A difficult situation

In addition to evil old biddies who think my idea of a fun evening is to have my car breakdown on the sidewalk, there is another lady who frequently passes by my house. She is short with thin greying hair that is cropped to chin level. Her clothes are usually baggy and slightly ill-assorted and she speaks in a pre-occupied manner. She looks to be in her forties and despite seeing her regularly in the same place, I have often wondered if she has somewhere to live.

Regardless of her situation, she is always friendly and treated my stuck car debacal with a great deal more sympathy than the afore mentioned evil biddy. Once she told me she owned a yellow car too. I strongly suspected this was an equally friendly bare-faced lie.

This evening on the way back from work, I saw her not on my road, but near the highway. Crossing the road to head home, I greeted her and asked how she did. I recieved the usual vague answer of "fine, fine", followed by:

"I suppose I can walk back home with you."

I replied that of course she could, took my headphones from my ears and fell into step with her. I noted she was shivering, despite a large sweater and I asked if she was cold, adding that at least the weather had become warmer the last few days. She agreed and started talking to herself in a low tone with words I couldn't make out. We had not gone many steps when her pace slowed and she stopped.

"I think I'm going to walk the other way now."

I should emphasise that this road was near absolutely nothing. Walk twenty minutes and you would reach the cluster of houses and shops belonging to Westdale village, the other side of which the University was situated. Twenty minutes in the opposite direction would see you in downtown Hamilton. An incredibly slow pace alternating directions would see you nowhere, unless you had a particularly favourite patch of highway concrete.

"Are you all right?" I stopped and looked down at her. For the first time, I felt as if I loomed above her stooping figure. "Are you sure?"

She insisted that all was well and started shuffling off along the sidewalk again. Reluctantly, I headed for home.

Technically, I had done my duty, yet there was no doubt that it was within my power to offer more. The problem, of course, is that more personal interventions --for example an offer of money or an invitation to my home-- come with an associated risk. If I gave her cash, it might set a precedent for a continual donation of funds which would deplete my own resources and, if she really was homeless, would not ultimately help the problem. If I let her into my apartment, I left myself open to robbery or worse. Undoubtedly, there are social services who could be contacted, but I'm not at all sure what I could tell them if I called. I should make it clear that never once has this lady asked me for anything, yet self-preservation makes me keep my distance.

It's not that I feel my behaviour is wrong or even unnecessary. It's just damn unfortunate.

Snowpocalypse in spring-time

Hello March. I didn't see you there under ALL THAT SNOW.

It wasn't really the sheer quantity of white stuff that had me gawking out of my window on Wednesday morning. I mean, I live in Canada. I know that has consequences. Perhaps I was daft, but I thought that 20CM OF SNOW would be preceded by, you know, cold weather.

It wasn't even that we'd just had a brief warmer day. It hadn't snowed for weeks and on the weekend, I had finally dragged the bag of de-icing grit for the sidewalks back down to my basement. I had picked up my snow boots from their spot by the door and stowed them in my closet and laid aside my full length coat in favour of a fleece. I had even switched my violently coloured knee-length socks to violently coloured ankle socks. Seriously, spring was coming!

I noted my actions on Facebook and received the prompt reply that I'd jinxed everything and now it was going to snow on Wednesday....

.... I'm still hoping a weather forecast was involved somewhere in that.

Having completed a serious 20 minutes worth of slack-jawed gawking on Wednesday morning, I shovelled my drive and staggered into work. Notably, only the few most major roads had been cleared; something that was true even when I returned home in the evening. In Ontario, much of the snow clearing comes from residents with plough-attachments on their pick-up trucks. They get paid by the province for the work they do, but apparently I wasn't the only one who had packed up for the season.

Upon arriving in my office, I found my Facebook wall had become a site of blame:

"Cause and effect -> didn't you put your salt/grit back in the basement? Doomed..."

Sad but true. Evidently, the clearing of my drive had also been a repulsive act to Mother Nature and she worked steadily all day to cover up any evidence of my labour. It was extremely successful.

I returned home and wrote my message to the world in my car's rear windscreen.

Typical homecoming

Upon walking up my driveway towards the door of my apartment:

Neighbour's dog: Ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!

Me: Ruff ruff ruff ruff. Ruff!

Upon pushing open the door and entering the kitchen:

Cat: Meow! Meow meow meow meeeeooooow!

Me: Meow meow! Meow!

I'd feel better about all this if I felt anything I said during the preceding day had made more sense.

The ultimate warm-up

I stepped on the ice and flailed as my right skate shot out from underneath me. Hurriedly, I swung my weight to the left, becoming an ice ballerina as I sailed on one foot towards the barrier. Was the rink slick with water from the new surface deposited by the departing Zamboni? Normally, freshly cut ice has the reverse problem, with the residue thin layer of water causing the puck to stick to the rink before it freezes properly.

Gingerly, I put my skate back on the ice only to have it slide hopelessly sideways. What crazy ice problem was this? Two of my team-mates passed me, apparently unaffected. Was the issue with my skate? Had my blade come loose without me noticing? That would be bad; I couldn't skate with a blade so displaced it sent me flying every time it touched the rink. I'd have to not play.

I scanned my friends performing warm-up exercises. We were low on numbers tonight, I had to skate! I'd just have to ... have to .... skate on one foot. At least I'd have the element of surprise. Maybe if I pushed off from the bench really hard at the start of each of my shifts, I could sail across the rink, intercept the puck and ...

... be carted off for six weeks traction before the end of the first period.

This was clearly a COMPLETE DISASTER! However you looked at it there was going to be carnage and missed goals and broken bones and bandages and probably an iron lung. 

