Onwards and southwards....9.12.05

We continue to make our way south and to Ushuaia.

Some interesting places we have visited on the way....

Sarmiento, we went to the National Park of the Petrified Forest (Bosque Petrifieado) Here trees have been brought down the valley by very strong river currents and kind of dropped off on the way over a very large area, the whole place looks a bit like wood cutters have been, felled all the trees and left behind this deserted woodyard covered in what look like wood chippings with huge logs and tree trunks all higgledy piggledy around - infact these trees which are around 65 million years old are stone. yet they look like wood, even feel like wood - most strange and very beautiful. A week or so later we visited another Petrified Forest further south - here the trees had fallen where they had grown, some where up to 35m in lenghth, over 3m high and over 150 million years old. Although they still looked like trees - had wood knots and the age rings; but to the touch had a more stone or marble-like feel.Is this because they are twice the age, I wonder. This phenomenon has happened because of intense volcanic activity, the whole area having been covered in volcanic ash, erosion has exposed the trees and logs - it is believed there are many more underground which I guess one day will be exposed. This was a very beautiful, ghostly place, a moonscape in appearance - with a little imagination we felt the odd dinosaur or T-rex would pass us by!

Another interesting stop was at Puerto Deseado. Here we went to the museum which is housing the treasures recovered from a Royal Navy gun boat, HMS Swift, which sank in the harbour during the reign of George 3rd 1770. Everyone was very excited about this find because the contents of the ship were in such good condition, some things are, in fact, in perfect condition - Wedgewood dinner plates with not even a small chip; you would be very happy to eat your dinner from these. We were very lucky here, not only did the young lady we first spoke to speak very good english; there was also an english guy working on the wreck as well, so they were able to give us alot of back ground on the wreck and the ship. They told us that only 3 people died and that the saliors rowed to the Falkland islands for help!!

Our next stop took us to Puerto San Julian both Magellan and Francis Drake spent the winters of 1520 and 1578 here. The weather whilst we were there was terrible - snow, wind and rain and this is summer!! I dread to think what the winter was like and how hard life would have been in such a desolate place at that time.

I find it very strange that these are names that lived in my history books along with the "new world" although they were of course real people we were learning about; it all seemed so long ago to me as a child - they were not really real or anything to do with our lives. How wrong, here I am in the very same places these great men have been, how very real my history lessons are now!! I am pleased to say I liked history so did work hard and pay attention, it has paid off nowD