Frankie's News Report

The boys were assigned to do a newspaper report on a recent event.   Here is Frankie's.

Vertical Dune Sprinting

One day during our stay at Andes Lands in San Rafael, we went to the local lake, which presented a great opportunity for the four of us to rent a canoe, paddle row around the lake together, and then moor at the beach on the other side of the lake.  There is a huge cliff there that on closer inspection is like a very steep sand dune.  We decided to start climbing and see how far we could get. The hot sand was an encouragement to travel quickly, as it was so hot it burned your toes if you stayed in the same place for more than a few seconds.  We adopted a strategy of zigzagging slowly upwards, pausing in the shadows of whatever bushes we could find. An hour or so later, long after the point at which we rued the idea of not bringing water, we made it to the top. We must have descended in under two minutes, almost running in huge strides where the near vertical sand slope acted as excellent brakes.  It was gratifying to be able to run into the cold lake for a swim.

Almost there......

Finally at the top.  Hold on to your hats!

Afterwards, the boys fancied canoeing around on their own.  We had a short instruction session together and then we anxiously allowed them to paddle off  hoping they wouldn’t crash into anything or anyone.  It was good swimming practice trying to keep up with them, but thankfully they kept themselves out of trouble and started to get the hang of it.  

Boys canoeing, trying to avoid swimmers and water skiers!

As we prepared to leave after a lovely, if energetic afternoon, we realised Louis had lost his baseball cap.  There was only one place it could be - on the sandy cliff. Louis and I soldiered up there, in the hope that it had fallen off near the start.  No such luck, it was right at the very top, so up we went again!  But at least going back gave Louis an impromptu chance for a go on a sandboard which some teenagers kindly offered to him as we retraced our steps upwards. 

Our big Patagonian Trek - by Louis

We woke up at 7:30am and found ourselves having to go at 08:00, we had a quick breakfast and headed off in Gonzalo’s car (our good friend from the cabin).

All ready and prepared for the big day!

When we got to El Pilar hostel, the closest hostel to the National Park, it looked like quite a nice place, but any way we weren’t staying there.  We started the walk with a cool path made with a big white slippery pipe and then had to walk through some marsh lands and we finally got to a normal path. Then we looked at the map and not surprisingly we were only about a quarter of a millimetre on the map and actually it wasn’t much more than a quarter of a millimetre on land!

One of the first great views along the way

So we carried on playing “Trekking Bingo” and by now I had 1, Frankie had 0, Mummy had 1 and Daddy had 0 .  We got to a campsite and by then we were doing really well on our bingo, all I needed was a maté, a toilet, a tent and I had my first line, so I got a bit of chocolate and a biscuit.  But I had to persuade Daddy for the biscuit because Frankie got the first line and he got two things.  I did get it in the end and I was happy. We met these American people and they had camped so they only had to do 7 kilometres today, but we had to do 20 kilometres.  We had done about 6 and a half so far. We got to a tree to stop under because it was freezing in the rain and wind and I had a T-shirt, one of Daddy’s T-shirts, a fleece, a shirt, a coat and that was about it. 

Unfortunately Frankie won the first Trekking Bingo line! 

Me with my special trekking clothes!

We were up in the clouds!

When it had died down, we headed off to the lake and after a few minutes it stopped and we had the most amazing salami and cheese sandwich. OK ham and cheese is actually rubbish so this is only a bit better, but who cares, it’s food! We finished it with great difficulty and Daddy forced us.  It filled us up alright and we carried on and came to a sign and it said “Climbers right, and Laguna de los Tres, left.”  We carried on up the trail on the left and started up and up and up.  When we got half way up we had our first view of snow!!!!!

Oh Oh! Danger ahead!

On the way up the steep slope

One of the typical rickety bridges on the way up

We hadn’t seen snow for a year or so now and totally forgot how cold or how thick it actually is.  When we got to the top we saw a big lake with ice on it.  It was so pretty, the twinkling white ice and the Cerro Fitzroy towering over it all.  It’s the best view you can catch on camera in the whole of El Chalten and we got to see it!

Our first view of the frozen lake and glacier

There were huge icebergs, and it's true that there is much more of them below the water than above!

We climbed some moraine and went down the other side and we saw, and got to touch, the ice.  It was cold and clean to drink, well suck.  It was really fun and most of the ice around you was solid and it was OK to stand on although we didn’t.  We went to see another lake on the other side and it looked like a boat.  It had a big cliff with a waterfall down there, you wouldn’t want to fall down.  Then we wandered back to the icy lake and had our dulce de leche sandwiches and made them last, they were yum yumady yum in my tum!!!.  We said “Bye Bye Laguna de los Tres.”