I reached the barrier and leaned against it, allowing me to get a proper look at my feet. My eyes narrowed at the lump of sticky tape attached to my right blade. Okay, perhaps no one had to loose the use of their lungs. This seemed like a solvable situation.

The next few minutes progressed in a remarkably similar manner to this video clip. I pushed the lump of tape with my free boot but it just slid along the blade. Next I tried pinning it down with my left blade while I lifted my right skate up. That caused my skates to be stuck together. Then I tried trying to rub it off on the barrier after which I attempted ... Look, it doesn't matter. Let's just say in a battle of me versus tape there was a clear winner and leave it at that.

Ultimately, I was rescued by a team-mate who was able to bend down and tug the offending stickiness free of my skate. The exposed blade finally cut into the ice and I shot forward just as the whistle blew for the game to begin. Fortunately, I had just stretched out every single muscle. It was the ultimate warm-up. I must write to the NHL.

Don't knock it

"That ... can't be right..."

I was watching the student cashier count out a pile of coins from the till for my change. The thing was, I'd given him $2 and my drink was $1.90. It might be first thing on a Thursday morning, but even I could work out that I shouldn't be receiving a fistful of silver coins back.

The cashier paused and looked at the till screen. It read:

Purchase: $1.90
Change: $0.85

"No ..." he agreed and then shrugged. "Just ... you know ... go with it." He passed me over the coins with a sunny smile.

"Um. Okay. Thanks." I took the coins and the drink and wandered off.

Probably a sociology student.

Sled hockey

"On the off-chance this ever becomes an issue ... which way are we shooting?"

Even for me, it was strange question to ask during a hockey game. This, though, was no ordinary match. This was sled hockey. Designed for disabled players, sled hockey is played --as the name suggests-- on sleds. These devices resemble metal stretchers supported on short twin blades with a plastic bucket seat on one end.

A member of my regular hockey team coaches in a sled hockey league and, finding her team had an hour of extra ice time at the end of their season, she suggested we come and try it out in an exhibition match. There is clearly no other answer to such a suggestion than 'hell yes!' and it was utterly awesome. The 'exhibition' naturally turned out to be us, rather than the game, but this was suspected well in advance of the reality.

The first obstacle I had to cross occurred in the changing room when I attempted to put my hockey gear on without my skates. The issue was not the emotional guilt from leaving my skates in my bag (although that was rather sad) but simply that my kit goes on in a certain order. Like Ikea furniture, forgetting one of the steps usually results in the end product falling to pieces. In this case, my shin pads felt dangerously slippy.

As it turned out, this wasn't a problem since my ankles got taped to the sled. What was more of an issue was getting my GIGANTIC BACKSIDE into the tiny plastic seat. If the proceeding game wasn't enough to wreak my ego, this would have sealed the deal. It transpired later that sled hockey players don't wear the same padded shorts as skaters in the traditional game (IT'S TRUE I TELL YOU!). They either wear lighter shorts similar to those used in roller hockey or just leggings. As a result, I had to be levered into my sled by the referee.

Then I was off!

.... if I could work out how to move. Instead of a single long stick for manoeuvring the puck, sled hockey players have two short sticks roughly a third of the length of a traditional hockey stick. The shooting blade on each is the same size and shape as a full-sized stick but the reverse end is equipped with metal teeth that are dug into the ice to propel you forwards. It was quite like rowing a boat on frozen water. When you wanted to hit the puck, you inverted the stick to put the blade against the ice and shot towards the goal. At least, that was the idea.

The sled blades were adjustable and could be set at different distances apart. Ours were separated by about half a foot rather like the training wheels on a bicycle. A few of the real team members had theirs mounted so close together they looked like a single blade. This forfeited stability in favour for manoeuvrability. Since I had a habit of tipping over, being unable to do handbreak turns on one stick was not overly upsetting. Normally when I fell to one side, I was able to righten myself with one hefty push. However, while guarding the goal (probably from nothing, I have no idea where the puck was at the time), I tipped over so fully that I partially came un-wedged from my seat. This meant that when I tilted back up, my centre-of-mass was off to one side and I just fell down in the opposite direction. Team members surrounded me like a bovine heard around a wounded animal. However, since we were all tied into our sleds, no one was able to provide the leverage and stability to correct the problem. In the end the referee (laughing hard) appeared to stuff me back into position. Time to go!

Never had the ice rink looked so big. None of us were used to working our arm muscles so much and we couldn't yet move at any great speed. Someone sped past me, guiding the puck with one stick and manoeuvring with the other. He approached the goal, lifted the entire sled up about an inch, and shot the puck underneath it to land in the net.

I waved my sticks a bit in stunned admiration.

When the whistle blew, I cut myself free of the tape round my ankles and tumbled unceremoniously onto the ice. Strangely, one of the sorest parts of me was not my arms but my unused legs. This is apparently not uncommon, since you do not normally sit with your legs absolutely still for an extended period of time.

I picked up the sled and carried it to the store room noting, with some surprise, that many of the regular players did the same. Upon inquiring, I discovered that to play in the sled hockey league, you have to have some form of disability, which need not be physical. This led to one very important question:

If you could walk, why on earth is sled hockey considered easier than the traditional sport?

Chocolate, traffic and visas

My car was full of chocolate aero bars. I'd stuffed three in the glove compartment, two in the cup holders and now I was trying to find homes for another five. Clearly, some rearranging was required.

