A rant about trees

This is going to be a rant about animals, trees and rubbish. So all those not interested in green things, nasty people poking armadillos and my plans for national parks, stop here.

Firstly, the trees. Brazil and to a lesser extent countries like Chile are well-known for their forests, but sadly the most impressive endemic trees are endangered. In Brazil, the national 'pau de Brasil' tree is a much-photographed rarity in the Rio botanic gardens. In Chile, the alerce has been logged almost to extinction, monkey puzzle trees that used to cover vast tracts of land have been reduced to a handful of national parks, and there are only an estimated 124,000 Chilean palms (featured on the country's independence declaration) left in the wild. A similar situation seems to exist with famous animals and birds like the macaw or jaguar: despite being national symbols that Brazil for one likes to project to foreigners. We have seen some pretty shocking treatment of wildlife even in protected areas across the continent. I'm not by any means saying this is widespread, but by Iguazu falls in Argentina we saw people poking an armadillo with a stick, a kid hitting a coati with a branch, and in Tierra del Fuego a boy picking up a gosling while his parents filmed him for a minute or more, while the geese were going crazy honking with alarm. There is also a huge problem with rubbish. In the same campsite in Tierra del Fuego, families holding barbecues left behind coke bottles and reams of toilet paper lying in the grass, while the gosling-tormenting devil left behind his crisp packet after dropping the bird (I could have killed his parents). It's heartbreaking to see rural towns in almost every country we've visited surrounded by slow-decaying strings of old plastic bags.

It seems to me that national parks, with trails for families to enjoy and information on wildlife and why it's important are the best tools for conservation, as well as bringing in much-needed revenue. The park rangers in such places are great, and have been almost universally long-suffering in my persistent questioning about birds. Some (bless them) have even spent time writing down the Latin names of trees I've photographed. All good so far. But most seem desperately understaffed. To give an example: in Los Alerces, Perito Moreno and Tierra del Fuego parks in Argentina, as well as Conguillio, Alerce Andino and Vicente Perez Rosales in Chile, there are only been a few walking trails, despite hundreds and hundreds of hectares of park. In many parks, trails have been shut with fallen trees even though it's the summer holidays. And in most, the trails are there-and-back rather than a more satisfying circular walk. In Chile you can't get a map of even the well-known parks in tourist offices, you have to go to a CONAF forestry commission office (not an easy task). Parque Pumalin in Patagonia, which was created by American conservationist and founder of North Face Doug Tompkins, has now gained national park status, but remains privately owned. CONAF lack the resources to staff it. 

This seems crazy to me, and you'd think that Chile for one would realise it. Torres del Paine national park must be a huge revenue generator for them. The park charges foreigners £25 to get in, and it gets more popular every year - around 150,000 people visited in 2012. The trails are incredible, there are mountain refuges at five locations where you can buy anything from toilet roll to a bottle of merlot and a 4-course meal, and there is no litter anywhere! This park alone must subsidise the rest, but why not try harder to turn more into major tourist destinations? Charge more for entry! Four of the parks we've been to have been free, and others with between £1-3 entry fees that wouldn't cover the ranger's salary that collects them (in one we were the first visitors that day). Foreigners will pay through the nose for the chance to walk up volcanoes, see glaciers, and possibly catch sight of a puma. Yet some French tourists we met said that the Chilean tourist board promotes the country in France for its cheese! 

So in short, I think that with more resources for national parks - more maps, more trails open, more leaflets on flora and fauna, and more widely available - wildlife and trees would be better protected. More money could come in via much higher entry fees, which could also be used for international promotion. Parks wouldn't have to allow damaging activities like logging and building dams, which many in Chile do at the moment, presumably to bring funds in. And tourism (well-managed, obviously) is a much more sustainable resource than copper-mining, nitrate production, and even many types of forestry. I think that in a related way, having more of the countryside better protected might help people realise that dropping litter is bad. But on that front I would also advocate high fines for offenders and banning plastic bags in supermarkets (which one in Argentina had recently done). But that's for another rant.

Extra stuff

It is still raining in Chile and Hes has brought us up to date on the old bloggeroo. So, with little better to do, here's a bonus post with some general thoughts on the whole travel thing:

21st Century Backpacking

Everywhere has wifi, which means that our favourite tools are not the guidebooks but 'tripadvisor.com' and 'hostelbookers.com'. This is a good state of affairs. It means that it isn't all about getting into the lonely planet, as was the situation in India, where these tomes held an unnatural and problematic sway over local tourist industries. It is also a democratic way of keeping hostels on their toes, and as a direct result we have stayed in very few sh*tholes. 

(I am keenly aware that Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador may present more of a challenge ahead.)

I am also more up on the news in the UK than ever I was whilst there thanks to my regular breakfast-time review of the bbc news website. Horsemeat, eh?

The Kindness of Strangers

Sickening, maybe, but this experience really is very uplifting; we have encountered so many little acts of kindness towards us. Whether it is Argentinian locals helping us with bewildering transport fare systems, Brazilians donating their guidebooks (to one particular grateful twitcher) or Chilean traffic wardens stopping traffic so a flustered gringo can navigate the one way system, it turns out that at least 90% of the people in the world are really nice. Maybe more. How lovely.

