• Happy Germans | Nora + Christoph

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Meet Christoph, the transport economist and Nora, the dental explorer. Once Chris explained to me what he does, whereby he deals with a branch of economics with a mixture of civil and economy-incentive engineering, I simply wished our own CityRail employed these ‘German Efficiency Engineers’. Chris, how about you come to work in Oz? Our government needs you.
Nora on the other hand, spent the morning picking the most minute flaws in my teeth. It was a great way to incentivise me not to open my mouth for the rest of the day.
Once the ritual of breakfast was concluded, we all banded together to have lunch; so we headed into the city. Being easily impressed, I was delighted that the bus into town, didn’t have to share the same road as the rest of the horn-loving, lane-ignorant road citizens of Peru. The bus got its own, dedicated lane, separated by median strips; a simple way of guaranteeing QoS. For lunch, we had the famous raw-fish Ceviche, some ill-hydrated urine looking warm beverage that was quite sweet, and surprisingly tasty. Whilst everyone went for the safe bet, chicken + rice, I ended up having some what I later discovered not overly well cooked local octopus.

• Ceviche - marinated fish. Tasty!

• cheap wine consumption

• 3 amigos discussing Patagonia over some Calafate Sours

There exist many pros on which I’ll concentrate first – in exploring the Torres Del Paine Mountain range pre-season. First is the lack of Germans with their walking poles behind every bush. History has shown, its never good to have them band together and march great distances through a foreign land.

The next really depends on how luxuriously you wish your stay to be. There’s a number of hotel$ (privately owned), camping sites at literally every trek intersection, as well as a small number of refugios. Which are nothing more than … well, a bed, roof, kitchen, + fireplace to air out your socks, these are also privately owned although the stay is malleable starting at $30odd USD per person. Simple benefit for the pre-seasoned traveller is space. In a typical high-season, bookings seem to be essential due to the firehose of willing participants. We ended up staying in a bunk-bedded room with a Korean gentleman who I can only assume was full of Godly praise for his 2-minute-noodles as he devoured them slurpingly and Roman-awakedly.

First night we stayed at the campsite alongside Hosteria Las Torres, as they wanted to charge over $300USD for the night, per person. Not to be put off, the campsite is well trimmed and looked after, so spending the night away beneath the Torres was actually very comfortable. By venturing into the Las Hosteria for a sip of the local brew, we met Ignacio, the “Aussie Lover”. Formerly a stock broker from Santiago, followed by oyster shucker in Broom, and resident of Bondi; is now a guide within Torres Del Paine.

The first days trek of the W-course is around 11km by foot, we elected for a different approach. Horses! Throughout the ‘off-season’ the Gauchos (people who beat these beautiful animals into submission, aka cowboys) let the horses roam free throughout the park. They started collecting them only days prior to our arrival. It would be remiss of me to not refer to them as ‘rock climbing horses’ or as Rob put it “mountain ponies”. The feats these wonderful beasts performed were incredible. Throughout the ‘horses-only’ trek, which is closer to the edge of the river, and in my opinion a significantly better view than achieved by plebs on foot; our companions were able to scale near perfectly flat rock faces of nearly 30º (I had a protractor with me…) with surprising ease. Have never seen a horse do anything remotely close, mind you, this was officially my second ever horse ride.

• rockclimbing pony

The vistas available within this part of the route (Las Torres -> Los Cuernos) spoilt us considerably as for the hours after dismounting, the rain and wind conspired together, and decided to test our gear; everything held up extremely well, apart from my atrociously designed Salomon Cosmic 4D GTX. Bad bad shoe. They’re very pretty, just don’t buy them, at least not if you want to actually do use them.  Having finished the walk, the views available on this leg were still the best part of the whole week. Make sure you spend considerable time, and camera memory here. Unfortunately I couldn’t hand hold my camera, whilst attempting to detract my four-legged “sure-foot” (name credit to Rob) from sniffing the butt of the horse ahead, and not smacking me into the lower branches of trees. Photography-wise, the plebs win here.

By the time we arrived at Campento Italiano, I could have cooked several packets of spaghetti from the water in my shoes. Mainly this is a campsite, with a single wooden shack with a dirt floor, to shelter the pilgrims on their way through the park. We found a very friendly, fast talking, brightly coloured (I thought my jacket was bad!) French-man with A.D.D., we proceeded to borrow a bunsen burner he had in hope of heating up some canned ravioli, to somewhat offset the cold gust of wind and now splattering of rain.

Upon drying my socks on the rocks next to a fire, and clamouring into the tent before the next wave of ice-cold water deluge from the trees hit me, I rested.

