How to eat your body weight

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A walking food tour of San José del Cabo isn’t a stroll, it’s a full-on flavour mission, and it’s not for the faint hearted. We meet our guide, Adrian, at 10:00am in the town square outside the historic Mission Church. Originally built by the Spanish but rebuilt several times over, the building is small and plain but beautiful. It’s interesting to see stained glass windows that open to let the breeze through. 

Adrian leads us to El Pisito. We wonder where the heck we’re going as it looks like an old garage, And it is, but as we climb the steps at the side it starts to smell like a restaurant. We’re here for the enmoladas. Picture soft tortillas wrapped around tender chicken, blanketed in rich mole (pronounced moll-lay) negro.  There are hundreds of different recipes for mole, a dark, nutty sauce with just the right kick of spice. It is deep and earthy, clinging to everything in the best way, and it’s a I want to lick the plate dish. 

Enmoladas

At the next stop, the Mercado Municipal, the town market, we see huge containers of different moles for sale. When you make mole it’s difficult to make a small amount  as it usually includes twenty or more ingredients, many requiring their own preparation, and it takes hours. I know, because I made it myself – once – and if I remember rightly I gave the dinner guests containers of mole to take home. 

Moles for sale
Spices for mole

The mercado is very small by market standards. Typically we’d expect a farmers’ market with lots of fruit and vegetable sellers, but Los Cabos is in the desert and there are no farmers. Almost everything is brought in.  At the food stalls, we sit at long tables with the locals out for a late Sunday breakfast, and Adrian orders quesabirria. These are sensational. The history of the dish is short he tells us, maybe ten years, and it’s an adaptation of a birra, a dish of marinated meat cooked in a broth for ten or so hours. Taco sellers would sell birra on tacos and it was a few short steps to creating the more easily eaten quesabirria. It’s a cross between a taco and a quesadilla. The stew, usually beef, and cheese are inside a corn tortilla that has been dipped in the flavorful fat leftover from the stewing process, then crisped on the plancha. They’re messy and soft crunchy and delicious. I especially like my Nemo plate.

So following chicken and beef were ready for pork. It’s time for carnitas, the soul of Mexican street meat.  Carnitas starts with the whole pig, you read that right, nothing is wasted, slow-cooked for hours in a cazo, a wide copper cauldron of bubbling pork lard.  The kitchen is busy with cooks brandishing cleavers and chopping mountains of pork, crispy crackling skin, and tripe. The tripe sits in the display, twisted into plaited ropes. Adrian tells us he comes here at least once a week for tripe carnitas and dark beer. They’re not for everyone, but apparently unforgettable for the bold. We are not bold. 

Guts anyone?
Carnitas

We’re beginning to waddle at this stage because no, I can’t leave anything on my plate.  I was brought up to think about the starving children in Biafra.  While there’s a good walk between the stops until now, Tacos Rossy is nearby.  It’s time to go to seafood.  The specialty here is sea bass fried in a very light batter so it is light and crisp, topped with slaw and spicy salsa. One bite cuts through the fat of the earlier meats, fresh as the coast.

The finale, after almost four hours, is a frozen fresh fruit popsicle from a quiet corner shop.  I go for mango, Scott for lime. Cold, clean, and just sweet enough. The perfect finish to a tour that doesn’t pull any punches, and imparts a sense of place through the history of the dishes and the regional variations. This is the best food tour I’ve ever done, and now I need a lie down. 

The Texas Triangle: Houston to San Antonio to Austin to Houston Part 1

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We set out from Houston in our giant SUV, but not before sampling the many delights of H-town: a day at NASA, wondering why they’d go to all this trouble building stuff just to fake a landing on the moon; watching the baseball home team, the Astros – if I’m not mistaken that was the name of the Jetson’s dog – lose a game to the Cleveland Reds; stuffing our faces with low and slow cooked BBQ brisket and ribs, oysters, crawfish, and fried chicken; biking in a bike hostile city where the mayor is having the cycle lanes ripped out and reverting them to car lanes – after all, this is oil and gas country; finding a neighbourhood pub where nobody knows our names. 

Our meagre luggage rattles around the Grand Canyon that is the back of the SUV as we hit the Houston highways, a spaghetti tangle of concrete six to eight lanes wide, and throbbing with trucks so large they could carry other trucks inside them like Russian nesting dolls. There’s a few stretches of construction (like they really need more roads) and at one point things get… tight.  On our left a concrete construction barrier, on our right, bearing dangerously close, a massive black semi.  The cold wash of adrenaline shoots through me and I let out a scream that possibly breaks the sound barrier. We’re grateful for the surge of power and escape our lovely V8 offers. 

