been staying elsewhere. I popped out to the front of the hotel before I came up here, no one was around and it's not quite dark yet and it was really quite solemn and impressive, the hotel grounds with the mountains in the background.
I perhaps also feel a bit uneasy about the fact that the already planned part of the trip, at least until I go to Easter Island in mid-March, is coming to an end. I have a hotel booked in Punta Arenas when I get back and a flight from there to Santiago, but nothing else. I perhaps should be looking into the onward part right now, but I think I am going to leave it until I am in Punta Arenas on Monday. Apart from maybe going to see the mosaic the guy I met in Puerto Williams did, I have nothing I desperately want to see there any more. I am sure I can book a hotel in Santiago at short notice if I want to stay there for a night or two, and depending on the flight times I may plan to get a bus straight out of there and stay the first night somewhere else. (Having had a very brief flick through the guide book, La Serena is a possible stop-over point. Perhaps unfortunately it's only 7h north of Santiago by bus, so the chances of a decent-ish overnight journey seem limited, if I do go there and don't spend a night in Santiago first I would either be hanging around at the bus station til midnight-ish and/or getting to La Serena in the middle of the night. But this is all very speculative right now.)
I vaguely plan to be up early tomorrow to make the most of the last day here, although whether I can fight my disinclination to get up early remains to be seen. Depending on how exhausted I am after the ferry trip, my vague plan on arriving in Punta Arenas is to get to the hotel, maybe have a shower, then go out and get something to eat and a few drinks, perhaps in Cafe Pub 1900. It will be Sunday night but if the ferry gets in at 9pm I might hope to be there by 11pm and the culture here is quite late-night, even on a Sunday I think. I think it will be interesting to be returning to civilisation, so to speak. :-)
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Wasting time
I got up about 11 and walked into town for lunch. After that I walked back towards the hotel and was going to wander up what I believed, from the sign, to be the access to the first bit of that trail round the island I mentioned the other day. I then decided I'd go back to the hotel and get a bike and go up on that instead. So I did, although the walk back was only another 800m it seemed to take forever.
It was very uphill along that road and I was knackered almost immediately. I clearly still haven't recovered from yesterday. (The "billowy portions", as I believe PG Wodehouse called them, were particularly painful from the word go, even when I was outside the hotel.) I kept going past small groups of people who were obviously planning to walk along that trail. Eventually I got to the top of the road, where there was a sort of water-collection plant, and an obviously foot-only steep-ish path going upwards through some trees. So I turned round and came back.
And I managed to have a minor accident on the way down. I found myself going down a steepish hill, somehow locked the back wheel, tried to steer and found myself plowing into some fortunately relatively soft bushes at the side of the road. There was an element of that "time slowing down as you have an accident" quality. All things considered it could have been a lot worse. I laughed my stupid head off once I'd stood up and found I was essentially intact. My glasses had come off but I found them and they hadn't even been broken. Considering I could have ended up sliding across the gravelly, rocky surface of the road or colliding with a tree I think I got off lightly. In hindsight I half suspect that if I hadn't been trying to brake I would have got away with it, but who knows. The chain had come off, but being the mechanical genius I am I managed to sort that out.
A bit further down I was going moderately fast but a little bit more under control down another hill when a guy walking up waved at me to stop. I managed to stop but it was nearly a repeat of the same incident (I would have been fine if I hadn't needed to stop for him, I think), I ended up sort of half-skidding the bike round as I stopped in what might have looked like an annoyingly cool way but was actually just my desperate attempt to halt under some kind of control in his vicinity. He wanted to know (in Spanish, then we switched to English) if this was the way to somewhere I'd never heard of. I told him there was a water treatment kind of plant at the top and some sort of trail up into the hills and that either satisfied him or he decided I wasn't going to be any more use to pretended to be satisfied. I feel slightly bad about us having to revert to English, but in my defence I imagine my pulse was racing somewhat after the accident and the struggle to stop to talk to him, which would hardly be conducive to expressing myself clearly in a foreign language.
I got back to the hotel having only been out for about an hour. GPS says I did 5.8km with a max speed of 38.7km/h, the latter of which sounds suspiciously the same as it said yesterday, so I am not sure I trust that. But 5.8km is vaguely plausible anyway.
So I was back at the hotel by about 4:15pm and it's a lovely day outside and I've been here since, reading a bit and wolfing down the chocolate I had put by in reserve for the ferry trip (so I will have to buy some more tomorrow). It feels a bit like I'm wasting the day, but I just can't/couldn't face either going back out on a bike (not because of the accident, just because I'm obviously not physically up to it today, as I was feeling knackered almost as soon as I started earlier) or walking back up that road to the the water collection plant place and climbing up that foot-only trail. I may do that tomorrow, although no doubt the weather will suck then. As I say, it feels like I'm wasting time and the nice weather, but sod it. I keep dithering about maybe going back out but I'm not going out and it's 6:30pm now and it's just a little bit too late, although it doesn't really get dark until about 10pm.