All that hard work just for a photo!

We walked back up the moraine and down back to the hut, past the family of four who were still on their way up.  We went over the bridge with the rushing white water beneath us and a sign saying "One person at a time" which was a bit worrying.  Finally we got to the camp-site which was luckily under a forest and vaguely dry, well dryer than outside of the forest.  

We walked some more for an hour and met some people we knew well, they had spotted a woodpecker and it was pecking away at a big tree. It flew to another tree and we saw the tree where it had pecked all the bark away and made a hole in the trunk.  You could see sap spurting out. We walked on and Daddy forgot his pole so he went back to get it and he said “You carry on and I will catch up.”  We got to a trek junction and they both looked right, so we waited for Daddy.  Meanwhile Daddy found his pole and got distracted by the woodpecker who was feeding his babies with a big maggot he caught, so it took ages. He got to us after 15 minutes, 10 seconds and 3 milliseconds. 

Pecking for food!

When we could see El Chalten, we spotted a........well, it is the smelliest animal and the only animal where if you get hit by the smell you have to bathe in ketchup.  You will have to buy a lot of ketchup and you wouldn’t be able to go to Tesco with that smell wafting around the supermarket! Yes, it is a skunk. 

Our Chocolate Explosion!

We finally got to the sign "El Chalten", our legs in agony, heaps of delight and relief, we opened the door of the Waffleria and plopped in our chairs. We ordered a waffle with egg for me and the same for Frankie.  We munched them up and had for Postres (pudding) well I had a chocolate Explosion with Daddy, it was a waffle with chocolate sauce, chocolate ice cream and hot chocolate, it was heaven......  Mummy had a banana and honey one with Frankie , they said it was yum yumady yum!

We all finally went to bed at about midnight feeling very tired and very happy!

Well done everyone!

Andes Lands

We’ve just recently left Andes Lands, a lovely old country property about 15km from San Rafael, in the Mendoza wine region of Argentina.  The house is owned by gracious hosts Mike and Vicki, and we felt very much part of their home during our stay. They raised their 4 boys there, all of whom have since flown the nest, but we enjoyed the company of two of them, Tommy and Charlie, who returned for a while while we were there.  The house was once an estancia, and then home to a fruit farm, and has been in the family for generations.  There are beautiful old wooden features everywhere, in enormous rooms with huge ceilings, adorned with antiques - just our bathroom was bigger than many of the places we’ve slept in altogether. 

There is a wonderful, rambling country garden, that the children adored running around in, spending hours on end in the swimming pool there, as well as playing ping pong, lego (when they stumbled upon the old family lego collection) and probably their favourite pastime, playing with the dogs, Archie, Jock and Rory. They also enjoyed the odd horse ride too!

Wow - he's going fast!

Good old Rory

A particular highlight was the parilla, which we enjoyed in the company of Mike and Vicki and their family and friends on several occasions.  To say that it made our BBQ sausages in England seem very unambitious is an understatement.  There were cuts of meat we enjoyed that we didn’t even know existed - for example, mollejas - sweetbreads - is a real delicacy served with lemon juice.  

Mike's parilla at Andes Lands - what a feast!

Me rather pathetically pretending I had something to do with the parilla
when all I did was find a few sticks.....

We stayed there because Mike and Vicki have recently opened their home as a Bed and Breakfast, and at any one time there are 2 or 3 volunteers there, working on the house and garden in exchange for board and lodging.  The breakfasts were amongst the finest we’ve had this trip.  (We often discuss our best and worse breakfasts), with wonderful porridge, fruit juice and fresh bread, the toast almost tasting better having been prepared in an old toaster with a heavy old candlestick to keep the toast down! 

The home is near the Atuel river, so this was a good base to explore activities like white-water rafting, kayaking, “cool river” (basically riding rapids on an inner tube) and zip lining (or Canopy as its referred to here).

The veranda lent itself well not just to breakfast but also to travel school for the boys. We were fortunate to add a touch of variety to travel school while we were there with art lessons from artist Vicky and Polish architect Christophe. 

Frankie doing some travel school.  Even though it was a lovely big spacious room
and a perfectly tranquil setting, the boys still found reasons to object!

In fact we enjoyed it so much, we are heading back there next week when my father flies out to join us for a week to celebrate his 80th birthday!