We take a stop off the highway and roll into Schulenburg, a small town with German heritage and a reputation for good apfelstrudel.  Schulenburg on a Monday has all the hustle and bustle of a haunted post office. The Texas Polka Museum? Closed. Ben’s Gun Store? Closed. But Kountry Bakery? Open and glorious. We walk in and, resisting the temptation of a slab of strudel so dense and sugary it could stop a moving car or clog a major artery, settle for just a slice.  It’s worth the stop and settles our jangling nerves. Carrying on the lesser road that runs parallel with the highway, we breeze through Flatonia without stopping for the MAGA Café’s Trump Burger, though we’re pretty sure it’s the best burger, the greatest burger, the burger no one else could get a deal on. 

We have our sights set on Buc-ee’s.  I’m pretty sure you haven’t been to Texas if you haven’t been to  Buc-ee’s. Google Buc-ee’s and the description reads “a chain of travel centers known for clean bathrooms and many fueling positions”.  So modest! Buc-ee’s is so much more. It’s a sacred roadside cathedral to consumerism, where you can not only fuel up, but also buy 47 varieties of beef jerky, a camo bikini, a bag of beaver chips, and a Jesus air freshener all before you even pee in their famously spotless bathrooms.  So how lucky are we that the biggest Buc-ee’s, with acres of store space and 120 fuel pumps, is at Luling on our very route? We will never again see so much junk food and crass commercial product under one roof – unless that roof is in Washington. The buck-toothed beaver logo adorns every item. The Texan founder, Arch Aplin, demonstrating inspiration should not always be translated into action, combined his nickname, Beaver, with the name of his dog, Buck. We escape after using the spotless facilities and buying a pack of beaver chips, which are remarkably good potato chips. 

Onward to San Antonio.  By some miracle we reached San Antonio just in time to throw the keys of our gas-guzzling behemoth at the hotel valet. Two days of parking costs about as much as our airline tickets – but at least we don’t have to parallel park.

With no time to waste, we sprint to the Alamo to meet our tour guide, because, history waits for no one, especially not people who stopped for strudel and beaver chips.  We made it. We remembered. And we immediately forgot everything because it was 35 degrees C (95 F)and we were sweating out our body weight.

Next stop: Austin—if we survive I-35. Stay tuned.

The remarkably spotless men’s bathrooms at Buc-ee’s

Everything’s bigger in Texas

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We plan well: apply for the ESTA (visa) in plenty of time; register with Safe Travel and,  in case of detention by ICE, ask friends to call the NZ Embassy if they don’t hear from us within 48 hours of our scheduled arrival; we scour our electronics free of any potentially scurrilous satire pertaining to the administration (see, I’m still being careful); and book a medium-sized car with GPS to pick up on arrival. Simple. Efficient. Logical. The kind of plan that gives you false confidence. We cruise through Immigration and Customs and front up at Budget rentals, reservation in hand, ready to be guided across the Lone Star state by the miracle of satellite navigation.  But ever the innovator, Budget’s interpretation of GPS is a loosely duct-taped tablet, suspiciously resembling something a 12 year old uses to play Minecraft. No mount. No charger. Just vibes.

Yeah, nah. “You can upgrade to a Ford Explorer at another $30 a day. Though I can go as low as $25, and I’ll deduct the $17 a day you already paid” – for the GPS we haven’t got.  So gracious. “This one definitely has GPS,” she assures us with the confident tone of someone who’s never once checked. More money? Sure. Anything for functional navigation.  Down we go to meet our majestic Explorer. We open the door, breathe in the rental car air freshener, and prepare to plug in our coordinates. But wait. The GPS turns out to be…a backing camera, useful only if we want to flee Houston in reverse.  A helpful car jockey joins the fray, prodding buttons, consults an  oracle, and concedes defeat. Back upstairs we go, weary travelers seeking truth and actual maps.

The Budget representative enters a new phase of customer service: gaslighting. “But the computer says it has GPS,” as if repetition might conjure satellites from the sky. After several rounds of this Kafkaesque loop we reach the magical moment where hope and corporate policy collide. They offer us a minivan. We decline. Finally, broken by the unrelenting force of our presence, they give in, and with all the charm of a glass of flat champagne, she hands us the keys to ….a GM Suburban Denali. Three rows of seats. Enough horsepower to flatten traffic. Enough room to transport a small militia. A different but also helpful car jockey shows us how to put it in gear – it’s not obvious – and we drive off, GPS-less but victorious, guiding ourselves the old-fashioned way – using an iPhone and apple car-play. Some journeys are measured in miles. Ours? In passive-aggressive standoffs and one gloriously oversized SUV. Welcome to Texas 

A Passage to India: Part 2

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We descend the Western Ghats, down from the lush cardamom and tea plantations to Tamil Nadu and back to the sauna. This road descends around 17 hairpin bends which our driver attacks with kamikaze enthusiasm, passing anything in front with no regard for oncoming traffic or blind corners, but by now we are used to this. As we come down to flatter landscapes we pass coconut groves, miles of rice paddies and sugar cane fields. It occurs to me that India, from far north to deep south, is quite the food bowl and has the capacity, I would think, to be agriculturally self sufficient, though I’m told they still import rice, being the staple food of the population. Tariffs? No thanks, we’re good.