I was parked at the duty free store by the US-Canada land border near Niagara. While this leg of the journey should have taken only an hour, I had left home at 9:30 am and it was now 2 pm. The heavy snow the night before had taken not only me by surprise, but caused a tractor trailer to jack-knife on the highway, blocking all three lanes and resulting in near-stationary traffic for hours. This had led to repeated texts to my friend providing ever longer estimated arrival times.

I supposed I should count myself lucky. As I had sat there flicking through the radio stations and failing to find any traffic news, a car carrier truck had drawn up beside me loaded with three mashed-up vehicles. I suppressed the temptation that had been growing within me to start ramming the car in front.

Despite the fact I was anticipating spending at least another hour at the border office getting a tourist visa, I had pulled into the duty free to use the bathroom. Feeling that someone should benefit from this chaos, I had bought another US residing (a.k.a. the country without aeros) friend more of her favourite chocolate while in the store. Well, it was better than the other (rather tempting but probably regrettable) option of accepting the free samples of ice wine.

For reasons designed to vex me, the US air and land ports have different policies regarding entry visas. The airports have moved over to the electronic ESTA applications and consider these so shiny and superior that they confiscate the old green paper visas on sight. The land border, by contrast, has rejected this crazy modern technology and wants you to have the green slip in your passport. The upshot of this is that I am either sulking in the land border office waiting to be called to the counter or watching sadly as the airport guy destroys my paper visa like a mother weaning a child off a pacifier.

Before pulling onto the bridge, I called my friend and told her I should be in Buffalo in about two hours, depending on the queues and busyness of the border office. I hoped for once that I wouldn't have send the follow up text telling her to double that estimate. Then I stuffed the chocolate into my bag and slid onto the road.

"Reason for coming to the USA?" The border control guard took my passport and flicked through its pages.

"I'm meeting a friend."

"How to you know them?"

I'd long ago learned to outright lie to this question. The friend I normally met when driving over the border I knew from an internet fan group for Japanese anime. If that didn't sound like something for which I should be detained and questioned for 6 weeks, I don't know what does.

"College," I said, my face bland. I watched the guard examine my collection of visas and took a long shot. "I've entered the US recently," I explained. "Less than a month ago through Atlanta airport. There's a stamp in the back."

A visitor visa to the USA lasts three months before you have to renew it. Every other time I had passed through though, the lack of the green paper slip has meant that I have to get a new pass done. Still, I'd never explicitly tried pointing out that this should be unnecessary.

The guard examined the stamp. "Okay, carry on."

....Seriously? I was so surprised, I nearly forgot to put my car back in gear. It was a good job I'd stopped to use the bathroom at the duty free. I drove slowly through the gates, reaching for my phone to text:

"25 minutes."

Late night

As the zamboni rolled onto the ice, we pushed open the rink door and made our way over to the benches. We stopped in the 'away' team's area and started to deposit our sticks and water bottles.

"Guys, we're the home team tonight!" Our captain had arrived and was now waving us to the next bench over.

We all turned to stare at him for a moment. "But....that one's further...." someone protested.

Can you tell it was a late game? It was.

Apart from the fact that everyone looks dazedly confused when the puck is first dropped, the other problem with late games is that the outside temperature is prone to plummet. As Saturday night swung to Sunday morning, the heavy rain that had been dousing the city all day morphed into horizontal snow. I left the rink to find one half of my car covered with a dusting of white icing powder and the other half buried under 2 inches. It was kinda awesome. And difficult to shift.

After about half an hour of dedicatedly fighting against nature's desire to preserve my car in ice while the fans warmed the windscreen, I was able to trundle away out onto the road.

Hamilton city is divided into two halves by what is locally known as 'the mountain'. This is a wholly inaccurate description for what is actually an escarpment, the same one that runs south-east of Hamilton to form the cliff from which Niagara Falls plunges. The ice rink is located on the raised escarpment while my apartment sits in the downtown city area below. This meant I was looking at a steep and snowy decent to get home.

I rolled unenthusiastically along the road, trying to follow the path carved by the few other vehicles up and about at this hour.  I could mentally see myself turned upside down in a ditch, my car wheels turning like its upturned bug namesake. Sadness!

Then, I spotted a snowplough. Sneakily, I went twice round the roundabout and slid in behind it to follow it down to the city. It was a bit like tailing an ambulance to avoid red light except .... much .... slower.

I ditched my new best friend at the bottom of the hill and scooted off for home. When I arrived, my driveway was already thick with snow. Should I risk trying to pull into it? Images of angry old ladies lecturing me on the location of my broken-down car filled my mind. I scuttled off to park in the street. That woman seemed just the type to be out at 2 am.

Potato, potato

"Did you say, Buffalo?"

Finally! After 12756 tries (or there abouts), Continental Airlines automatic phone system had detected the airport I wanted to leave from. Now we just had to ...

"Please give the name of the airport you wish to travel to."

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose with one hand.

"Sapporo."

"Did you say, South Korea?"

May I just point out that is a country and not an airport? I suppose I should be grateful that I would at least be heading in the right direction rather than starting in Russia and ending in Mexico. I wondered how many virtual airports I would have to tour before something approximating a flight to Japan was being considered by both parties.

"Did you say, Sapporo, Japan?"

Bullseye. Second try, no less. Still, we weren't out of the woods yet.

"Please give the date you wish to depart."

"March 21st."

"Did you say March 28th?"

"No."

"Sorry about that. Please give the date you wish to return."

... What? So we have unequivocally established that you did not record the correct date for my departure so you're going to apologise and just ... carry right on? Apparently, I was not the only one getting annoyed here. Continental's phone system had clearly decided I should be grateful for any flight at all.

Strangely, at this stage in the proceedings, I was pretty much in agreement. Just get me to Japan for some period of time; I'll sort out the rest from there.