Learning About Things Closer to Home

I have been enlightened about things closer to home, too. For instance the French's reaction to the preponderance of new world wine (of course the argument that winemaking is an art in France, and a science elsewhere), or a slightly surprising residual guilt in even the youngest Germans about the Second World War. Also, the fact that the British are a kindly, witty lot, and I for one am quite proud of the way we seem to conduct and represent ourselves over here.

And of course how these countries contrast with the UK and how that makes us appreciate the good things we have but don't appreciate (I vow never to bemoan a 10 minute tube delay after the 2hr plus delays we have had here).

Wonder Fatigue

With the almost constant flow of wonderful experiences, it has become easy to be underwhelmed by things which would have blown me away 6 months ago. Top five things I couldn't have expected to become commonplace, and treat with a 'meh' rather than a 'who-ho-hoah':

5. Penguins

4. Glaciers

3. Hummingbirds

2. Mountains which are taller than they are wide

1. 2 litres of decent wine for £1.50

Thanks for indulging me. More proper travel updates when the rain stops and we can do something.

Pining for the (Chilean) fjords

What a Valentine's day. The night was marred by the sounds of an elderly French woman's bowel problems and the last half hour has been spent teasing dog shit out of walking boot treads with my toothbrush. Tonight we are cooking our 'hostel speciality' - chicken baked in a bag over a bed of veg - Jamie Oliver eat your heart out.

Chile has been full of highs and lows so far. The highs have been incredible: In Chilean Tierra del Fuego we saw king penguins and the wind-dried body of a 16 metre sei whale on a beach. The painted tin houses in the little town of Porvenir, about as far from civilisation as it is possible to be, were beautiful. That was followed by six days hiking and camping in the Torres del Paine national park: another highlight of the trip. We walked alongside glaciers, up mountain passes and round cloudy aquamarine lakes full of icebergs. The place is so otherworldly, especially the granite towers the park is named after, which were formed by the scrapings of glaciers and wind eroding the sedimentary rock, and are so steep that snow can't settle on them. The nearest town to the park is so far away it's the equivalent of basing yourself in London to see the Lake District, and as you approach, the huge mountain range rises up from the steppe - incredible. It's also very romantic to think that until the 1950's the place was just part of one man's sheep estancia. I felt our walking was quite hardcore - an average of 16 miles a day - and you develop a real comradely spirit with your fellow walkers, people from all different countries and all ages. Admittedly, the trek also briefly became a low-point of the trip after torrential rain and a night in a soggy sleeping bag. Our little tent failed to withstand 110km/hour gusts of wind on an exposed campsite (tourists accidentally burned down 10% of the park in 2005,  including the trees we needed that night). But Joe was man enough to withstand my whingeing, buy me several cocktails and rally my spirits with a night in a mountain refuge bunkbed - relative bliss. 

Torres del Paine was followed by a four-day boat trip through the Patagonian fjords, travelling almost a third up the length of Chile. You travel on a mixed passenger and container ship, complete with a live cow-cargo, and we had the cheap beds in the corridor by the toilets. All in all an interesting olfactory mixture. But the scenery is so incredible and the people so friendly, and the bar so, well, open, that you don't mind roughing it a bit. I learnt a valuable life-lesson after shouting my way through Roxanne on the first night's karaoke: If you're going to embarrass yourself, make sure you can get away the next day. Several people remarked on my 'brave' singing the following morning, and the crew members seemed to know my name after that. For the record, Joe also did some Bowie, although not nearly so badly. We spent the four days chatting and birdwatching on deck, and the crew do lectures and turn a blind eye to people breaking out 2 litre boxes of cheap plonk at lunchtime. Throughout the whole trip you see just a handful of houses, and mountain after wooded mountain reflected in still water. On the last day things hot up as you cross the Pacific, with huge rolling waves and noticeably fewer people at dinner. On that stretch we saw volcanoes, southern royal albatross and in the distance a blue whale with its back glinting in the sunlight. Amazing.

Since then we've been in the Lake District just south of Santiago, and the pace has dropped somewhat. Chile really knows how to rain. I thought Ireland was bad, but this place is something else: up to 4 metres a year in some places. Mostly where we are. Since leaving the boat we've hired a car for a week and been moving from park to park, and the camera is full of pictures of us in full raingear standing next to enormous trees. I've dragged Joe to see a 3800 year old Chilean false larch tree (huge) and a 1800 year old monkey puzzle tree (soggy). The best park, called Conguillio, was full of monkey puzzle trees covered in lichen like fur coats on their trunks. Really stunning. But after a few days, walking up hills in the rain and looking in vain through the cloud for the volcano above you palls somewhat. The Chileans don't seem to mind so much, hordes of students and families think nothing of hitchhiking in torrential downpours in the middle of nowhere, carrying camping gear and dragging a cool box behind them. I can't understand it. Anyway, we've now moved on, to an island called Chiloe, famous for witchcraft and seafood cooked in a hole in the ground, but the rain persists. In a few days we set off for Santiago for a week's language course, and hopefully some more fried doughnuts stuffed with dulce de leche (another highlight). But for now, it's chicken in a bag.