If you’re a Bible reader you’ll know John 14 verse 2: Jesus big-notes about his father, boasting that “my father’s house has many mansions”. He is non specific about the number but it would have to be a lot to rival Chettinad. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fabulously wealthy Chettiar merchants and traders travelled the world buying and selling, amassing fortunes and pouring it into these homes: teak from Burma, Venetian glass and French chandeliers, Italian Carreras marble, ironwork from England and tiles from China and Spain. They’re basically India’s version of The Great Gatsby, if Gatsby had been a Tamil banker with a taste for Italian marble and decimating Burmese teak plantations. Each mansion was designed with one goal: to make sure the neighbour’s house looked like a peasant’s hut. So we now have an entire region of villages where the homes look like royal palaces but are eerily silent, except for the occasional pigeon who thinks it’s won the real estate lottery. Over time, wars, financial regulations, and the slow realisation that maybe investing everything in foreign trade wasn’t the best idea. Most of the merchants moved to cities or abroad, leaving behind these mansions, like kids abandoning their toys in a rush to go to McDonalds. 

You would think India’s new millionaires, the ones who spend absurd amounts on glitzy weddings, vanity projects, and cricket teams, would jump at the chance to restore these as another bauble to show off their wealth. Maybe – if they weren’t in the middle of Tamil Nadu’s sweltering countryside, miles away from luxury shopping and air conditioned cocktail bars. Here, stepping outside at noon feels like walking into a blast furnace running at the temperature of the surface of the sun. Secondly, restoring them is like trying to revive a dinosaur: massively expensive and requiring a PhD in heritage conservation, engineering, and patience. Also, most belong to dozens of extended family members, many living overseas and busy arguing over inheritance rights.

Out Chettinad hotel. All the mansions are built around courtyards like this. The rooms are huge.

So here they stand in their sad elegance, gathering dust. I imagine Marlon Brando in his fading days mumbling “I used to be somebody”, and you have the vibe. The upside is a street full of heritage furniture and antique stops, stocked with what were the contents of the mansions. Need a kitchen full of enamel ware? A new/old chandelier? Portraits of someone else’s ancestors? A free-standing dial telephone? Nic-nacs up the wazoo?

Today the mansions serve as backdrops for wedding photos, heritage tourism – after all, that’s why we’re here – and the occasional Bollywood drama. Some, like ours, are being bought by luxe hotel chains and the restored interiors are beautiful, the rooms enormous. Happily, our first stop is lunch in a courtyard at one of the semi restored mansions. Pressed tin ceilings, marble pillars, beautiful chandeliers and floor tiles. And food.

Chettinad lunch: served on a banana leaf – from top left – salt, garlic pickle, yam, chayote with cumin, snake gourd, potato, Chettinad vegetarian cutlet, Chettinad chicken, onion raita, pappadum. After the picture was taken there also came a whole small fish, white rice, yoghurt and onion and tomato spicy gravy.

The food, you are all asking about the food. In a word, wonderful. In a few words, delicious, deep flavour, subtle spice, not always intense. Yes, spices can be used as lethal weapons, but layering flavours gives a more delectable experience. The style varies across regions as there are different growing conditions. For example, the Chettiars are known to be traders in salt and spices and this is reflected in the Chettinad cuisine. Chicken Chettinad (spicy chicken curry) is famous (and delicious). One night we descend on a local home where the family cook for us – another banana leaf feast, this time with the inclusion of delicious Chicken 65 – this is a spicy deep fried chicken and there are as many origin stories as there are variations in the recipe. We are still waiting for our hosts to part with their family’s secret recipe. The traditional banana leaf serving “plate” is not just to save washing up, though that is a happy colab – polyphenols found in banana leaves stimulate the production of digestive enzymes, aiding in better digestion and nutrient absorption.

Family dinner with delicious chapati, okra and fabulous Chicken 65

If you are tempted by street food – restrain yourself, or end up as I did on my long ago visit – flat on my back for four days with my only outings being to the bathroom. Indian street food should be approached with caution, and the mantra “deep fried is your friend” – something you don’t hear very often, and definitely not from the heart foundation.

What else is different from my visit 46 years ago? The traffic, as described in my last post, is as chaotic, if not more so, and the level of trash everywhere is unchanged in volume, if not composition. The magical properties of the blaring horn are even more magical. What is different, and better, is the attention to personal hygiene – you didn’t expect that did you. The general populous isn’t as smelly, though to be fair I’m not on public transport this time. I remember lots of smoking and betel nut chewing with the accompanying red spit staining the ground, but this trip the only smokers I see are a couple of western tourists, and I see no betel nut stains on the street. Even better, the vape stores and vapers that plague our cities are wonderfully absent – don’t see a single one.

Life in India is messy, crowded, noisy, exhausting, occasionally terrifying, but never boring. It’s one of the few places where you can laugh, cry, eat, sweat, and have an existential crisis – all before lunch time.