... it was preferable to calling this whole thing off.

Tomato, tomato

"Please give the name of the airport you wish to travel from."

"Buffalo."

"Did you say, Finland?"

"No."

"Sorry about that. Please give the name of the airport you wish to travel from."

"Buffalo."

"Did you say, Barcelona, Spain?"

"...No."

I was attempting to communicate with the automatic telephone system for Continental Airlines. While the pleasant sounding male voice appeared to have an extensive knowledge of world cities, it was apparently rather less good on world accents. I pulled a face and tried to think of a different way of pronouncing 'Buffalo'. Buuuffalo, perhaps? Buffaaalo?

"Did you say, Boston?"

Well, at least we were in the right country this time. Perhaps I should just have said 'yes' and driven there. Indeed, I promptly regretted not doing exactly that when we moved onto:

"Did you say, Campeche, Mexico?"

How does one go from 'Buffalo' to 'Campeche, Mexico'? How is it that a voice recognition system can cope (presumably) with a southern drawl and not with a British accent? Could this plausible sounding recording actually be a particularly annoyed employee having a laugh? Maybe it was someone taking an extended lunch break by wiring up the phone system to keep the customer on hold until gone half-past two. If so, I had to hand it to them; it would be a hard crime to prove.

"Did you say, Perm, Russia?"

Then again, a tape of this conversation ought to nail the skiving bastard.

Breath

'Hotch, hotch, hotch."

There is a good moment to watch the movie 'Teeth' but right before a Pap (UK: smear) test is not one of them. Especially since the above verbal direction from the gynaecologist to shift my hips lower down on the exam table was the exact wording used in the film during the protagonist's own cervical examination. The outcome was the doctor loosing four of his fingers to the teeth in her vagina.

Well no, perhaps there is never truly a good moment to watch a film that involves the unexpected castration of almost every male character. I mulled this over and grimaced at the ceiling. Still, there was no denying that this test was a good idea and it'd been part of the lightening-quick orders issued to me in this post. Also yes, if you found that entry too-much-information, you're really not going to like this one!

Apart from her rather unfortunate instruction above, the doctor was a cheerful individual who did her best to set me at ease. A Pap test isn't usually painful, but it's not exactly dignified. I was sitting perched on the exam table with a blanket flung over my legs when she rapped on the door.

"Is it safe?" she enquired as she opened the door. "You'd be surprised about some of the things I see in this job! Oh yes!"

I watched nonplussed as she arranged containers on the counter. What exactly had she seen? I mean, I was about to show her basically everything I had. We did a brief run-through of my medical history and the doctor asked if I had any questions about the leaflets I'd been given to read. The one I'd worked through had informed me that I might unknowingly have HPV, that I would probably be upset to discover this but ... tough. It wasn't curable. I didn't feel there were any obvious questions one could have to this, so I shook my head. I did get big points from her for having had the Gardasil vaccine against a couple of different types of HPV. This started a mini-rant about people who refused to have vaccinations that ended abruptly with:

"... well, at least I don't need to tell you about their worth!"

At this point, all my questions were now directed at the sort of the people who came to this clinic. Apparently, they were annoying the medical staff.

"My aim is to make this as easy as possible for you," the doctor told me once I'd manoeuvred myself into the required position. "So this will be a test you won't fear coming back to."

"Sounds good," I replied through gritted teeth as I waited for the expected discomfort.

"Breath, Elizabeth. If you faint, this has not gone nearly as well as it might have."

The undeniable truth of this statement caused me to start laughing and the resulting few minutes were entirely painless. As a reward for showing up (apparently another uphill battle with the local populous), I got a year's prescription for the pill, rather than just a three-month batch, with instructions to take a few packets back-to-back if I was still experiencing a lot of pain menstruating.

"It won't do your body any harm to skip cycles," the doctor said. "A hundred years ago, you would have missed continuously because you would have been pregnant ALL THE TIME."

Pregnant all the time?! Now there was a concept even more scary than vagina dentata.

Gaskets and biddies

It was with some apprehension that I stepped off the plane in Toronto and headed towards border control. Three things were bothering me:

The first was that I wasn't at all convinced my luggage would have made the journey from Santiago. Since my flight involved a change in Atlanta, I had expected a brief, emotional reunion with my case where the tears would have been due to being dog tired after queueing through USA border control after a 9 hour flight, only to have to carry my three-week-trip backpack through customs to drop it back onto the checked luggage conveyor belt.

Instead I had been handed a small purple tag at Santiago, which I completely ignored until I was standing in line at the USA border and literally driven by boredom to read it. It stated that I was participating in an international to international (ITI) checked baggage transfer and that I wouldn't have access to my bag until my destination. Of course, there was absolutely no need to go through American customs if the bag wasn't staying in the country, so this sounded both convenient and entirely reasonable.

It therefore didn't sound remotely likely.

In all other countries, bags are always checked through to your final destination regardless of where you make your connections. The difference in the US came in the wake of 9/11 and perhaps, nearly ten years down the line, it was time to reconsider this time consuming process. However, the fact the tag phrasing suggested you were undergoing some type of clinical trial did not help my confidence level.

My second concern was that I wouldn't be able to find my car in the airport car park. I had received an email while I was away that had said the university had been closed, suggesting a snowpocalypse had struck Hamilton in my absence. Having a bright yellow car is only helpful if it isn't under a giant snow drift.

Lastly, I was worried that even if I found my car and dug it out, it would then fail to start. Since it had been decidedly reluctant to move on my way out to the airport, I couldn't see that three weeks parked outside would have improved its condition.