Baders on tour in a buggy

So this was unexpected and unplanned. Mike, the owner of our B&B in a lovely peaceful part of the Mendoza wine region here in central Argentina, happened to mention that there was a golf course nearby. I haven’t played much since the kids came along, and indeed my last round was two years ago with my friend and former colleague Percy up at Collingtree.  I wasn’t overly bothered until I reflected on the fact that over the last 30 years I had played golf in every continent, with the exception of Antarctica and South America. It seemed like an easier box to tick than seeking to climb the highest mountain in every continent, for example. We had a family huddle and agreed that I could play on the condition that the rest of the family could ride around on a buggy. Deal. 

The next morning was unique in the entire 19 years that I have known Jules, in as much as she woke up, drew the curtains and said something like “More lovely sunshine - good day for golf!” 

Mike very kindly lent me his clubs, which, I am assuming were probably his father's golf clubs.  Or at least some of them.  4 iron, 8 iron, 9, sand iron all of which were clearly cast long before the concept of peripheral weighted clubs had even been thought about, plus an old putter and a 3 wood that looked like it might fall apart if I hit the ball hard.  Nevertheless, I figured it would be against the spirit of our trip if I forked out £20 on a hired set, and only the previous day I had been talking to Frankie about the aphorism “a bad workman always blames his tools” because he wasn’t very happy with his table tennis bat, so I figured “how hard can it be?”

We set off to Algodon, the local course, and managed to negotiate a pretty decent rate for 9 holes and a buggy....and some old balls and tee pegs, as I had nothing at all.  There was no-one on the golf course at all, being around midday and some 35 degrees. Well, with the exception of a dog, whom we can therefore deduce, not unreasonably, to be at least slightly mad, particularly since he followed us around all nine holes.  Actually, he did disappear temporarily after I carded a 10 on the 5th.  I think it was for a pee, my entourage was convinced he’d had enough, so I was pleased when he returned on the next tee. 

My golfing entourage - including a dog!

It was a very enjoyable round, some good shots, some not so good, but a lovely experience, and the trusty clubs held together well.  It was made more memorable by the sight of my family careering around the course on a buggy, and Louis very ably managing his flag duties on every green.  The highlight was a stonking drive down a par five fairway, which, followed by a four iron off a bare lie and a chip gave me an easyish birdie opportunity.  Sadly I squandered this, even, with the extensive preparatory detective work.(see below).

Lining up my solitary birdie putt.  Even with Louis' help I managed to leave it short :(

Luckily there were no people around!

The boys had a little putting competition at the end which Louis edged by one stroke. Let's face it though, the boys weren't really interested in my golf, they just wanted to drive!!  It was very thirsty work and we all agreed that the bottle of Pepsi we shared afterwards was the best we'd ever tasted!

Dinosaur hunting

Neuquen district in Argentina is famous for dinosaurs, with many important fossil discoveries in recent years. Over the last 2 days, and 600km, we visited the three most important sites.  Whilst the exhibits in these museums aren't as slickly presented as some other better known museums, they have a very high content of real bones.

Like most boys, Louis and Frankie both went through a “dinosaur” phase when they were younger, and can still name quite a few dinosaurs and recall some of their defining characteristics.  We figured that adding a new dimension of reality might re-ignite this interest, or at least provide some fascination and new knowledge. 

We visited the Carmen Funes Museum in Huincul, where the prime exhibit was a life-size model of the largest of all dinosaurs, the Argentinasaurus, which grew up to 40 metres long. (And we thought the 15 metre Southern RIght whale we saw was big!)  Next to the model was an exhibit containing many of the original bones of the dinosaur's spine and legs.

Aaaaah!  He's after us!!!

Later that day at Villa El Chocon, in the Ernesto Bachmann Museum, we saw a Gigantosaurus Carolinii, named after the paleontologist who found the bones locally. It was 80% complete, one of the most complete of all large dinosaurs found. There were some huge teeth, preserved in excellent condition too, pictured here.

Needless to say these frightening, original Gigantosaurus teeth were not for eating vegetables!

Getting your mind around the dates involved isn’t easy.  We might think of history in terms of ancient civilisations, for example, the Incas establishing Macchu Picchu 600 years ago, or Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. So trying to imagine over 100 million years ago was something of a challenge when we made our way to our final and most exciting destination at Lago de Los Barreales, a “working” dinosaur excavation site, (I was going to write “live” but that might have been misleading) which included a trip of 50km of unmade roads made significantly worse by recent tornados and storms. 