A Passage to India: part one

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In March 1979 I arrive in what was Madras, now Chennai, South East India. I am 22, wearing a backpack, a sense of awe, and I am more naive than should be legally allowed. Mum kept all my letters home and I write, ”What an unbelievable place! There really are cows in the “streets” (and dogs, and chooks and beggars)”. I go on to describe the incredibly filthy streets, 35 degree temperatures, insane street numbering, and our hotel, which we find with the help of the brother of a work contact back home. Again, “The place we’re staying in has a real toilet (not a squat job), hot and cold running water, a roof fan, and it’s rather clean. It’s costing 50 rupee a night for a double room (that’s $5.60 for the two of us).”  I remember it being so hot I’d wet the sheet in the shower and lie under it with the fan going to try and be cool enough to sleep.


This March 2025 I arrive in Kochi, formerly Cochin, South West India. I am 68, fresh off business class, hand luggage only, still in awe, no longer naive but far from world weary.  My hotel is the five star Brunton Boatyard.  It not only has hot and cold running water and a real toilet, but aircon, room service, a minibar, balcony and view of the river.

After my week at the Sacred Lotus (see previous blog) I am joining a small group tour across the south, ending in Chennai in two weeks. Not being a group travel person my reservations are soon overcome as the other eight people are good company and Sarah Meikle, the founder/director and operator of All India Permit Tours, www.allindiapermit.co.nz is the consummate tour operator: experienced, organised, calm, ready to pivot if necessary, has excellent local guides, and she is ready to accommodate most whims. I choose this trip as it covers some of the same ground of my first trip, but in reverse.

I remember really loving Kerala, the south western state, especially Kochi. It’s a place where history, culture and coconut palms jostle for attention. As a port it has a long history as a trading post, and many foreign nations have had a run at ruling it – the Portuguese arrived in the late 1400s, however they were fashionably late to the party as Arabs and Chinese were already there, along with a Jewish settlement dating from 587. These days, the Pardesi Synagogue with its 1,100 hand-painted Canton tiles and Murano glass chandeliers, counts only a handful of worshippers. The Dutch arrive in the 1660s and the English in the early 1800s, making for quite the garam masala of cultural legacies of architecture, cuisine, customs and language. 

The Pardesi Synagogue

The beautifully counterbalanced Chinese fishing nets are used to this day, though once you’ve seen the filthy rubbish floating down the waterways it takes an effort of will, or amnesia, to eat the fish. The Portuguese arrived hungry to trade for black pepper and spices. They seemed to think it was a fair exchange to introduce such necessities as cannons, guns and gunpowder, and of course seminaries, because another religion is always just what the population needs. They also temporarily donated Vasco da Gama. He was buried here at St. Francis Church – his remains were later reclaimed by Portugal, which seems rude, after all the trouble he went to to find the place.

We have a night in the backwaters of Kerala, staying on an almost luxurious houseboat, a kettuvallam, which is at its most basic a thatched roof over a wooden hull. A boat trip through these waterways is less of a journey and more of a meditation – albeit in a humidity that is like an unwelcome hug from a sweaty stranger.

We’re travelling through lakes and canals fringed by rice paddies, where the overuse of fertilisers is just one of the ecological disasters to overtake these waters choking them with water hyacinth. Occasionally a few houses punctuate the narrow ridges that separate the paddies. Time moves slowly and life is lived in and on the water: we pass women sudsing their hair, their clothes, their children; kids playing; fishermen balancing on canoes. When we stop and take a walk we see toothbrushes and bars of soap sitting atop stone steps and ready for use. Next to shacks there are modernish houses, built well above flood level, experience being a cruel teacher. When we stop for the night our efficient boatmen hook us up to shore power, the tangle of cables resembling a poorly constructed spider web, but aircon trumps health and safety.

bath time

It’s a relief to head up into the Western Ghats, the hills to the east. At Munnar we’re 5,000 feet and while the temperature is still in the high 20s, there’s no humidity. It’s bliss. We are staying at Windermere, a cardamon plantation among thousands of acres of tea growing estates. I feel I should be striding about wearing a pith helmet and shouting What oh old chap! A trip to the tea factory tells me more about tea than I ever wanted to know, but if you see me, ask, and I’ll bore you about it until you surrender and order coffee.