I'm not planning on going out tonight, I will stay in the hotel, I've already eaten for the day and as I said it wasn't enormously fun being out last night. I may go down to the hotel bar and have a couple of drinks later, I don't know, but nothing major. This probably adds a bit more to the feeling of wasting the day, but as I say, sod it.
I have to go into town tomorrow morning/midday-ish to buy some replacement chocolate and to have lunch, because I don't plan to be out tomorrow night as I have to be up early for the ferry on Saturday, so I won't be able to have dinner in town. Weather permitting I think I might then come back to the hotel to drop the chocolate off and then try walking up that bit I cycled up today and higher.
I don't think I'm going to do the tour the 'taxi' driver told me about last night. It is slightly tempting but my gut feeling says I'm better off even just dithering around in a vaguely outdoorsy way like I am today. I've seen a reasonable amount of scenery and if I do get anywhere high-ish on that walk tomorrow I will see more, and I doubt the rest of the island is so enormously different.
It was very uphill along that road and I was knackered almost immediately. I clearly still haven't recovered from yesterday. (The "billowy portions", as I believe PG Wodehouse called them, were particularly painful from the word go, even when I was outside the hotel.) I kept going past small groups of people who were obviously planning to walk along that trail. Eventually I got to the top of the road, where there was a sort of water-collection plant, and an obviously foot-only steep-ish path going upwards through some trees. So I turned round and came back.
And I managed to have a minor accident on the way down. I found myself going down a steepish hill, somehow locked the back wheel, tried to steer and found myself plowing into some fortunately relatively soft bushes at the side of the road. There was an element of that "time slowing down as you have an accident" quality. All things considered it could have been a lot worse. I laughed my stupid head off once I'd stood up and found I was essentially intact. My glasses had come off but I found them and they hadn't even been broken. Considering I could have ended up sliding across the gravelly, rocky surface of the road or colliding with a tree I think I got off lightly. In hindsight I half suspect that if I hadn't been trying to brake I would have got away with it, but who knows. The chain had come off, but being the mechanical genius I am I managed to sort that out.
A bit further down I was going moderately fast but a little bit more under control down another hill when a guy walking up waved at me to stop. I managed to stop but it was nearly a repeat of the same incident (I would have been fine if I hadn't needed to stop for him, I think), I ended up sort of half-skidding the bike round as I stopped in what might have looked like an annoyingly cool way but was actually just my desperate attempt to halt under some kind of control in his vicinity. He wanted to know (in Spanish, then we switched to English) if this was the way to somewhere I'd never heard of. I told him there was a water treatment kind of plant at the top and some sort of trail up into the hills and that either satisfied him or he decided I wasn't going to be any more use to pretended to be satisfied. I feel slightly bad about us having to revert to English, but in my defence I imagine my pulse was racing somewhat after the accident and the struggle to stop to talk to him, which would hardly be conducive to expressing myself clearly in a foreign language.
I got back to the hotel having only been out for about an hour. GPS says I did 5.8km with a max speed of 38.7km/h, the latter of which sounds suspiciously the same as it said yesterday, so I am not sure I trust that. But 5.8km is vaguely plausible anyway.
So I was back at the hotel by about 4:15pm and it's a lovely day outside and I've been here since, reading a bit and wolfing down the chocolate I had put by in reserve for the ferry trip (so I will have to buy some more tomorrow). It feels a bit like I'm wasting the day, but I just can't/couldn't face either going back out on a bike (not because of the accident, just because I'm obviously not physically up to it today, as I was feeling knackered almost as soon as I started earlier) or walking back up that road to the the water collection plant place and climbing up that foot-only trail. I may do that tomorrow, although no doubt the weather will suck then. As I say, it feels like I'm wasting time and the nice weather, but sod it. I keep dithering about maybe going back out but I'm not going out and it's 6:30pm now and it's just a little bit too late, although it doesn't really get dark until about 10pm.
I'm not planning on going out tonight, I will stay in the hotel, I've already eaten for the day and as I said it wasn't enormously fun being out last night. I may go down to the hotel bar and have a couple of drinks later, I don't know, but nothing major. This probably adds a bit more to the feeling of wasting the day, but as I say, sod it.
I have to go into town tomorrow morning/midday-ish to buy some replacement chocolate and to have lunch, because I don't plan to be out tomorrow night as I have to be up early for the ferry on Saturday, so I won't be able to have dinner in town. Weather permitting I think I might then come back to the hotel to drop the chocolate off and then try walking up that bit I cycled up today and higher.
I don't think I'm going to do the tour the 'taxi' driver told me about last night. It is slightly tempting but my gut feeling says I'm better off even just dithering around in a vaguely outdoorsy way like I am today. I've seen a reasonable amount of scenery and if I do get anywhere high-ish on that walk tomorrow I will see more, and I doubt the rest of the island is so enormously different.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Safe and sound
The bar didn't get any busier and the sign outside says they shut at 11pm, although that may refer to the restaurant aspect. When I left at about 10:30-ish there was me, an obviously local guy (with a laptop) and a girl who looked about 16 (but probably a bit older, and who I might guess was staying at the associated hostel) also sat there with a netbook, both on their own. I asked the guy to call me a taxi, he did but the line was busy, so he pointed me at the mini-market across the street and said Jose already knew about me. I walked in and found about five people having a chat round the till, but I said I wanted to go to the Lakutaia hotel and one guy said sure, just a minute. I bought some coke while I was there and then he and another guy took me outside to a minibus and drove me over here.