As it turned out, all my fears were for nothing. My bag was ready and waiting by the time I cleared Canadian border control, my car was free of snow and started first time. Why, it was great to be home!

Once I reached my house, I parked on the road so that I could dig my driveway clear of the accumulated snow. This was quite a job, especially since hard blocks of ice had formed between the sidewalk and road. I chipped away at them with my metal tipped shovel and scooped the driveway clear. It was pretty good exercise after spending all night on a plane. Pleased with that day's efforts, I left to collect my cat from the boarding cattery in the early evening.

As the sun set, the temperature dropped. The thin layer of snow and water left on my driveway turned to ice.

I tried to pull back up to my house ... and got stuck. My driveway is inclined and the ice on its surface caused my tyres to spin uselessly. Worse, the chunks of ice still on the edge of the road meant that I couldn't go backwards either. I was off the road, but blocking the sidewalk. After repeated tries I gave up, snapped my hazard lights on and took the cat inside. Then I called the CAA.

The CAA promised to send around a tow truck and told me they would be there within half an hour. Feeling I ought to stay with my car, I sat in the driver's seat and waited. After about fifteen minutes, a woman approached and rapped on my window. I rolled it down.

"You're blocking the sidewalk," she shot angrily at me. "and I'm a senior!"

I blinked. Did she honestly think this was my idea of a fun Monday night? To sit in a car with all the lights flashing?

"I'm very sorry," I said politely. "but as you can see my hazards are on." I gestured to the front and back of the car where all the lights were flashing widely. "I've broken down."

"What?!" the woman didn't seem to find this either acceptable or believable.

"My hazard lights," I explained patiently. "I can't move my car. I've had to call for a tow truck."

She gave me a look of total disbelieve and marched off without another word. I stared after her. The temptation to leap out of my car and confront her was rather high. I strongly desired to point out that the polite response in such a situation would be to ask if I needed help, especially since I was clearly by myself and she had no way of knowing the house in front of us was my own. I consoled myself with images of meeting her once I was back on the road and simply mowing her down.

Sadistic? No. She had totally asked for it.

The truck from the CAA rolled up with its unphased driver. A tow wasn't necessary; he just gave the car a push as I reversed, letting it drop back onto the road. I thanked him and scooted away.

Now, to find that woman....

Happy penguin feet

The shale tumbled and crunched under my walking boot as I gingerly took another part-step, part-slide down the mountain side. This steep decent from the look-out point consisted of crumbling flinty pieces of rock that made a compressible surface that you still wanted to avoid landing on with anything short of a thick-soled shoe. I was moving down carefully, with one walking pole anchored in front of me, the other behind as I maneuvered sideways down the route.

Our pace on this walk had been fast, so much so that we had caught up with a second group from the hotel that had left half an hour before us. Within this second group were a young family with two girls, aged 9 and 7. Completely unperturbed by this death-drop decline, they bounced passed me, laughing wildly.

"They have a different sense of gravity," one member of our group suggested as the two blond heads shot passed him.

"They have a different sense of mortality," corrected his wife.

The smaller of the two girls turned out her toes in a ballet-esque first position. "Happy penguin feet!" she declared.

I caught up with my Dad as they disappeared out of sight.

"You don't have happy penguin feet," he said, sounding fractionally disappointed.

If it was possible to look even more unimpressed than I had been two minutes ago, I just achieved it.

Sugar rush

It was crazy talk.

We were perched on a cluster of rocks at the end of the French Valley in Chile's Torres del Paine national park. Just behind us was a spot known as the Italian base-camp; now a free camp ground for tired hikers. Ahead of us, the path wound upwards to an area known as the plateau and, beyond that, the climb increased to reach the British base-camp. The route ended there and climbing ropes had to be employed if you wished to continue.

Judging by the names, nothing much had stopped the British and the walk to the highest base-camp was the hardest offered by the Explora hotel. The Italians, meanwhile, must have hiked the length of the valley before setting down while the French seemed to have entered the valley, viewed the peaks, declared "Mon dieu!" and cracked open the sauvignon blanc.

Personally, I felt the Italians had it about right, although there was a lot to be said for eating a picnic lying sprawled in the valley. Our group, however, seemed to feel the plateau needed to be considered. This meant I needed to eat more. I polished off my sandwich and moved onto a brownie followed by a chocolate bar. Sugar was the key.

While our previous hotel in Argentina was all about comfort, the Explora hotel in Chilean Patagonia is all about the hikes. Based in the centre of the national park, the hotel provides everything from accommodation, three meals a day, drinks, snacks and --its main feature-- daily expeditions around the park. The guides lead groups of up to eight people, providing direction, local information on geology, plant and wild life, first aid and, it transpired, extra lunch. Miraculously, a hot Thermos of soup had appeared. I downed it with my chocolate.

The seriously hefty price-tag of the hotel meant that it attracted a certain clientèle. We were currently walking with a couple who were both past the age of retirement but showed no indication of stopping working. They were in medicine, working near Atlanta, with the husband researching diabetes and the wife in clinical trials involving cancer genes. The wife also --in her free time-- played tennis three times a week and competed in Grand Prix horse competitions. The other couple with us worked for the World Bank and were currently based in DC, although the husband was Austrian and his wife British. They had lived all over the world, including Jamaica and Nigeria. It was about half-way along this route I became exceptionally glad I had a career to talk about. Fortunately, astronomy sells well to even the harshest of critics: stars, twinkle, pretty. Everyone likes it.

I swallowed my last mouthful. OK, major sugar high! Let's go! Behind me, a pow-wow was in progress which broke up to announce that the plateau was perhaps a stretch too far, since we'd end up returning late to the hotel.