One thing I note that hasn’t changed in the years since my last visit is the circus that passes as transportation. We are travelling in two vans, and both our local drivers are excellent. You must understand that driving in India is less of a skill and more of a survival instinct and these guys have it in spades. It’s not just about getting from A to B. It’s about navigating a chaotic, high-stakes game of chicken, where the rules of the road are more like polite suggestions. Lanes? No such thing, it’s a free for all even if there’s oncoming traffic. Horns? The universal language that replaces indicators, road signs, and human speech. Tuktuks weave through impossibly small gaps, beautifully painted buses barrel down the wrong side in overtaking moves that defy sanity, and scooters and motorbikes make full use of every inch of available space, usually carrying an entire extended family, a propane tank, and a goat. Pedestrians cross anywhere and street vendors set up shop on busy intersections. And yet, despite all logic, somehow everyone gets where they need to go, and I never once hear anyone shout at or abuse another driver. It’s a miracle wrapped in madness, sprinkled with adrenaline. Driving, or more accurately being driven, in India isn’t just a about transport, it’s a cultural experience, a test of patience, and an extreme sport all rolled into one. It’s best just to breathe deeply and avoid looking out the front window.

Trading The White Lotus for The Sacred Lotus

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If anyone had told me I would be in absolute bliss, lying naked except for a bikini version of a sumo wrestler’s undies, on a hard wooden table having buttermilk dripped onto my third eye for 45 minutes, well, I’d have thought you’d lost your mind. But that’s exactly where I am on day four of my Ayurvedic Yoga retreat in Kochi, South India.

Now, I may not have done my research very thoroughly as I was thinking of a retreat more yoga and less woo woo, but it turns out to be a happy balance. There are literally hundreds of Ayurvedic retreat centres in the state of Kerala alone. This ancient Indian style of medicine dates back over 3,000 years, and is based on the concept of dosha balance, that is maintaining harmony among the three fundamental energies: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water), and Kapha (earth and water). So when in balance we experiences good health, while imbalances, not surprisingly, can lead to physical and/or mental ailments, requiring dietary, lifestyle, and herbal interventions to restore equilibrium. This isn’t to the exclusion of modern medicine and techniques when required. So not so woo woo, just the rest of the world takes a while to catch on. So what happens?

Each day starts at 7:00am, unless of course you are not me, and go for a 6:00am walk. A therapist arrives at my room with a laden tray and carries out a cleansing ritual. She says a prayer, takes my temperature and BP, then I lie down and she gently washes my eyes, places dabs of oil on my nostrils and gives them a good massage while instructing me to breathe, then a brief face massage before she hands me a glass of indeterminate liquid and sends me to the ensuite to gargle. I then drink a foul smelling ‘medicine’ and head off to yoga. 

There are three yoga sessions a day. Not a morning person, but suitably cleansed, I haul myself to 7:30 class. Maya, our trans yoga instructor, has the loudest masculine voice, so instructions sound like orders.  I baulk when she says “breathe in the fresh air from the Arabian Sea”: I have walked down to the nearby Mahatma Ghandi beach, and I’m sure the piles of trash and pollution are not what he sat down for. After a short breathing exercise we move on to multiple Suryanamaskara (sun salutes) followed by serious strength poses held for long periods. Even this early it’s hot and humid, so it’s hard work. The second session later in the morning is all breathing work, and the afternoon session is meditation – which I suck at. It’s as if as soon as I try and quiet my mind, a flash mob invades and starts dancing around, vying for attention.

Maya, the yoga instructor, me, Asako from Japan, Gayatri from Seattle and Shalini who is Indian, speaks with a Scottish accent and lives in New York

Every day brings a new, and often unimaginable, delight. Six days and two treatments a day: one hour in the morning and a half hour in the afternoon, interspersed with three yoga sessions, meals, and plenty of relaxation. It’s 30+ degrees C every day, and humid, so not much activity outdoors. There’s a pool, with water almost too warm in this heat, and as untreated water here is not safe to imbibe, each time I swim I try to avoid galloping diarrhoea by not letting any water into my mouth.  My backstroke is improving. 

My first treatment is a full massage and steam.  We start with the ubiquitous karakia which is in Hindi, so I only get to join in at the end with the singsong om shanti, shanti, shanti, and the taking of blood pressure. This happens before every treatment. The table is wooden, so not the most comfortable, and I’m lying naked but for the sumo nappy.  Two therapists, one either side, drizzle me with warm herbal infused sesame oil and begin synchronised sweeping strokes from feet, up to and across my abdomen and boobs, and down my arms. Any modesty disappears with my dignity. Once I am at peace with that, it is very relaxing, but I can’t help but feel I’m being basted ready for a spit roast. By the time they finish the table is awash with oil and I am fully prepared to engage in Turkey’s national sport of oil wrestling. But with no Turk for thousands of miles I move to the next room, where I make the acquaintance of a piece of furniture which is either an antique writing desk or a medieval torture device. It is, in fact, a small steam room.  So I sit with my head poking out the top being gently steamed – a pork dumpling ready for yum cha. Fortunately that is the only steaming of the week, as in the heat my blood pressure already rivals a SpaceX rocket’s average altitude before exploding. 

One day I think I have wandered into an S & M parlour by mistake.  In the treatment room there’s a frying pan heating four large parcels. These turn out to be poultices containing “specific rice cooked in a suitable milk decoction (sic)” Today’s treatment, Choorna pinda swedam full body, starts as usual, but after the oil slick, the massage moves into high gear. I’m slapped with the warm poultices on the way up the body, and then there’s smooth strokes on the way down that exfoliate and massage at the same time. Again my synchronised therapists are in perfect harmony, switching to a new, warm, set of poultices for each swoop. 