• please send help … soon

The stormy night, was followed by a more impressive morning. Donning the daypack filled with camera gear, we rushed up to Mirador Frances, to see remnants of a glacier from the lookout, although after witnessing the mighty Perito Morino the week prior, it quickly underwhelmed. Am not sure as to why it bears ‘French’ in the name of the valley; there is not as much dirt, didn’t see any dog faeces or foreigner-disapproving, baguette-wielding locals pretending not to speak English as you ask them for help at 2am… but I digress. Even the French-man from the night before was unimpressed.

It is said that during the bloom of the season, the French Valley is one of the most beautiful sights due to its microcosm of flora from around the park.

Continuing along the path, this time towards Refugio y Compamento Pehoé, we were once again greeted by some of the friendly wind. Upon arrival, only slightly wet this time, we found solace in seeing walls, and an actual floor, a roof and to further top it off – a fireplace! It appears about 10 more people were sold on the same idea at $35USD, so an evening of pasta, tuna, chocolate, and sharing of travel stories with the fellow wet-feeters ensued.

• windy day

The W-trek can be started at either side, right->left, or in reverse. At the end of our W, was the administration building; highly discouraged by other travellers due to being a trip of boredom, although quite an easy 18km walk.

As we left the protection of the refugio, en route to the administration, we spent over an hour within about 100 metres of the refugio itself; the weather finally turned, even if for only two hours, to let us capture some of the beautiful landscapes that exist within the park. Most notably right near the refugio; the owners sure know how to pick a good spot!

• outside the refugio

Arriving at Administracion CONAF, the wind almost pushing us out from the park. Continued to belt at full strength. Lack of open-season, resulted in this case the local hotel/hostel to be shut, with the only option 2mm of nylon + polyester tent to protect us at night from the whistles and face-shredding wind.  Had no choice, but to whore ourselves out to passing cars making way in the direction of Puerto Natales. Luckily for other 99,998 gringos that will visit Torres Del Paine this year, not only are the local drivers, but other tourists also happy to give you a lift. Unfortunately hardly anyone is travelling in the same direction, and duration. After just over 40 minutes of excitedly running up to stopping cars, with eyes of a 6 week-old hungry puppy; finally managed to snag a lift – on the back of a ute. Not only was the owner driving his whole family, but he still slowed down, and helped us. I take my many hats off to the driver.

• back of the ute & dust-filled road back to Puerto Natales

Those are some of the more positive things about coming to the park before the season officially opens. What any visitor has to realise is that one of the most unpredictable parts, is the weather. Not only overnight, but within 30 minutes can go from postcard-like scenery to clouds that attempt to ruin the holiday by pelleting strategically placed rain drops into the open crevices within your poorly designed hiking boots. Other point to consider is food. If you visit when none of the refugios nor hotels are open, you will have to carry enough to sustain your ever-eager metabolism over the duration of the trek.

As an aside, the day following our return to Puerto Natales, was the Chilean Independence day. Complete with a parade, BBQ’s at every corner, and festivities for kids within the fire station. It was great to retreat to one of what became the warmest place to lunch when in town, Cafe Toore with its own “Patagonian Consultant”, Sergio, and as you can see in the photo, his daughter.

• our friendly consultant Sergio and his daughter

Consuming meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner at every opportunity, Dieciocho (Chile National / Independence Day) on September 18th was close to my stomach. Devouring a couple anticuchos, followed by some Mote con huesillo, it was an amazing conclusion to the first leg of this South American adventure.

• mmm … yummy local food & drink

"basics" I took

The journey around Torres Del Paine, and adjoining parks is to take nearly two weeks. The vast majority of them will be on foot, thus consideration must be given to the weight of the total pack(s), as there are (unfortunately) going to be no sherpas.

Weather report for this time of year, idled within 2-3ºC below 0 for the night, and a few degrees higher for daytime. Which necessitated the number of thermals throughout the trip, coupled with the self-imposed weight restriction as well as possible lack of showers; more thermals = less smelly experience.

There are many lists online of what people have managed to bring with them along for their trek. To add to the noise, I wanted to provide an OCD technologists view.

Main pack is the Genesis 70, which comes with a very useless daypack, or one you can use to place your hopes and wishes into. Hence you see me bringing the Kata bag instead. Not only is the latter going to be used for housing the camera equipment + laptop, but also re-purposed as a daypack.