Roger, one of the three people manning the site, spent a couple of hours with us showing us around.  We had never been to a “dig” before, this was fascinating.  He showed us the softer whitish seams where they had been concentrating their recent efforts.  The earth just seemed to crumble away in your hands, it was fairly easy to dig.  We all spent some time doing this, in a searing 35 degree dry heat - and Louis came across something that looked out of place.  He called us over to examine his discovery, and Roger helped Louis very carefully remove a chunk of what looked like wood.  Roger indicated that this was part of a 110 million year-old-tree they had been removing recently. So that little chunk of tree had been right there so far back in history to the time when dinosaurs roamed and the world map would have showed Pangea, still substantially a single supercontinent at that point. It was a humbling moment. 

Louis having just dug up his 110 million-year-old piece of tree

He then showed us where they had began to excavate a dinosaur hip bone, and were confident that the entire dinosaur was there, albeit that it would be 2-3 years before they would be able to remove the whole skeleton.  He explained about the excavation process and how once they have uncovered the bones, they encase them in a special substance and establish the bones in a frame that is later removed, to keep, say, a whole tailbone structure intact.

Hip bone of unidentified dinosaur, the first part of a new discovery being painstakingly uncovered.

We came down to the museum area where they assemble all their discoveries. Some amazing sights, very few of which were behind glass cases. Not that many people come here, and those that do are shown around rather than let loose!   He let us hold (very, very carefully, and with both hands at all times!) one of only 5 genuine dinosaur eggs in the world. It was the size of a bowling ball and even heavier. 

Louis with genuine dinosaur egg,  Frankie with replica

There were some other surprises.  A model of an appropriately named megarachnid - a 400 milion year old pre-dinosaur super-spider that was a metre wide, (yes a metre wide) with huge sharp pincers, modelled on fossils found locally, although there is some debate as to whether this might have been a sea scorpion rather than a spider. 

Model of a 1 metre wide carnivorous spider, 400million years ago.  Long since extinct.  Probably.

Also a small crocodile type dinosaur where the quality and markings on the bones had been extremely well preserved.   

Beautiful detail on the crocodile tail

And the final exhibit we saw that they had painstakingly dug up nearby, a Futalognkosaurus, with a hip-bone measuring several metres wide, and striking in its completeness. 

It had been a long hot journey to see some of the world’s best dinosaur exhibits, and no nightmares reported from the boys the following evening!

Christmas in Bariloche

Christmas was naturally a little different this year. 8,000 miles from home, we'd had very little in the way of a build up, we were in a country where they don't really celebrate Christmas Day, (preferring Christmas Eve), and not a turkey in sight.  However, we did have our great mate Jarrod over from the 18th December, which gave us a real connection with home, and also it rained incessantly, which by all accounts made it feel very British indeed, especially this year. 

Plus we were on a budget, so no extravagant 2 metre Christmas tree, we found a delightful little tinsel tree, and managed to make some great decorations with the boys, whilst cutting down some fir and holly branches from the garden to adorn our cosy little log cabin. 

Jules and the boys with Jarrod in our Christmassy cabin

We'd decided by about 21st December that because we'd missed all the usual school and social Christmas gatherings that help engender the Christmas spirit, and because our Macbook only had 2 Christmas songs on iTunes, we'd need to invest in new Christmas Music. I confess to not having read the blurb very carefully, so our first iTunes purchase had 45 songs, for £3.99, the most recent of which was a warbly crooner with a Christmas hymn from about 1934. We threw caution to the wind and invested a further £9.99 to get the bunch of familiar ones which just about every retailer in Britain has on continuous loop play from early October.  But we hadn't heard any since last Christmas, (including Last Christmas), so it was like (another) old friend joining us.  

We had a Skype call with my parents on Christmas Eve, which really gave our Christmas a boost, and then headed out for an alpine meal in the evening, the highlight of which was a very messy and not entirely unseasonal Chocolate fondu. Needless to say the boys adored it.

Frankie:  Yum yum in my tum!
Louis: Wow, that can't be good for you!

The boys were unsurprisingly up early on Christmas Day, delighted that Santa had soldiered all that way with a Lego toy for each to make. Fortunately they had managed to build these by Boxing Day in order for Jarrod to very kindly take them back to England for safe-keeping. (Santa has elves to do all his packing for him, otherwise he'd have realised that there was no way the Lego would fit in our rucksacks!)

Thanks for coming all that way, Santa!

After a few more presents, some champagna (they aren't allowed to call it Champagne here) and a few more aborted Skype attempts to Jules family - the high winds overnight had unfortunately taken down Internet in the entire area - we headed off on foot to a nearby hotel where we'd booked lunch for Christmas Day. The place was practically empty, but on the plus side, it meant that the cinema room they had was free, so we finally managed to watch Top Gun together, which the boys were really looking forward to, as indeed were Louis and Frankie. Not on a par with "The Snowman" for Christmas spirit, but a lot of fun. 