Sugar sugar sugar sugar....

I hopped down the rocks and bounced around for about half an hour as we decended before the whole effect completely wore off and I had to be permanently plugged into my water bottle to make it the rest of the way back.

The plateau probably wasn't the best idea. Turns out I only have the ability to control my energy levels equal to a seven year old.

Perfect

"... and we'll take a bottle of the sauvignon blanc."

"Perfect!" The waiter at the hotel in Buenos Aires seemed ecstatic with our dinner order. Clearly, we had not only picked the absolutely best choice on the menu, but we had combined the starter, main dish and wine choice in such a way that not even the chef himself could have imagined such a fantastic combination.

We left the table with full bellies and even fuller egos. Why, all restaurants should be hiring us for their set menu design!

As we moved south to Patagonia, we discovered that not only was our dish selection second to none, but in fact all the choices we made for our trips and outings were equally 'perfect!'. Evidently, we were experts at this travel business from beginning to end! I began to be concerned that returning home might come as an unpleasant shock to the system, especially when faced with the referee report on my next paper.

At the start of our second week, we left the Argentinian side of Patagonia to cross into Chile. This was a slightly strange process since the border control posts for Argentina and Chile were separated by several kilometres. If the roaming guanacos were tempted to pick-pocket passports, you could end up trapped in a no-man's land in a cross between the TV show 'Surviver' and the movie 'The Terminal'.

Having beaten off the thieving wildlife to successfully make it to the other side, we were met by the organiser for the transport to our new hotel. She caught up with our group in the border-stop cafe just as I was using the restrooms.

"Where is Elizabeth?" she asked, having ascertained that three out of the four people she was expecting were in front of her.

"She's just using the toilet."

"Ah, perfect!"

You know ... that's maybe taking it a bit too far.

Through the valley of death

"Is everyone confident about this walk? Now is the last chance to change your mind!"

All of us shook our heads. For my part at least, this determination was less to do with confidence in my fitness ability and everything to do with refusing to get back into that van. This organised hike was part of a round trip to visit the Upsala Glacier, north of where we had walked on Perito Moreno the day before. We had taken a boat out to Estanica Cristina, a sheep ranch named after the daughter of the British family who originally owned the land in the early 20th century. She had died at only 20 years old, for reasons unspecified. Maybe it involved a van ride.

The boat had weaved through large fields of icebergs before depositing us by the Estancia where we were picked up by a four-by-four which drove us up the mountain. The van was designed like a safari vehicle with open-sides and a canvas top. We sat on two long benches and held onto ropes strung along the cloth roof for support.

That support was needed.

Taking a van to the mountain top and then hiking down through the canyon sounded like the ideal, relaxing walk. What we hadn't taken into account was exactly how rough the journey uphill would be. The steep dirt path was only just passable by the four-by-four which bumped and rocked at it climbed. The wind was also strong, whipping through the open sides as we clung to the safety rope. I pulled the hood of my waterproof over my woollen hat and tried to avoid looking at the road ahead. Or vomiting over it.

Even the hardiest people we were travelling with looked relieved when we finally tumbled out of the vehicle. No one volunteered to take the ride back down. I wondered if anyone ever did. Maybe people extremely keen on roller coasters. Ones without seatbelts.

Shortly beyond where we had been dropped was a look out point for the glacier. It spread before us like a scene from the movie, 'The day after tomorrow'. The ground we were standing on was a red rock that extended down into Fossil Canyon. Here we could see imprints of ammonites and small white fossils of sea creatures from when water had once flowed millions of years ago. The lakes that we saw were either glacier fed or from rain water. Interestingly, you could tell instantly by looking at them (although a quick paddle would also have confirmed this effectively). Rain water lakes were a dull blue-grey shade whereas glacier water had a opaque milky turquoise colour from the tiny pieces of ice suspended within it. There was also the occasional hulking big iceberg which provided another clue.

We exited the canyon via a steep drop over piles of shale to end up in the valley leading back to the boat. Our guide pointed to the distant shoreline and said this last stretch would take us about an hour. My Dad waved this away and said it didn't look more than 15 minutes walk. I remember him telling me such things during my childhood when I was tired while we were walking in the Lake District. Then, as now, it proved to be a complete lie. It was almost exactly an hour. I was glad our guide at least was not of a similar disposition to my father in such situations.

Sugar coated iceberg

Walking boots are a serious piece of equipment. Made of sturdy leather with a sole thicker than a steak sandwich, the damage they could potentially inflict makes it worth ex-boyfriends not accompanying me on hikes. Add to this a set of inch-long spikes and you had nothing but solid, vengeful, win.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonia Ice Field. The ice field is a 350 km long band of snow and ice in the Patagonian Andes and is the third biggest ice mass in the world, with Antarctica and Greenland taking the top two positions. Despite this, the glaciers stemming from it are all smaller than any of those found on Antarctica. The Perito Moreno glacier is the only one of the glaciers that is not receding. Humid air rises over the mountains from Chile and falls as snow on the peaks, creating a renewable stream of ice that pushes the glacier forward by roughly the same amount that it melts each year. On average, the glacier advances at a sizable speed of 2m a day.

Unlike European glaciers, many of the glaciers in Patagonia stretch down close to sea level, with Perito Moreno ending in Lake Argentino, the largest fresh water lake in the country. This naturally makes these sites major tourist attractions which we shamelessly supported by signing up for a 90 minute ice walk across the rough frozen surface.