Here’s the complete list of the crap thats coming with me. Most is self-explanatory:

Containers

• backpack 1 – MacPac Genesis 70
• backpack 2 – Kata Sensitivity V
• medical kit
• 2-man Tent
• Mattress
• Sleeping bag – Mountain Hardwear Phantom

Clothes

• 1 x Merino – 280 GSM Midlayer
• 2 x Merino – 150 GSM Underlayer
• 3 x Merino Long-johns
• 1 x compression socks (for flights)
• 8 x sets of thin socks
• 8 x undies
• 1 x Goretex wind/water jacket
• 1 x REI Waterproof pants
• 1 x glove inserts (for warmth)
• 1 x gloves, thin but water + wind resistant
• 1 x boardies
• 2 x bonds top
• 1 x jeans
• 1 x t-shirt
• Boots, Salamon Cosmic 4D GTX
• Runners, Ascics
• Sandals, Keen
• 1 x Bose QC 15 (not for the hike itself…)
• Polarised glasses & hard case
• 2 x Pocket Handwash – Sea To Summit
• 1 x Body Wash - Sea To Summit
• Sunblock & Insect Repellent in one - Sawyer
• Multifunction Knife – Leatherman Kick
• Firestarter – exotac nanoSTRIKER
• 20m Parachute cord
• Katadyn MyBottle
• 1 x Micro-fibre Towel
• 25L waterproof bag – used to house all the clothes inside the backpack
• 6 x Gladwrap sandwich bags for waterproofing some electronics
• 1 x QuickDraw Set
• 1 x Whistle (hey… you never know)
• 1 x Washable Electric Shaver – Braun 7 – highly recommend it

Technology

• 2 x HDD 320GB iomega
• 2 x HDD 500GB Western Digital Passport
• 1 x HDD OCZ Vertex 2 SSD, great for the Lightroom catalog, and currently working-on photos
• Workflow:
1. Each evening, the photos from my and Rob’s cameras get copied to one of the marked hard-drives
2. Then copied onto the replica drive
3. Only then are the CF / SD cards cleared within the cameras
4. Any work, sorting, adjusting of photos is then done in Lightroom against one of the drives
5. Upon completion, the drives are once again synchronised
6. The two drives remain completely separate from there on, at no point do they sit in a single backpack, or room (apart from when I’m there)
7. Fortunate to have a base in Buenos Aires to go back to, so the iomega’s get dumped to the WD’s upon return. One of the WD’s gets taken with, other remaining
• No one likes losing photos, especially me
• USB Cables 2.0 + 3.0 (+duplicates of all)
• Power cables (+duplicates of all)
• Power adapter (AUS->US)
• Apple Charger
• One trick is to get rid of the standard two-prong cable, or extension from the brick, and re-use the one that comes with all the Canon battery chargers (… as long as you get a duplicate!).
• MacBook Air 13”, i7, 250GB SSD
• 1 x USB->RJ45 (Ethernet adapter for the MBA)
• 1 x iPhone cable
• Headlamp
• 3 x BL-5c, GPS Logger QStar BT-1000P – reviewed it here
• Batteries
• 4 x Canon Batteries, LP-E6
• LP-E6 Charger
• 2 x 4 x AA
• 2 x 2 x AAA
• Camera
• Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM
• Canon 17-40 f/4 USM
• Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS USM MKII — heavy!!
• Canon 5D MKII
• Canon 430EX II Flash
• Off-Shoe Flash Cord, OC-E3
• Sigh-Ray Filters
• 1 x ND-2G-HS
• 1 x ND 2G-SS
• 1 x ND-3 Rev. Graduated
• 1 x ND-3G-SS
• LEE Filter holder
• Lens cleaning solution
• Lens & Screen cloth
• LENSPEN
• Lens cleaning tissue paper
• 4 x 8GB CF, SanDisk Extreme III
• 1 x 72mm Circular Polariser, Hoya HD
• 1 x 72mm ND400, Hoya
• GorillaPod - had to leave my Manfrotto 055-XPROB at home, as I didn’t feel it could accompany me comfortably. Suggestions welcome for a light and manoeuvrable tripod for trekking
• Black Rapid RS-4 camera strap
• Book, The Last Don by Mario Puzo – during those down times such as airport transfers, and lunch breaks. Would happily replace it with a Kindle if I had one – only due to the weight of course!

Then add food, water and toiletries and you end up with a very nice ~20kg pack.

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At approximately 14:02 AEST Sep. 3, an announcement (interrupting my watching of Bridesmaids, which isn’t actually that bad) over the PA system of the Qantas QF 17, Sydney to Buenos Aires came which detailed a possible issue with the airconditioning system. Which resulted in noises coming into the cabin at the front of the aircraft. Upon speaking with the Sydney engineering team, and being unable to resolve said problem, we were told that the plane is taking a pitstop in Auckland.

