We had easyJet (which spawned low cost imitators including Ryanair) and now easyCruise is coming our way in 2004. Not many people know that the low cost pile ‘em high and give them crap so called low cost airlines was started by the serial entrepreneurial Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Now, Stelios, as he likes to be known, is looking at a low cost cruise business. Don’t forget that he comes from a shipping background before making his name creating the UK’s extremely successful first no-frills airline.

He has plans to charge around £30 or US $50 per night on Mediterranean and Caribbean cruises. Prices will be berth-only, with extra charges for meals and drinks – sound familiar? (The Beetle rather cynically wonders if you have pre-allocated cabins or is survival of the fittest as to who can get there first?!) Passengers can choose where they join and leave the ship subject to availability. Summer cruises will take place in the Mediterranean and in the winter months in the Caribbean.

He hopes to attract a younger clientele, backpackers and even young families for whom previously, the notion of cruising has been prohibitively expensive.

If anyone can take on the big cruisers such as Carnival-Princess, RCL and Star Cruises, he can. The company is currently looking for smaller passenger ships and says that operations may start at Easter 2004. The easyCruise concept will be bookable on-line with early booking discounts available. Watch this space!

After staying overnight in San Pedro, in Northern Chile, we were off again, hot footing it down the highway bound for Santiago. But on the way we discovered that Chile has the most marvellous loos (washrooms), as I’ve said earlier, every service station welcomes one with hot water, toilet paper, toilet attendants who seem to take a pride in keeping their domain clean … And our group pigged out on ice cream, chocolate, crisps and other fattening snacks from the Esso shop! Then we discovered La Serena, a seaside resort in Chile with the most marvellous shops. I am ashamed to say we revelled in the cleanliness, the sheer European look of the place and again lots of money was spent on clothes and food and stocking up on film and even one of our members bought a tent in order to free himself from a two-man tent which wasn’t really big enough for him and his companion!

And so on to Santiago, a place we could have done with staying in a little longer but unfortunately, time was short. We arrived in the late afternoon, stayed just two nights and were away very early on the second morning, having acquired two new people and reacquired one of our members who was supposed to leave us in Santiago and join another truck as we had three new people supposedly joining us, but at the last minute, the third new person had slipped a disc and was unable to come so our departing member was suddenly rejoining us, much to our pleasure as we have all bonded now and were sorry enough to see two of our group depart at the end of their respective trips, one to return to Scotland and the other to Australia.

And so I am now in Pucón and here we stay for three days. There is a volcano to climb, horse riding to be done, rafting and trekking, etc, but at the moment all yours truly is doing is catching up on e-mails and chilling out. There is a lovely lake to go and sit beside or wander around and for the time being I am going to do my own thing and try and get some time to myself – all this togetherness tends to pall after a while and it is nice to say – “Cheerio,” to the people taking packed lunches off to their various day long activities and to as it were, mentally close the door on them and take my shoes off, put my feet up and relax!

From Pucón we went on to Bariloche, which is a small but interesting little town and I would have liked to stay there longer than the one night but it wasn’t to be. We camped outside of Bariloche for just the one night (I hate these one nighters, all that trouble of putting the tent up for 12 hours and then taking it down again) but that’s life on the road! From Bariloche we went to a place called Perito Moreno where again we spent the one night and then on to our next port of call, a place called El Chalten. We stayed here for three nights when members of our group went rafting (two fell out into the river and got quite a fright) and others went glacier walking leaving the camp site at 0500 in the morning and not getting back until 2100. They said they had a good time and although quite a frightening and challenging one as well as the weather was none too good up high and they were all very sore from muscles that were overstrained.

My friend Judith and I went on a long, long trek that was meant to last 8 hours but in fact stretched out to 12 hours as we took a different path on the way back and discovered it was a very circuitous route. Needless to say we were exhausted by the finish as we had left at 0820 and got back at 2045! Luckily the group had got a barbecue going and we arrived just at serving up time! And we beat the glacier walkers who clocked in just 15 minutes later. But the first part of our trek was fantastic. We were walking to view some glaciers rather than walk them and for the whole of our walk, the full 8 hours, on the outward and return journey, we were seeing those beautiful snow clad peaks with their blue glaciers shimmering in the sunshine and could not resist taking picture after picture after picture of virtually the same scene but seen from different aspects. I dare say we will both throw away most of them but we were enthralled. And when we eventually arrived at the foot of the glacier (still out of sight) we had to cross a fast flowing river coming down from the glacier and there were only two logs straddling each other with no handholds.