They said as we were walking to the bus it was dangerous to walk, while we were in the bus I asked again (the first conversation got cut off just as I said "really?", due to them opening doors and stuff) and they said it wasn't. So who knows. But I must say the road looked pretty desolate even from inside the minibus with the headlights on. Regardless of any considerations of walking it, if I'd been driven through that area I'd have though "wow, this is desolate". They only charged me CLP2,000 and I didn't give them a tip (I had no change, I apologised and they said not to worry). The hotel bar was open with maybe 5-10 people in when I got back so I quickly nipped up to the room to drop off my bottle of coke and back to the bar. They served me - I didn't pay there and then, it's on my bill so no doubt it will be insanely expensive - but as I anticipated it was not very pleasant in there, extremely soulless although less dead than El Resto del Sur in the purely numerical sense that there were more people. I just had the one beer in there, it was more to see what it was like than because I desperately wanted one.
The guys in the bar were pretty middle aged and a lot had laptops. I still don't think I fit in here - don't get me wrong, this is a pretty big hotel, very spacious and quite a lot of rooms, it's not like not fitting in at some backpacker hostel full of 18 years olds with a raucous communal area which I'm terrified to set foot in because I'm just not that social and twice everyone else's age combined - but at least I don't fit in because of my lifestyle rather than my age. :-)
I am eating the remains of my lunch pizza as I write this, which comes as no surprise to me and probably not to anyone else who might read this. I am also smearing grease on the netbook keyboard, but I hope not too badly.
Plans for tomorrow are still as outlined earlier, depending on when I get up - see if I can hire a bike, otherwise will try the first hour or two of that walk. I may or may not bother to go into town again tomorrow, although if I do fancy a beer I think that El Resto del Sur (or maybe some other bar in town if I find one, I note there is a museum somewhere in town which I will visit at some point and finding that may expand my knowledge of the town a bit) will be the venue of choice rather than the hotel bar. No point drinking if it's not fun and to be honest at the hotel bar it isn't. I'd do better from a health and fun perspective having a quiet night in with some internet porn. :-)
They said as we were walking to the bus it was dangerous to walk, while we were in the bus I asked again (the first conversation got cut off just as I said "really?", due to them opening doors and stuff) and they said it wasn't. So who knows. But I must say the road looked pretty desolate even from inside the minibus with the headlights on. Regardless of any considerations of walking it, if I'd been driven through that area I'd have though "wow, this is desolate". They only charged me CLP2,000 and I didn't give them a tip (I had no change, I apologised and they said not to worry). The hotel bar was open with maybe 5-10 people in when I got back so I quickly nipped up to the room to drop off my bottle of coke and back to the bar. They served me - I didn't pay there and then, it's on my bill so no doubt it will be insanely expensive - but as I anticipated it was not very pleasant in there, extremely soulless although less dead than El Resto del Sur in the purely numerical sense that there were more people. I just had the one beer in there, it was more to see what it was like than because I desperately wanted one.
The guys in the bar were pretty middle aged and a lot had laptops. I still don't think I fit in here - don't get me wrong, this is a pretty big hotel, very spacious and quite a lot of rooms, it's not like not fitting in at some backpacker hostel full of 18 years olds with a raucous communal area which I'm terrified to set foot in because I'm just not that social and twice everyone else's age combined - but at least I don't fit in because of my lifestyle rather than my age. :-)
I am eating the remains of my lunch pizza as I write this, which comes as no surprise to me and probably not to anyone else who might read this. I am also smearing grease on the netbook keyboard, but I hope not too badly.
Plans for tomorrow are still as outlined earlier, depending on when I get up - see if I can hire a bike, otherwise will try the first hour or two of that walk. I may or may not bother to go into town again tomorrow, although if I do fancy a beer I think that El Resto del Sur (or maybe some other bar in town if I find one, I note there is a museum somewhere in town which I will visit at some point and finding that may expand my knowledge of the town a bit) will be the venue of choice rather than the hotel bar. No point drinking if it's not fun and to be honest at the hotel bar it isn't. I'd do better from a health and fun perspective having a quiet night in with some internet porn. :-)
Monday, 25 January 2010
Hotel in Puerto Williams sorted
New photos are still here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/45804996@N03/
Just got an e-mail back from the manager there, so that was pretty quick. He says it's all OK, I will be happier when I've seen it on my electronic credit card statement but still. Just the flight payment to sort out and I almost home free with regard to Puerto Williams.
Just got an e-mail back from the manager there, so that was pretty quick. He says it's all OK, I will be happier when I've seen it on my electronic credit card statement but still. Just the flight payment to sort out and I almost home free with regard to Puerto Williams.
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