Sunday, December 31, 2006

Cost Of Braces In Ontario

The cold, wind, rain, snow ... It's summer!


El Chalten - El Calafate - Puerto Natales - Torres del Paine - Punta Arenas
The Photo: La Cumbre, park Torres
It's like a refrain I hear now from a dozen times ... enough in any case well known. It begins: First the leaves rustle and then, inevitably, the wind becomes the thud, full and powerful. It is now all the trees that bend strongly to undergo the new burst. Then wind down, my tent a bit agitated, and after a short pause, the strong current of air is over me. In a reflex although I do not hold out the bottom of my sleeping bag hoping that my little tent will cash without breaking the new breeze. The poles are bent, canvas crashes ...
I wake up a bit after the day the wind fell, my tent is still standing and the sun shone brightly but my first night in the park of Torres was short.

But I've not said where I was. After rejoind Chile Puerto Natales, I went for 8 days and 150 km walk in the big park of Torres del Paine. This place is just amazing as we came across a surprising variety of landscapes, which a priori has nothing to do together. It must be said that the place is special, on the north, Argentina and the area of Fitz Roy and glacier on the west end of the 500 km of ice aptly named Campo de Hielo Sur. Beyond the Campo, Only few kilometers are the channels of Patagonia, hall pacific finally, to the east stretches the great plain of Argentina and south, the long steppe Fugen.

In the northern part of the park stands a massive and sudden abrupt burst of the last mountain range before diving between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Going through the park, navigating between these lakes or deep turquoise blue sea that montonnent downwind. In small trail-like roads of customs there are those scents of spring at Belle-Ile, but it looks up and faces a fine waterfall with a height impressionnnante or before the crossing of a steep gorge. The path changes again and winds in a small bush when the sun returns. Farther it overlooks and along the Glacier Grey seems to be a raging sea or a torrent raw, frozen by a sudden ice age.
The meeting, a few kilometers from here the two oceans is a wind of power sometimes phenomenal, coming from the west on the lakes of lifting columns of spray, pulling the fresh snow slopes to the most exposed and the return of peaceful clouds simply unimaginable proportions ... All in this atmosphere of sheer cliffs, vertical and surprising colors. And climate side, you understand that here the word does Summer not the same thing here in the park with the minimum of 2 up to 13 degrees all complemented by rain, wind, snow, grain ...

But all this does not cooled the ardor of the crowds internationally. The Park and Southern Latin America is indeed on the road all tourdumondistes. While in camp, when we give ear is almost always hear this international English so much that I once asked if, during one of my night, Mars would not have teletransporting in Yellowstone Park. It lacks a little charm.
That also about fifteen days I find that my journey to lose its Authentic hand encounters with less local color and the feeling of following a tour in a giant amusement park. I regret my little parks, or further north, being almost the only tourist I was worth a warm Hospitality. However, I continue to meet people, they are just another type well and sometimes I fall. As with her 2 nice french who were beginning their trip here 15 months between Andean summits, New Zealand and the Himalayas. We exchange travel dreams, we imagine the new ...

But I would have my last meeting with Chile. After a short day's journey, I arrived at the camp Italiano or I found Fanny, a strasbourgoise of eternal good humor, traveling alone and who had crossed the border by Lago O'Higgins.
The night rain has started again to fall (original!) 2 Sister, and Kansas have invited me as their shelter of branches to able to cook my dinner. Then what happened Nikolas, the gardaparque who was had to do a little pity. The wind came back and we were squatting under the branches, protecting small flame stoves with our hands. It invites us to share a little tea in his hut. This is not very big, there is the room where the big wood stove. It is warm, dry and can hold 6 or 8 with shaking. On the other side of the corridor, a bathroom and close the small room with 2 guards park. They live without Line current, working 12 days and then resting 4 to Puerto Natales. It is pleasant to sit in the corner of the stove when almost everything in the tent is as humidity! In addition to the music coming out of the two small speakers cell delighted my ears. Tea and password, as he gets along well mate then becomes cider and dinner arrives, a big chicken that was cooking for two good hours in the pan. There were thus two sisters from Kansas, Fanny, our two gardaparque and myself. We share So this simple but delicious dinner, offered with such good heart and accented with red wine! (A real Christmas meal with 3 days late) If the first Gardaparque, Lucho (Luchito said) is kind of quiet, Nikolas his colleague is kind of energetic, good actor and good mood after sharing dinner, he launches into an incredible show with my zigomatiques still remember. So here he is transformed in turn into a magician, photographer missed or stunt before our very eyes. There is even a small interval when Martin knocked at the door, a poor German hiker, soaked to the bones that came to ask to boil some water and dry. During the second act, Nikolas unabated and now he is dancing Hip Hop, Ninja, diver, percussionist, completely mastering his show is very interactive. You will understand that the evening went quickly and made us forget the rain drummed on the roof. We all ended up dancing to get cramps in the belly that had strength to laugh before returning to our tents in the rain which had still not stopped, his heart warmed by this unforgettable evening.

