Compulsory sightseeing

"Stuttgart is a charming town, clean and bright, a smaller Dresden. It has the additional attraction of containing little that one need to go out of one’s way to see: a medium-sized picture gallery, a small museum of antiquities, and half a palace, and you are through with the entire thing and can enjoy yourself." -- Jerome K Jerome, Three Men On The Bummel

Southern Chile appears to lack Stuttgart's charm in this regard. On consulting the guide book earlier, I was frankly irked to discover the existence of the Torres del Paine national park. It is apparently stunning, something of a 'you cannot go to this area and not see it' deal. However, it is also a right bugger.

It's not exactly my cup of tea; the guide book continually rambles on (no pun intended) about camping and eight-day hikes, not to mention quoting an opinion that you need to spend at least three weeks in the place to see it properly. Just getting to the place is a hassle; details are somewhat confusing, but it looks like you have to go from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales (a 4h bus journey), then get another bus on from Puerto Natales. Of course, the park being a curiously precise 242,242 hectares in size, merely getting from the 'main entrance' to whichever of the overpriced luxury hotels the non-camper chooses to stay in is probably a battle on its own.

I am half inclined to give the thing a complete miss. Most likely is to take the 'easy' option of a full day bus tour of the highlights of the park from Puerto Natales. Since you pretty much have to go back to Punta Arenas to get a bus on to anywhere else, even that takes three days for the round trip, most of it spent on buses.

I'm going to let my subconscious grind away at this for a bit. Unless I can't get bookings for my Tierra del Fuego plans on the dates I want and am tempted to fill in time by doing things in a different order, I won't go to Torres del Paine until after Tierra del Fuego, so it makes sense to put off worrying about this until the TdF stuff is sorted.

Maybe I'll have the balls to just not go. :-)

Complete change of plan

OK. I have my leaving drinks at six tomorrow so I need to get in early but I'm going to waste time on this instead.

Had my planned itinerary all set out and was ready to go book the flights. I decided not to go this afternoon and thought I'd go tomorrow. That way I could have a chat with my Spanish teacher about it (he's Argentinian). Hey, it's good practice and he knows more about the continent than I do anyway. I'd been having some doubts about the itinerary myself anyway. Let me write it out:

Wednesday 13th January - London->Mexico City
Wednesday 17th February - Mexico City->Panama City
Wednesday 3rd March - Panama City->Lima
Wednesday 17th March - Lima->Santiago
Wednesday 12th May - Santiago->Buenos Aires
Wednesday 9th June - Buenos Aires->Rio
Wednesday 23rd June - Rio->London

I came up with that based on a set of countries I fancied visiting, the order they came up in a nice route round the map and the time I though I wanted to spend in each.

I'd already been warned by my teacher not to go to Buenos Aires in January or February, as it's very hot. I suddenly noticed this itinerary had me going in May/June when it would be probably too cold. In fact, none of this was planned to take climate into account.

And yes, the climate is bound to screw me up no matter how carefully I plan. But I can at least have a go, and maybe on average I'll do better than if I completely ignore weather statistics.

All things being equal, I'd probably rather finish in Mexico than Brazil as well. I expect I'll enjoy it more and it would be good to end on a high.

Initial thought is 'why not just reverse the original route', but that doesn't take climate into account either.

So I had a chat with my Spanish teacher and I've spent the rest of the evening flicking around guide books and the web trying to get a better idea.

I've always planned to go to somewhere in Tierra del Fuego, and having looked into the climate there, it turns out I need to get down there pretty early in the trip before it turns cold.

So my new proposal, which I will go and discuss, but not book, with Trailfinders tomorrow if all goes well is this slightly more crazy looking route:

Wednesday 13th January - London->Rio

A couple of weeks here. I'm not that bothered about Brazil, but it would be quite cool and/or sad to go to Ipanema :-) and it's almost on the way and what have you. I might love it when I get there. Judging from the climate charts it is always very hot and very wet in Rio, just sometimes wetter than others. So there's no problem going there in the middle of southern hemisphere summer.

Wednesday 27th January - Rio->Santiago

I'd plan to fly down almost immediately from Santiago to (say) Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego. Then do 'some other stuff' in Chile for a few weeks; Santiago is quite hot at this time of year so that should probably wait 'til near the end of my time in Chile, which also fits in with getting a flight out from there. I'll probably try to visit the Atacama desert while I'm in Chile, I guess it makes little difference what time you go in terms of climate there (although my guide book is somewhat vague on the subject to be honest). And subject to cost etc I will probably take a few days to go out to Easter island.

Wednesday 17th March - Santiago->La Paz (Bolivia)

I've dropped Peru/Lima from the main route. I can imagine going to the area around Lake Titicaca, but I suspect that is an option, perhaps as a land crossing, from either northern Chile or La Paz. (Arica in northern Chile sounds nice and is convenient for crossing into Peru, at least.) La Paz was originally a little bit of a time filler while I wait for it too cool down in Buenos Aires :-), but it sounds quite an interesting place to go and I guess I should experience altitude sickness at least once in my life. :-) It's so high up it's always pretty cool there, so going in late summer/early autumn isn't a problem. It's the rainy season, but probably better (and more dramatic) that than the dry, colder season later in the year. Not that I have that much choice of time anyway.

Wednesday 31st March - La Paz->Buenos Aires

It's finally, I hope, cool enough to enjoy Buenos Aires. Apparently it's a very relaxing city with lots to do. I can also imagine taking the ferry across to Uruguay at some point; apparently the city where the ferry goes is beautiful, and my Spanish teacher also says Uruguay is probably the most civilised country in South America. His words, not mine!

Wednesday 28th April - Buenos Aires->Panama City

Temperature is the same all year round here by the looks of it, and in any case I have little choice with regard to time because if I want to go I have to go en route from South America to Mexico. April looks like it's the start of the rainy season, but what the hell, I'm British, how bad can it be? :-)

Wednesday 12th May - Panama City->Mexico City

I'll finish the trip in Mexico, maybe visiting several places - I'll book some internal flights nearer the time. I'll be here on my birthday.

Wednesday 16th June - Mexico City->London

Coming back on the 16th June makes it 5 weeks in Mexico. This is a week earlier than the original itinerary, so I may extend Mexico by a week on the initial bookings if I go with this plan unaltered.

I suspect this won't survive my encounter with Trailfinders tomorrow, but at least it's a starting point. And I'll probably find it interesting to look back on the evolution of my plans afterwards, even if no one else does. :-)