This is possibly the only time being beaten up feels relaxing. After, my skin is amazingly soft. Marie Antoinette was ahead of her time with the milk bath, but if she’d traded it for Takradhara, perhaps she wouldn’t have been such a bitch to the peasants. 

Takradhara, the buttermilk on the forehead job, is my favourite treatment. Despite making you smell like you’ve just come in from the milking shed, I can’t begin to convey how fabulous this treatment is. After a time your brain just liquifies and it’s like you move to another level of consciousness.

The funnel ready to pour buttermilk on my fevered brow

It should be mandatory for dictators and despots. Picture Putin lying there, shirtless (because, of course) as a steady stream of cool buttermilk flows onto his forehead. At first, he resists “I wrestle bears for stress relief.”  But the treatment cools his brain, and at the end of the session he reconsiders his life choices. The world watches in shock as he trades invasion for meditation. 

If you’re wondering about the food, don’t. The Ayurvedic doctor sets you menu to balance your doshas. As a Vata with Pitta (not the bread) she is obviously trying to tone down my hotness, so generally my food is on the bland side. At the end of six days I feel pretty good, even though the treatments took my therapists dangerously close to areas usually only visited by my gynaecologist and gastroenterologist.

Is that a tuxedo you’re wearing?

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The story continues…..

Deception Island is an introduction to the ice, and on subsequent landings further south things, get icier. And snowier. The expedition team always go ashore first and set up safe walking tracks, away from crevasses, loose banks or other dangers, marking the route with flags. We’re also to keep five metres away from the wildlife, and are grateful for the restriction when we see how far a penguin can shoot its shit. Colonies of shit splattered penguins can be seen from space, and, I kid you not, there are scientific papers about penguin poop.

It’s fascinating to watch them swimming, presumably out to go fishing. You see a broad ripple in the water, then a battalion of black torpedoes skittering across the surface before an imperceptible message, and, as one, they all dive and disappear.

Getting off the zodiacs onto land is easy enough and the crew are always there to make sure everyone is safe and doesn’t take an unscheduled swim. The snow is heavy going and using a couple of walking poles helps.  This is what we’re here for.  Kilometres of snow and ice, towering mountains, thousands of penguins. Here, as long as I keep distance from people as well as penguins, it’s possible to ‘hear’ the silence, if only the penguins would stop shouting at each other.

If you are hoping for photos of polar bears, you’ll be disappointed. Wrong end of the world. The Antarctic is a frozen land surrounded by sea, populated by seals and penguins. It also holds about 70% of the world’s fresh water. Up north, the Arctic is a frozen sea surrounded by land and therefore has lots of land mammals, such as polar bears and arctic foxes. The seals are different species, and there’s no penguins, but they do have puffins, which are really just as charming.

I am no David Attenborough, but the experts on board are many and various, so we learn a lot. Most of which we’ll forget. Enthusiastic and passionate about their specialist subjects their delivery ranges from funny and engaging – such as Magnus, an historian who has also worked in kids TV, so you get the picture – to detailed and sleep inducing – I’m looking at the geologist here. Universally, the crew from Captain to cleaner are fantastic.

The expedition crew schedule a final zodiac trip late on our last Antarctic evening. The schedule would have us depart the next day after another stop, but the Captain wants to head back across Drake Passage ahead of some foul weather that’s forecast, and we’re all in favour of that. It is snowing softly as we cruise past a lazy Weddell seal oblivious to the penguin foreplay around him. Up high, a colony of Chinstrap penguins range along the ridge, looking like an Apache war party in a B grade western. It could not be a more perfect goodbye.


So what was Antarctica like?

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It is commonly said that if you can describe Antartica you haven’t been there. I say, bullshit. I can describe it, but I can’t help you feel it, and none of us can really grasp it. A trip to the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth offers the perfect blend of adventure and discomfort. You know you are alive. 

Someone, possibly the Captain of our fabulous Fridtjof Nansen Arctic class exploration ship, has been very, very good, and the reward is perfect conditions for the 48 hour transit of the notoriously difficult Drake Passage from Cape Horn to the Antarctic Peninsula. So good, we can land and go ashore at Cape Horn, but more on that later. 

In the meantime we all swan about congratulating each other on the flat seas and almost zero wind, as if we had something to do with it. We hear the crew, stunned and disbelieving, muttering it’s never like this, and in five years I’ve never had conditions in the Drake this calm.  The Cassandras among us foresee doom ahead. 