The ice walk takes place at the glacier's far end, closest to the lake. Here, the ice is only moving a few inches a day, allowing the sharp peaks and troughs to be worn by weathering into a series of smoother (if granular) paths than can be more easily navigated. Nevertheless, this was not the surface to sprint along and going downhill, it was worth slamming your crampon-encased boot down with sufficient force to ensure a good grip.

I found that satisfying.

The surface of the glacier was like walking on thousands of ice cubes. Not everyone found this a comfortable experience. Some, precariously balanced on their spikes, found the deep drops that periodically appeared to our sides unnerving. These holes plummeted down into the heart of the glacier, encased in sparkling blue dripping crystal. Others were clearly ashamed of their footwear. Well, I had no evidence for this, but if I'd strapped a pair of crampons onto the light plimsolls one member of our group was wearing, I would feel daft. It was like attaching a bullet proof vest to a butterfly.

One lady (not plimsoll wearing) decided that the final uphill was more than she could manage and took advantage of our path's close passing to the bare hillside to step off the glacier and head back to the camp. This proved to be an error since the 'last great view' we were promised on this ascent turned out to be a large chest of whisky.

Why yes, I would like some 400 year old glacier ice with my drink.

400 years was our guide's estimate of how long it takes for the glacier ice to work its way down from its pressurised formation on the mountain top to the lake's edge.

The end of the glacier is a vertical 40m drop into the lake. As it melts, huge vertical pillars can break away and tumble in a crashing pile of ice dust into the water. We saw several chunks meet their doom this way, becoming icebergs that sail down stream, looking for Titanic vessels to sabotage. Even when the end sections were not falling, creaks and cracks could be heard throughout the glacier as it inched along its path.

A few days later we would see the Grey Glacier on the Chile side of the ice field, taking a boat that would weave through an entire lake of icebergs. Even though ice is lighter than water, only 5-10 % of the iceberg is visible above the surface of the lake.

As we approached some of the larger bodies, I felt someone somewhere should be rather more concerned about this.

Mate

The classic British drink is of course the 'English Breakfast' tea. Quite why it becomes associated with a morning meal once you cross the pond is a mystery. Don't you get it, America? We drink tea all the time. ALL THE TIME.

The Argentinean equivalent to this, frankly, perfect beverage is the 'mate tea'. Unlike English Breakfast, however, its preparation and consumption resembles that of an illegal drug.

Mate is a shared drink, apparently because it is universally acknowledged to be utterly undrinkable until the third or forth addition of hot water to the bitter yerba mate leaves. These leaves are in the form of a ground powder which are put in a small round pot until it is 3/4 full. There is then some complex rearranging of yerba so that the hot water can be poured down one side of the pot. The tea is then drunk through a metal straw that also acts as a strainer.

So, in the end, you have a small round pot, filled with a greenish powdery liquid being passed around a group of people who take it in turns to take a long drag from the metal straw.

See what I mean about drugs?

I was relieved the process had been demonstrated to me by the hotel staff before I saw our taxi driver drinking one the following day.

Because the first serving of the mate will be the most bitter, it is often drunk by the host. As more water is added, the taste weakens. I found the mate's taste bitter, but not unpleasant, though I couldn't honesty say I noticed any significant weakening over time. It had a smokey aftertaste that reminded me of a hot islas whisky, such as Laphroaig.

I'm not sure it'll be replacing the excellent British brew in my life quite yet (not least because I'm sure I'd be arrested if I was spotted drinking such a concoction in Canada) but it was interesting and --despite appearances-- less deadly than horse riding.

Pink feathers

"A short hike from the hotel leads down to the lagoon."

We had moved north from Ushuaia to the Argentinean Steps; a mountainous country punctuated by wide, wind swept plains and icy glacier fed lakes. This was the day before I tested an alternative career as a horse-backed gaucho and we were sitting in a wide windowed lounge, listening to a member of the hotel staff describe the area.

"You can see the flamingos on the water." The lady explaining this to us gestured out of the window towards the small patch of blue.

Flamingos?! I looked out at the wilderness around us. Small runty trees dotted the plains, their branches all stretched out to one side due to the shaping force of the harsh winds that whistled over this land. How could wild flamingos exist in a landscape where the vegetation looked like it was in front of a high speed fauna hairdryer? That didn't sound remotely likely. Flamingos should belong in hot tropical countries. The kind with wooden shacks on the beach selling cocktails in the half coconut with brightly colored drink umbrellas.

I clearly wasn't the first person to treat this pronouncement with complete disbelieve. On the table in front of me sat a pair of binoculars. I snatched them up and leveled the bins at the patch of blue. Sure enough, scattered around the lagoon edge in smudges of incongruous pink, were a flock of flamingos.

It was just ... just ... WRONG.

It had to be seen up close. In fact, I had to catch a flamingo and have my photo taken cuddling it.

The walk to the lagoon took about an hour. That was apparently long enough for each and every one of nature's barbies to move to the far side of the water. We skulked around the lake edge. For creatures that spend most of their time on one foot, it's surprising how adept flamingos are at subtly shifting beyond the reach of a really good photo. In the end, I had to settle for a lot of water and a string of pink blobs. Arty landscape shot.

We had marginally more luck with other wildlife in the area. The mountain side was stuffed with llama-like guanacos. This was hardly surprising since, as I have previously established, South America is FULL of alpacas which they use as their primary form of transport. Sometimes disguised as BMWs. Guanacos were the wild cousins of alpacas. They could probably be trained into skodas.

There were also the buff-necked ibis whose head, with its long curved beak, resembled its white American relative, but with the body of something closer to a vulture. It looked at as though someone had had far too much fun with a sewing kit and a bird encyclopedia.