A camp below, it is 4:30 when the Canadian Alec Ontario just waking up. We climb to see the sunrise over the impressive towers that give the park its name. Their formation of granite and their orientation can take the colors of raising a beautiful way. Unfortunately for me, the show will be limited because this morning the sky is overcast and the sun is not coming we decided to offer the show for which we walked one hour, eyes still half asleep, hands and face numb by cold. Surprisingly and for the first time since I'm in the park, the wind dropped, everything is calm. I went down to the park entrance, crossing all those who see the towers went up, cursing the luck that had deserted me for this morning crucial. But as I turned I saw this huge cloud that has made all disappear in a thick fog and did not delay us Copisa water.
I finally had much better luck than I imagined, I could now return Natales to enjoy a good shower and a comfortable bed, protected from rain and wind ...

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Why Are People Posting Numbers On Facebook Status

In the realm of the rain ... From funny


Chaiten-La Junta-Puerto Aysen Coyhaique, Villa O'Higgins, Cochrane, El Chalten (Argentina)

I was not lied to me, but now I My eyes saw the kingdom of rain that is the long and laborious southern route. But how to describe it as it is multiple? All
starting to Chaiten, after a magnificent voyage law on this huge volcano whose head is lost in the clouds, gliding slowly over a glassy sea ... The Carretera Austral

, had done much to dream and I was not disappointed! So, sure, there are these long hours of stop infructeux with my harmonica only companion, the icy rain that you slap in the face when they are accompanied by strong gusts of wind, hours of walking in the middle of this wrong track or it goes sometimes nothing for hours and hours. The wet and cool nights, waking to the sound of the drops crashing into the tent ...
is, despite all this a wonderful place that begins with this long valley that extends over 200 km, seeming to have no beginning or end, just this slow breathing when the forested slopes away or closer. Then there is the neck, or the impressive track becomes a track on which the vegetation, boosted by the endless rain would take its place. These majestic fjords, surrounded by curtains of rain and inaccessible mountains, great plains beyond Coyhaique ... It descends again along the huge lake of General Carrera and the track becomes mountainous after Cochrane. Along the carretera fast flowing waters and almost white-green of the Rio Baker. The last 200 kilometers
struck me as particularly long, probably because I was in that truck of cement, heavily loaded, was not moving quickly. We drove for hours along the lakes that seem to never end, down the mountains standing on the hump to avoid the truck s'embale. When night fell, the driver was deemed more prudent to stop there. So I pitched my tent in front of the truck for a short night. We are left with the east, around 5am. 8 hours for the 200km road and finally arrived at Villa O'Higgins, the end of the Carretera Austral in the early morning or I feel a strange relief ... The southern runway

spans more than 1000 kilometers thus links the villages and hamlets, some of which have no more than 9 houses and farms appears to have been placed randomly in the middle of nowhere. Previously there were only horse tracks and one hours sailing on the lakes along the ... and the old gentleman told me that before the carretera, he left over 20 days on horseback, with his wife to sell his cattle to the nearest market! But the villages themselves are not old, for the most part they were created in the 60's, linked to the country by airfields, ports and small horses in this track. And the arrival of men in the area of dense forest has not done without "collateral damage".
Newcomers, for many, cleared by the fires that sometimes escaped them.
is how, 30 years ago about a huge fire devastated two years in an area 300 km long and 70 km wide from a native forest. And all along the road you can see, than young forests, charred tree trunks, still standing and impressive size, after 30 years have witnessed huge fire!

And almost everyone here, this road is in any case that's built on General Pinochet. It is in this sector has many admirers which are apparently not aware of anything that happened during the dark years of dictatorship. And the subject is not easy to address because people here are more divided than I imagined on the subject. Thus, his death seems to have been more celebrated than mourned. At the announcement of his death, have been able to see, in Santiago, people take to the streets singing while the other headed for the military hospital to give him a final "tribute".
There were not many votes in Chile for regret that a dictator may have died without having known or benches of the courts, or prison, or exile, he who made assasinner, tortured, exile so many of these people.
They are against many who thank him for being the one who transformed Chile into a modern country and the economy healthy. These people do not visit the same country as me and they have not seen those Chileans who kill themselves to the task, working over 45 hours per week, under conditions that would innaceptables home to pay their can feed their families because the economics of doing good works. I am not having to acknowledge that general when you see what countries or gaps between the richest and the poorest are so important.

