Beautiful Paine

3 bowls of porridge
1 orange
2 apples
1 yoghurt
50g granola
400g nuts and raisins
1 packet of crackers
6 cereal bars
4 tins of tuna
300g pasta
1 carton of tomato puré
3 "Hamlet" chocolate bars
1 hot chocolate
1 tub of dulce de leche

Plus a tent, sleeping bag, mat and some clothes is all you need for three days hiking. It´s not eating well, but then coming off the cruise I needed to lose my Antarctic Belly. Which I did. The hike was round Torres del Paine - maybe the most beautiful, inspiring, and changeable place I´ve ever walked in. One day I was nearly blown off a mountain, the next day seared under a hot Patagonian sun, then caught in a blizzard of snow, hail and rain. From mountains to alpine meadows to boulder fields to blue and turquoise lakes to glaciers. I ended up more or less where I started but I think in those three days I did about 120km. Most of it seemed to be going up.

Unfortunately I also didn´t wash. Which must´ve been a real pleasure for everyone else on the bus back.

I spent a large part of my hike with a slightly silly song by The Burns Unit bouncing round my head. The words were,

Going on a hike
A very nice hike
A hike is the very
Thing I like
Over the hill and
Over the Dyke

Ok once or twice, but not when you´re walking for 11 or 12 hours a day. It reminded me of home, and of Christmas too.

Post Torres I´ve headed on up through southern Patagonia, this time on the Argentine side. Sounds fun but for the most part it´s been buses on dirt and gravel roads along Argentina´s (apparently) famous Ruta 40. Six hours one day, four the next, a day off (where I walked another 40km round El Chaltén, which was also stunningly beautiful - as my uncle Tom, one of the three or so readers of this blog, said it would be), then 12 more hours on Monday and finally eight hours yesterday/ this morning. The latest bus spat me out at 2am in a small town called Esquel.

Too late for a hotel, too early to leave, this morning I sat in a bus terminal for six hours and read a book. So I´m feeling a bit frayed. But come 8am I finally managed the small step to my destination for these last few days - a tiny Welsh Patagonian village called Trevelin (Trewelyn).

So what´s become of the Welsh pioneers? Turns out not much, really. In an odd parallel with post-war Wales, the big mill closed and folk shut up shop, leaving behind an ugly little village with just the occassional hint of Gallic influence - an old Wesleyian church, a (usually mis-spelt) street name, a shop sign without vowels, a goofy local. There might be a big Welsh iceberg floating underneath but I didn´t hit it. And while there´s a bilingual school in town, according to the woman at the museum only around 20% of people in Trevelin are of Welsh descent, and while most of those speak some Welsh round the house it´s in decline (and non-existent as written word).

I did, however, have an absolutely great pot of tea accompanied by two slices of buttered bread, five pastries, a scone and assorted jams. Me fat bastard. I told the (Welsh-speaking) owner that it was the best cup of tea I´d had in ages. Probably since I left the UK. It was a big pot too, and so an hour later I staggered out, still minus sleep but plus about half a pound of sugar and maybe six cups of tea. I feel slightly euphoric.

My euphoria is also in no small part because I am feeling very, very close to Santiago - and from there it´ll be a short hop by plane to Río for Christmas on the beach. By my reckoning I´ve taken 146 buses in the Americas, plus I think 21 ferries, six flights and 26 hitched rides. Now I reckon I´ve only got three buses left - a short four hour ride to Bariloche, then five hours across to Osorno in Chile, and nine on up to Santiago. It´s great how quickly you forget the stultifying boredom, badly dubbed movies, smelly toilet and noisy neighbour that come with so many bus rides. I look forward to most of them now (I´m looking forward to the sunset tonight, and sleeping, and eating an apple) and when they´re done I feel like I´ve achieved something. Like sitting on a bus for eight hours.

Anyway. Enough of this, I need to drink more coffee. My last word on buses - you can tell where you are in South America by the drivers as much as by what they drive. Just three days ago I was on a bus driven by Phil Daniels with Henry Cooper helping him. You don´t get that in Bolivia.

Buen Navidad.