Then there were the small emu-like rheas and the armadillo with its baby which resembled a mutantly sized earwig too closely to be cute. There were also hares everywhere --spawning from the introduction from Europe in 1888-- including in my dinner that night, served with chocolate sauce.

Yum.

It almost made up for the lack of hugging-a-Chilean-flamingo shot. The afore mentioned, incidentally, are more commonly found in Argentina.

Horses are not go-carts

"What about hats?"

"Your hair is short. You will be fine."

I looked up at the horse in front of me and then across at the rough trail that led up into the hills. Oddly, the wind blowing through my hair was not what I was primarily concerned about.

With the exception of those connected to the budding tourist trade, the main inhabitants of Patagonia are the rangers or 'gauchos'. These horse-backed loners heard sheep and cattle through the mountains and plains normally with the help of just their mount and dogs. In their account of travels with the Beagle, both Darwin and FitzRoy mention the gauchos, with the former traveling with them when he wished to go inland. Clearly, riding was the way to conquer this wide, open space so it seemed churlish not to give it a try.

Due to being a somewhat accident-prone child, I had never taken riding lessons when I was younger so my equine experience to date came from the occasional beginner-level hacks while I was on holiday. I had been assured that this outing would be similarly suitable for a complete novice, apparently so much so that hard hats were deemed completely unnecessary. The saddles were also small and largely concealed by a large thick blanket. This meant the only options for holding on were the reins (which were held in just one hand and you couldn't exactly pull on them) or the horse's mane (I wasn't too keen to pull on that either). I tried to reassure myself that this was the traditional gaucho experience and wasn't that exactly what I had desired?

I wondered how many gauchos-in-training died horrible deaths on their first outing.

We set off walking in a line up the track. My horse was third in the string, behind a small five year old and her mother. As the only non-Spanish speaker in the party of five, I was unable to exchange reassuring comments with my fellow riders. The stable-hand in charge of our group spoke excellent English, but obviously wasn't the slightest bit nervous of DEATH BY BAZURK HORSE. However, as we moved through the first gate I heard the international squeak behind me of someone feeling anxious. I felt better.

The path wound upwards but had a series of steep trenches that must be crossed. On foot, they were an uncomfortable scramble; maybe two careful steps down, a jump and then a two step leap up. This didn't look like a remotely good idea on the much larger horse with four legs to maneuver. We approached the first one.

I swallowed.
Looked around desperately for something to hold onto.
Failed.
Wished I had a hard hat.
Prayed.

Then with a slight jostle we were over.

"When you go down, lean back on the saddle," our guide called out, first in Spanish and then in English.

Wait, why hadn't he mentioned this before we went over the first drop? Was the decent coming up INFINITELY WORSE? Perhaps no one had ever stayed mounted before on this crossing. Maybe it was six foot deep and be more bone shaking than your average roller coaster. The type whose last safety test on its wooden frame had been 1970. Before the infestation of woodworm.

"Um....!" I called out.

"Don't worry! It's exactly the same as before!"

Just before you felt no need to offer us life-saving advice.

It was at this point that I reached an important conclusion that was going to affect me for the rest of the ride:

A horse is not a go-cart.

There was no way I could have gone over that steep trench in anything with wheels and come out unharmed. I would have been thrown to one side, spun head-over-heels, ended up in a lot of pain and someone somewhere would have laughed. My horse, however, was a sentient being who knew full well how to negotiate such a drop. It picked its way carefully down and up without any change in speed. Even though it looked a highly precarious process when watching the animal in front of me, the ride itself felt almost completely smooth. One of us in this trekking unit knew what we were doing. It just wasn't me. I could live with that.

From then onwards I realized all I needed to do was trust the horse.

The only slight problem with this was that my horse hated being number three in our line. Perhaps when it saw the wide open land before us it just wanted to run. Maybe it was in a blood feud with the forefront bicolored pony. It could be that it just felt it was undignified for both of us to have to follow a five year old. I didn't know. I did know that I wasn't quite prepared to take an ad-libed route across this mountain which would culminate --in the best scenario-- with a small child being thrown to the ground.

Well, actually, I probably was, but the likelihood of the brat staying mounted and me falling to my doom was rather higher.

For the majority of the ride, a few tugs on the rein kept us in position. We rode up along the trail, stopped for a brief photo shoot and then began our decent. Seeds of worry started to blossom in my mind as we reached a prolonged steep decline.

Just trust the horse.

Right. I kept my hand as loose on the rein as possible, allowing my horse to amble comfortably down the pitted ground ... until it seized its opportunity and took off at a trot.

This ALWAYS happens to me on beginner hacks. At some point, my horse gets bored of walking and decides a brisk sprint is in order. It was, however, the first time this had happened on a sharply declining hillside.

Did I mention I wasn't wearing a helmet?!

I yelped a protest.

"Pull on the reins!" our guide called to me.

I'd thought of that before making a noise like a fretful three year old, but had dismissed it in favor for the toddler distress call because I thought pulling up on a horse when it was running downhill might go badly. Apparently though, it was still the thing to do. I pulled. My horse reluctantly came to a graceful stop.

"I see you know how to trot your horse," the guide said, jovially.

I tried to smile. It came out somewhere between a snarl and a grimace.

Any thoughts that I might have had regarding my anxiety being an overreaction were put to bed a few days later when we crossed the border to Chile. While hiking in the Torres del Paine national park, we were passed by a group of four riders ... and one horse sans rider.

Clearly, not only had one poor novice gaucho met their demise, but the group had just carried on, probably leaving the rotting corpse to be eaten by pumas.

Patagonia is a harsh harsh place.