QF17 - Dumping Fuel

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I have no problem with New Zealand, it’s a beautiful country, although this is the third time in the last month that I’ve been here; plus I didn’t think New Zealand was famous for their mechanical skills. Fingers crossed.

Prognosis is that we will be on the ground for at least an hour, for engineering, and then to get some more tucker for the plane, as there’s another ~10 hours of flying to be made.

Qantas’ outsourcing is doing wonders for the safety of their patrons. Although this isn’t as bad as the guy that choked to death yesterday.

UPDATE:

We ended up having to spend the night in Auckland, and are now en route to a fixed or a new plane. Qantas put us up in the Holiday Inn, which thankfully had a superb buffet of food waiting for us. That’s one way to keep the passangers happy – keep them fed.

Am fortunate enough that in my role am able to do two awesome things: talk about technology and see new places. Yet exploration goes beyond taxis, hotel rooms and new office blocks; and has not been towards Argentina in detail.

napkin planning

Every now and then, the need to re-charge, or in this case deplete the batteries is an absolute must. I will be heading to South America for a total of 52 days with my mate – Rob and of the places I wish to visit, many have commented that I require at least 6 months to do it “properly”, I completely agree. The last thing I want to do, is to turn it into the trip many post-pubescent Australian’s take; the Contiki tours. 1-2 days in a city, get mashed, throw-up over self and some historic statues, then back on the bus, to do it all again and share the Australian ‘spirit’ with yet another unsuspecting European city.

I have two goals for this trip to be a success. First is visit Patagonia. Ever since spending a month in Buenos Aires in 2002, I’ve wanted to go further south, and see the glaciers, sleep in the mountains and hopefully, paddle through one of the lakes in a kayak. Lastly, drive through the Salt Flats in Bolivia, and a recent addition has been to do some mountainbiking around La Cumbre to Coroico. Anything else in between is a bonus.

Now to finish off the packing process. Although I can’t find too much space for socks and sweaters am certain that I will find a number of mountains in Patagonia that have never had a MacBook Air visit them.

Personally prefer to be sitting in the front row of any presentation, I seek validation of a technology, process or an idea, and for someone on stage to be able to explain it, and more importantly demonstrate it; as a colleague likes to say, the “proof is in the pudding”.

I put this out to the twitter follow-ship:

Working on a presentation for next week. As a PARTICIPANT, do you prefer live or recorded demos? Leaning towards the former.
– @romant – 24th May, 2011

… which after all the responses, was kind enough to offer absolutely no definitive answer.

Really wanted to show instead of just tell; after-all, if you are in the audience, as both Eric and Damian point out – how do you really know something works, and there isn’t some recorded-voodoo going on? Given Adam‘s feedback though, anything that takes considerable processing or wait time, would record, everything else – live.

The hardware off which I was to show off my touch-typing skills resided in Sydney. The conference spanned 3 cities, connectivity was provided in only a single location – Wellington. Un-surprisingly, it worked, even across the pond. Two remaining cities, had to be covered off with a bluetooth-tethered iPhone. In Melbourne’s convention centre, the connectivity was flawless, and the demo portion of the talk didn’t skip a single beat.. over 260 happy souls.. confidence for the largest venue, Sydney, was at an all-time high. What I didn’t realise, is that Sydney’s Exhibition Centre is built like a quasi-’Faraday Cage’; which really helps if you’re after reaching the world through 3G.

Unfortunately, after 20 minutes of pure slides, a realisation dawned, that the mobile provider wasn’t up to scratch to make everything look as seamless as was planned. I had to revert to some miming and a description of pixels that would be drawn on screen had things progressed as planned.

The inability to attain more than 2 bars of reception love on the iPhone, rendered the experience simply unbearable.. back to the slides.

some of the the team, after it all finished | click for largeness

Regardless, all up, it was a great event. was able to get through most of the message in Sydney, and for the rest had some canned videos ‘just in case’, which covered the necessary points.

After the presentation, I was asked whether a live demo would ever be attempted again, the answer is simple – yes. Obviously the problem will be differently approached next time, with significant pre-checks in all locations, specifically around connectivity, and having an alternate telephony provider if necessary.

Of the sessions I was able to attend, my favourite presentations were by far, David Lloyds on ‘UIM and what it can do around the managements of standardized infrastructure’ – namely Vblock, there was standing-only room left., and the Q&A from Michael Bookey‘s session on ‘VMware + Mission Critical Apps’. Not only was he able to bring some personality and zest to a typically mundane topic, but every question thrown to him, he answered with incredible depth.

At the end of it, enjoyable, and glad to have participated.