From my side, I left Chile by Lake O'Higgins, joining Argentina and leaving the forest to the west of the Campo de Hielo Sur and in this country s'émmiette multitudes of islands surrounded by channels of Patagonia. I go down to Argentina to return to Chile in a few days in Puerto Natales ... admit that it is entirely appropriate to spend Christmas.

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Jack Daniels Different Label

lives ...


Curacautin-Villarica-Temuco-Puerto Montt-Futrono-Chiloé.
The picture, a house so far away on the Pacific coast.
After a final ride on the side of volcanoes, which led me to heart of a forest of incredible wealth, bathed in streams, lakes and waterfalls, the landscape changes again. On a leap of 150km to the south, I found the sea in Puerto Montt. In fact, sea there is a gulf, protected from the Pacific by the Big Island of Chiloé. Gulf opens to the south while to the east, the Cordillera them with brutality and throws in a few hundred meters, the peaks still bear the whiteness of the recent winter dip in the small sea that whitens, she, as a result of a powerful blow south.
Chiloé is a long island that makes the round back on the ocean side, as if to absorb the deep depressions peaceful s'abatent violently on it year round. This coast is virtually deserted and covered with a forest millennium. Deserted, not quite, it can be accessed by Cuaco, 30km after a bad track. Going back then to the north by the beach (the path disappears, swallowed by the dunes), we discover, throughout the coast, spreading over 20 kilometers of isolated houses that form an indigenous community of some forty families who live here without running water or electricity for generations, with the only resources algae and their small herds. I had the chance to make a long way with Adonis, her sisters and friends. They are between 7 and 10 years and come home from school. This is not the first time I've a long way with kids and that's always a pleasure. Adonis is particularly curious to the point that it's hard to be able to ask questions too. But the exchange is valuable, they will have learned that you can not come from France to their homes on foot, we talk with us a language other than English and we do not really need us Tigers wary of when we go home at night! He tells me bird hunting which, when successful, allows you to vary the dishes and the long rainy winters.

the other hand, is all Another thing, the island displays its cultures and the many villages that are facing a multitude of islands scattered in the Gulf.
It's not a lot of miles to live in the Pan-American South when we fork left to do the 8 miles that separates it from Dalcahue. 15 minutes ferry enough then to reach the island Quinchao. At the end of this island, there is a charming little port but particularly stirred for its size. In the axis of the main street is the long thin wedge that amaris are no fewer than 12 boats, couple, 6 on each side.
Under the small hall, the market is in full swing, do not stop to return and out of this small restaurant or s'échape a good smell of grilled fish and pushers of carts, themselves, never make a trip to empty. At first I thought a return to fishing, but on closer look, these boats are not fishing boats. The agitation continues and it goes up and down on the boats. On hold, people start to ask the time and then load everything from flour, chipboard plates, beer, pipes, sheets, rolls of wire, potatoes, packages of diapers ... And as all boats are a couple, it spans, we hold out my arms, we throw, you catch up, it pulls on the Amar! So I end by engaging in conversation with one of the boat skipper, that he had with the head might as well be able to skipper Guilvinec!
Every Monday and Friday he explains, a boat of each of the islands which lie opposite just to Achao. It sells is being done on the island, we buy what is not, it makes the papers for mayor, we touch the pensions of former ... This is a good friendly time and it allows to keep the news. The only thing that can disturb the ritual is a big blow north, but otherwise, every Monday and Friday, Achao, a small port to a small island in the Great Island of Chiloe becomes the center of all these little bits of land scattered in the Gulf. And when the time approaches to leave, this happy stratagem takes on a lot of fun. We send the kids to look for stragglers while loading the latest accelerating. Those who were on time or ahead pati lend a hand to this poor little grandmother who has a little difficulty raising your leg high enough to board. The poor is not the end of his sentences, his boat is the third from the hold.
A first boat horn, pigweed and returned a few minutes later, a first small group of 4 boats left Achao before slowly separating it a bit further. And each returns to his small island to live quietly until the next visit to Achao ...
He saw himself decidedly strange existences on Chiloe ...

As for me I embark tomorrow for 5 hours crossing between Quellon, south of Chaiten Chiloe and at the foot of the mountain range and the thick clouds that washed me well for 2 days and 2 nights are me- Do we say that a nice preamble to expect that the Southern Highway.
soon, a little further south ...