There are three landings at different places on the ice and several other forays around the icebergs and shoreline in the zodiacs.  I LOVE going out in the zodiacs.  Obviously it’s cold, freezing point or thereabouts. So start with a thermal layer, then another medium weight merino top, a puffer jacket, wind and waterproof top layer with waterproof over trousers, good socks under rubber boots (provided), and add gloves, neck warmer, and hat as required. Hello Michelin wo/man.  Oh, and sunglasses – it’s bright down here. We soon become expert at climbing in and out of the zodiacs with kilos of clothes on, a skill that will be useless anywhere else.

The expedition crew allocate everyone to a group, and so landings and zodiac cruises are called to the boarding deck by name.  There are restrictions on how many people are allowed on land at one time, so the crew work is very well organised, and smoothly efficient.  Our group is the Gentoo penguins – which must be better than being elephant seals.

Cruising through chunks of ice and massive icebergs is beautiful. The water is so clear it’s possible to see the bergs extend below the water line. The colours are vibrant: white ice, with a bright teal below. Several times when we’re out on the zodiacs it’s snowing, so there’s a powdery layer of fresh snow cresting the ice, giving a subtly different shade and texture of white.  

At times there’s a slash of intense blue in densely packed ice where air bubbles are squeezed out. We also see this in the glaciers carving their way down, creating future valleys. The compacted ice absorbs longer wavelengths of colours, allowing shorter wavelengths, like green and blue, to reflect the light. Science eh?

We approach massive icebergs, keeping a respectful distance as they can roll or break without notice. It’s difficult to estimate the height of a huge berg when you’re sitting in a little boat, but the largest one we approach is roughly 10 stories high. Half way back to base, I look from the iceberg to our exploration ship, and the berg dwarfs the ship. 

It is very serene, especially when you ask the zodiac skipper to shut down the engine and just sit. The icebergs crackle at times, they’re always melting both underwater and above, so it feels like they’re alive. In the same way glaciers calve, hunks of iceberg fall into the water. But without man made noise it seems silent – at least until some muppet can’t resist the urge to say how quiet it is. 

Our first landing is on Deception Island, the caldera of an active volcano – yes, I too wonder at this wisdom of this.  Visions of Whakari White Island are fresh in the New Zealanders’ minds.  However those visions are pushed aside by the excitement of landing on the ice.  There’s a welcoming committee of a couple of penguins, but they are mainly there to laugh at those who take up the challenge of a polar plunge. Yes, some fools disrobe and tempt hypothermia by briefly, very briefly, immersing themselves in the literally freezing water. My baby brother was one such fool, leaving his lovely wife wondering why she ever married him. We did warn her. 

Subsequent landings involve a lot more penguins, but you’ll have to wait for the next instalment- this is getting a bit long.

Bet you’re not so jealous now

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Fourteen beautiful, in fact unbelievable, calm cruising days and we are heading back to Ushuaia, the southernmost town/port in Argentina. Currently we’re out of the protected waters of the Antartic peninsula and into a heaving swell with 80 kph winds, we sleepily waken to an urgent announcement from the Captain: “Code Bravo, Code Bravo, all crew to stations”. 

The internet crashes as passengers start googling. What the hell is Code Bravo? It can’t be good. Rather slightly more serious than a code brown at the local swimming pool. Code Bravo is to alert the crew to a FIRE or serious hazardous incident – without alarming the passengers. Hello! Have you heard of the internet?

Before total panic sets in, the Captain is back: all crew stand down except those directly involved. In this case where there’s smoke there’s no fire, but it’s still serious. 

Long story short: we have over 700 kms to cross Drake passage (which is far from the millpond we had on the way to Antartica) and our starboard engine is out. Kaput. Dead. Off its perch. There’s been an electrical short in the propulsion system and a split hose means there’s coolant all through the unit. This is not getting fixed any time soon. 

An engineer from the manufacturer will fly down from Norway to Ushuaia. The on board engineers do the diagnostics. But none of that helps us now, wallowing in the churning seas. Heads will roll somewhere, as just prior to our trip the ship had its first five year full refit in Panama. This is three weeks when everything is checked and replaced as necessary. 

So, the adventure many people wish for begins. One engine, 6-8 metres swells smashing the ship and 70-80 mph winds. Our speed is reduced to 9 knots because a) one engine, and b) sea conditions. 

I fully understand if your envy of our trip is now schadenfreude.

So the contingency plans begin. Initially the word is we will be 24 hours late into Ushuaia. An update a day later, as the weather improves and we can go a little faster, puts our arrival at about 12 hours late. 

This still has implications for the charter flights booked to take the 300 odd passengers to Buenos Aires, many with connecting flights to home or other parts of the world. Charter aircraft have other bookings, Buenos Aires has tight landing slots, the wharf at Ushuaia is very busy, and, as we miss our booked slot, negotiations commence. Oh, and we can’t unload the luggage as only Argentinian stevedores can do that, so they must be found and booked. What an excellent union they must have.

On the bright side, while we’ll be a day late to Buenos Aires, we get an extra night on board and can drink more Aperol Sours. And go ashore and experience the thrills of Ushuaia. 