Luckily, there was a man who had attempted to cross with other women and he was standing astride the logs in the centre of the stream and another man was assisting us from the bank so we managed somehow to straddle the logs in a prone position and inch our way across with help! Judith went first and so I had to follow but my heart was in my mouth the whole time and I didn’t dare think of what might happen if I slipped or the man helping me lost his hand hold on me! But I got over and it was a great achievement. Then after a walk up a gentle slope we came to a real hard climb with lots of loose shale and small boulders with hardly any hand holds and only the occasional prickly bush to grab hold of and immediately let go of and so often it was a case of scrabbling on hands and knees to get up to the top. But finally we managed to get to the first summit, so to speak only to find a downward slope leading to another upward slope, but we were determined to carry on and it was well worth it as when we did get to the foot of the actual glacier it was the most beautiful sight we had seen in a long time as there was a brilliant blue lake and these fantastic glaciers cascading down the mountain. We sat and ate our lunch there and just marvelled at the scenery and of course took heaps more photos. But we were the only two to do this particular walk because the members of our group had gone to see a completely different more popular glacier in the opposite direction to us.

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

U. S. Soldiers Home, Washington: during a century of travel (well 78 years!) both in and out of service I have travelled to over 150 countries (I count both North and South Dakota as countries) and for some reason have jotted signs and happenings that I thought funny at the time (and now wonder why). So here is the perfect opportunity to share some of my anecdotes.

The Brazilian experience: Be sure to get an immigration entry stamp in your passport before you leave. A tourist behind me interrupted the immigration official with a question and the immigration official did not give me a proper stamp in my passport. When I got to hotel I looked to see what their entry stamp looked like compared to mine. It didn’t look good. I was not upset but went to airline office and I thought they could straighten it out: the airline manifest would show I had arrived. They got excited. They made me go to Security way across town and said I had to go to a Notary Republic to get my statement notarised, etc etc. I wasted one full day trying to get this straightened out. When I got to security I explained to a man in the hallway what had happened. I waited awhile and was called into office. Behind desk was the man in the hallway I had explained what happened to. He smiled and entered that I had entered. I was going to go overland to Manaus in Northern Brazil and only discovered then that I did not have entry stamp. I suspect I might have been sent back to Security in Rio. I learn by my mistakes. When I did get on plane I was given a demi tasse of coffee in a coffee cup that I thought would be a good souvenir. I asked if I could keep it. The Stewardess said just a minute and brought back a cartoon of demi tasse cups. They must have heard about me! I said, “thanks but one is enough. Would you refill it?”

I read where some Mexicans tried crossing illegally into the States across the border from Mexico in a novel way. Border Patrols saw a truck go by with a portable toilet in the back. When they opened the door of the toilet there were seventeen Mexicans. They had paid $500 each to be in that toilet and there was no toilet paper.

One wag says when US customs ask you if you are carrying guns, drugs, psychotropic substances or any items harmful to the National Constitution, he always wonders what kind of person answers yes to a question like that.

When we got tired of filling our forms to enter different communist countries and got tired of all the red tape one wag suggested that on the form where it asked the reason for our visit that we put “penance”

At one border crossing someone was supposed to meet us at the border – but no one showed. It was a public holiday. The toilet on our bus had broken down and the lady in charge of the toilet at border would not let up in unless we gave her something like three cents in their money. None of us had any of their money yet and she would not take any American money. What do you do? Push her aside? Create an international incident? Suddenly I remembered that I had gotten a small amount of their money before coming and I treated everyone to a “toilet.”

Next month, Mac discusses: Thailand. If you would like to contact Mac, he can be e-mailed on: macsan400@yahoo.com