Four bottles of Malbec wine and a sumptuous meal of roast lamb later and Jules and Jarrod tell me that since I was asleep on the sofa, they decided to see how much fruit they could arrange on my head.  Fortunately there are no good photos of this occurrence, and I am sure no-one would believe that I could fall asleep on such an occasion anyway.

We did miss family and friends especially as our Christmas was so short, and we've promised the boys we'll be starting extra early next year, so look out for invites to November gatherings!

Our day with the whales - by Louis

We saw the orcas didn't fancy a nibble
on the elephant seals today

We all went out in our muddy little car called Bertie to Punta Pirimides to check what time the boat we were going to take was leaving. Sure enough it was fine. We were going to take it at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. So we headed off on our one and a half hour journey around Peninsula Valdes.  Mummy says she spotted a tarantula in the middle of the road. So we all took her word for it and carried on.  

We went to the lookout point and there were some serious binoculars there, they were about 50cm long. Out of there we saw a family of orcas, they looked so graceful with all their spurts of water.  We thought they would go and have a nibble on the elephant seals but sadly they swam past in harmony. At least we saw them, that's the main thing. 

So we jumped back in the car and headed off to see the Southern Right Whales, and had one of the 10,000 cakes that daddy bought at breakfast, he got a special deal so I don't blame him.  When we got to the whale place we had to wait a bit for everyone to get their jackets on.  When we got to the boat, a tractor came and pushed the boat into the water. When we had got a little way out on the boat, we saw eight dolphins in the water swimming right up to us, it was amazing. We saw them jump out of the water a couple of times and once one of them got its whole body out of the water, and we got a little spray of water and now I know why there aren't many people in the water because it was freezing cold!  We headed off to the the whales.  When we got there, we spotted our first whale, it was a mum and her baby and there was another one to the right, the left, in front of us and behind us, we were surrounded, put your hands up!!

She held her tail there for a photo.....

They were amazing. Suddenly all their tails went up. That was even more amazing. The whale held it there like she wanted us to take as many photos as you want before slowly bringing her tail down and then it quietly went back into the cold water.  It was like the rear end of the Titanic slowly disappearing into the ocean. Sad story but anyway not for us. So the driver turned round and we went to see another one that had a seagull on it. They are supposed to annoy the whales and decrease the population.  The whale flicked up his head and the seagull flew away blowing a raspberry at us, well it was more of a squawk than one of them. He swam around like he was thanking us. But for what? 

We got really close to the whales, they are so gentle....

We had a little space at the front where we could hang
over to watch the whales pass underneath us

On the lookout for whales!

Then the lady announced that we had to go back to the beach. So we retreated back past the sticky-out rock, that looked like half golf course, half bird home, past the dolphins and to the tractor.  He pulled us in and we went to get some lunch.  

Then we realised we had no cash, so Daddy had to run to the ATM and get out money to pay for lunch. Meanwhile we were starving to death back by the beach with only one small packet of bacon tostadas to spare, they were gone in a couple of seconds. When Daddy came back, we went straight to a restaurant and ordered some chicken nuggets for us and Mummy and Daddy had squid rings, it was lovely. On the way back in the car, Daddy spotted a big black thing on the road so he reversed and we got out of the car with the camera.  We saw that it was a tarantula and a big hairy one too. Daddy was absolutely terrified, he asked me to put Frankie’s shoe next to it to compare the size, it was really massive. 

AAAAH!  Scary and hairy all in one bundle!

It was a great day, and probably the most “animal-adventurous” day in ages!

By Louis

Hues of blue - by Louis

We went off in our new car, "Steve stig" to see something special:

• it has lots of colours of blue
• it moves forward 2 metres every day
• there are different types of them
• it is one of the most famous of these in the world

It is the THE PERITO MORENO GLACIER!

When we got there we had to walk along the metal path, it took ages.  When we finally got there we were a little tired from all the walking but nevertheless there as a bench there so you could sit down. But you would only tend to sit down if you were desperate because there was a lady there who was taking up all the space. 

The ice falling sounded like thunder

We heard a big bang and then a big slab of ice fell slap bang in the middle of the freezing cold icy water. Then we decided to get on a boat ride to get even closer than we were on the platform. And that felt really close. When we got to the boat, we had to wait for all the people to come off, there were quite a few, but with our boat there were only 10 or 20, it was a big catamaran so there was so much space. 

the blueish ice of the Perito Moreno glacier

We did get closer but didn’t see any chunks fall off.  So I preferred it on the other platform. 

It was an incredible adventure and one I will totally never forget.  

By Louis