In my last blog I said we had a rare chance to land at Cape Horn. We did, so major bragging rights. However the upload capabilities on the ship mean some of you have problems with the photos. So I’ll post another blog with photos when we, finally, get back on term firma. I may kiss the ground. 

Heading South – and we may be gone some time

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We’re on board the Fridtjof Nansen, an exploration ship heading for the Antarctic peninsula*.
We embark around 6:00 pm and leave Valparaiso at 11:00pm. We have an 18 day expedition ahead.

Overview of the trip

The orientation talks start the next day. The briefing on putting on the polar suit is hilarious: our model stuffs himself into a bright orange fashion crime that is somehow floppy but all encasing. By the end, he’s fully suited up and looking like an astronaut who took a wrong turn on their way to space. It’s also unnerving, as if we ever have to do it ourselves things will have gone seriously pear shaped. 

Polar suited

The two day off shore cruise down Chile’s coast gets the better of some, and the queue at the on board Medical Centre is long, queasy and slightly green.  Not us though, hardened by many white knuckle crossings of New Zealand’s Cook Strait: we scoff at four metre swells and 80kph winds.  Then peace – we enter the northernmost part of the Chilean fjords, heading to Castro, the main town on Chiloé Island. Population about 40,000. I know, it surprises me too. We glide past a tapestry of misty cliffs and emerald hills, intrepid adventurers with all inclusive meals and drinks within arm’s reach. 

Somewhere between the rolling waves and Aperol Sours, the island of Chiloé emerges, a land of legends, ghost ships, and rainbow-hued houses that seem ready to tumble into the sea at any second. In Castro, it’s all about the palafitos – brightly painted houses on stilts, reminding you of a riot of rainbow parrots. The ship’s tenders ferry us ashore to explore the town, which stretches up a steep hill from the small port. It’s much like any other town, but it still feels like we are stepping into a quirky postcard. On the fringe of the main square, the Plaza des Armas, sits a church, Iglesia San Francisco, a simple wooden building painted a cheerful yellow, like a sunbeam from Jesus. The interior is as plain as the exterior, all beautiful wood and with a ceiling reminiscent of a boat hull. Not surprising when you understand boat builders, not stone masons, were the builders.  Not just physically, but also aesthetically, very distant from cold stone churches of Europe with their excess of tiny stained-glass windows. Those ones perfect for creating just enough light to squint through and wonder if that figure is a saint or if you’re on a bad LSD trip.

Inglesia San Francisco

Along the shore we meet a man with many, many sacks of potatoes – he tells us there are 274 types of native potato and we manage to stop him before he starts naming them or extolling their individual virtues. There’s a strip of local markets where “authentic” souvenirs abound. Here, you’ll find everything from fridge magnets and wooden llama keychains, that saw more factory than forest, and soft toy penguins and whales, so synthetic you can almost see the static electricity arc from the Made in China label. But it’s not all factory-fresh. There are lovely hefty, hand-knit sweaters and scarves, ready to shield you from the Andes winds, or in our case Antarctic chill. 

We spend another week wriggling through narrow channels in Chile’s Patagonian fjords. It’s like a cross between our New Zealand Marlborough Sounds and the Southern Alps, not at all steep as our Fiordland. But it has zillions of islands and passages are sometimes very tight. At times we have to wait for slack tide as the current runs like a river and the ship has to progress at snail pace to navigate the twists and turns.  The crew launch the safety boat to go ahead and sit in the channel measuring the speed of the tide, and we progress at the change, or slack, tide.

Waiting to pass through the English Narrows

Our viewing of the Amalia Glacier is more exciting when the Captain announces we have enough time to launch the zodiacs and take a closer look. I feel a touch of the James Bond vibe as we zip through the mini ice bergs, the skipper avoiding any ice that might damage the propeller. As with glaciers worldwide, Amalia is retreating, irrespective of climate denier opinions.  It’s an ill wind and all that, so we get to see great chunks of ice calving off the glacial face, revealing the intense blue ice within. 

The ship in this pic is a smaller cruise out from Puerto Natales

I wonder where the days go. There workshops about reading charts, photography, getting the best from your binoculars, among other things. The lectures and talks vary greatly: some are so dry the presentation slides yawn – others are funny and engaging. While the dedication and enthusiasm of the on board specialists is remarkable, their presentation styles are not uniformly winning. Marcus, the Norwegian historian has the ability to charm and inform simultaneously, while Jean the French geologist, could gold medal in the too much detail Olympics. His descriptions of the formation of the Andes were so…….I can’t remember, I must’ve fallen asleep.

On the seventh day we arrive at Puerto Natales. We have another two days at least until we get to the end of the fjords. The Captain tells us conditions look good for a landing at Cape Horn, but nothing is certain. As he says, Cape Horn is Cape Horn, and anything can happen. Can’t argue with that.

 * You can do a walk through on the website MS Fridtjof Nansen | HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.