Extreme Fishing (27 page)

I shout, ‘Help, Patrick, help!’ but he doesn’t look round. Unbeknownst to me, he is on the phone to his wife, who is frantically telling him to ‘get out now’: they
are closing all the roads and two protesters have been killed. (Two people have been knocked down by a car, which many think to have been an accident. However, others think it was done
intentionally and it’s causing a lot of friction.)

We stop filming immediately and Alistair yells over to me: ‘You need to get back here. We have got to get over to Argentina.’

I paddle with all my might, but keep being swept away by the ubiquitous broom. It is pushing me further and further from the shore. I paddle as fast as I can, trying to use my hands to row, but
it’s no good. I am stranded. Eventually a boat is sent over and I am rescued. We jump in the van and scream off to the hotel. It’s deserted. Everyone has left. The receptionist says,
‘All the roads are blocked; you will never get out. You should have left earlier.’

My stomach lurches, not because of the unfolding crisis but because I am having a bout of badly timed bottom explosions. All the gear is packed up and everyone is ready to leave, but I have to
use the toilet, urgently. I feel dreadful and I look ashen. I hang on tightly to the toilet seat, ready for the diarrhoea roller-coaster ride, humming the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of
Mankind’, which seems to help relieve the burning pain in my tired bottom.

Each time I get to the van, I have to rush back to the hotel again and my bowels ultimately cost us forty-five minutes; a critical amount of time when trying to escape a country. We head to the
border, where 200 protesters and three coaches block the road. It’s the only way out. Several men stop the van. I jump out, run for the nearest private area, drop my trousers and make my own
dirty protest. I peep at the protesters from behind a rock, thinking no one can see me. One looks back at me straight in the eye. He is full of aggression but I am too dehydrating and poorly to be
alarmed. Daniel, our fixer, is trying to negotiate for us to be allowed across but it is no use: the protesters say the van has to stay here and we have to walk over. The border is twenty
kilometres away and our gear weighs half a ton. It’s impossible for us to continue on foot. We have to keep trying to get our vehicle through.

I do my paperwork and reappear from behind my rock. My bottom is so sore it takes my breath away. I mince over to speak to Daniel.

‘Tell them what you are working on, Daniel. Tell them who you are with, but don’t mention the singing – it could sway it.’

Daniel, Patrick and our driver, Nelson, go to talk to the protesters again. Keith continues filming covertly on GoPros, tiny hidden cameras, as we watch from the safety of the van. There is no
way they will let us through the line. They shout at Nelson and tell him he has to join the protest. It is clear there will be consequences if he doesn’t. Patrick is debriefed as well. He
explains he is a fisherman and needs to take us back to the hotel. He says he is not working for us. They are furious that, as Chileans, they are not supporting the strike. Thankfully Daniel is
Argentinian, and therefore not betraying the cause, so he tries to pacify the ringleaders. We watch as Nelson is taken away to help man the blockade. He waves at us, smiling but slightly
shell-shocked. I’m not sure this is how he expected his day to turn out. Patrick jumps in the driver’s side and Daniel climbs into the back.

‘It’s no good, they won’t let our vehicle across and are keeping Nelson here as well. We’ve got no choice but to go back.’

‘Have they taken Nelson hostage?’ I ask.

‘Yes, it’s serious. Basically we had to swap drivers because they were angry with them as Chileans for not supporting the strike so they asked one of them to stay as a guarantee and
only that way are we allowed to get back to the hotel.’

‘So we could have been taken hostage,’ I venture, as I take on the scale of the situation.

‘Yes.’ Patrick turns the minivan around and we skedaddle.

Daniel says, ‘We really should have left earlier.’

I blanch. My diarrhoea has scuppered our
Extreme Fishing
adventure and we are stuck here indefinitely. This could go on for weeks. I berate my bottom.

‘Well, at least we’ll be safe at the hotel,’ I say, noticing the petrol gauge. ‘Patrick, I don’t want to worry you but have we got enough fuel?’

‘I hope so,’ he says.

‘And what if we haven’t?’

He looks at me and shrugs. The hotel is about an hour and a half away and all the petrol stations are being picketed.

‘Great, so I was nearly held hostage and now we’re going to run out of fuel and we’ll be stranded in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by llamas.’

Daniel chimes in: ‘Gonachas.’

‘Gonachas? Gonachas to you as well!’

The llamas, or gonachas, are everywhere. I start to make a mental plan of how we might kill and eat one if we do become stuck in the wilderness.
We’ll be OK
, I think.
Patrick and
I can fish; I can make a fire and I can make a bivouac, although if it’s anything like the one in the Philippines we may perish, quickly. We could use the fat and skin of the llama to keep
warm, like the natives used to. It’ll be fine
. But after the Philippines experience I really don’t want to try it. The winds are punishingly cold. I glance at the gauge again:
‘It’s on fucking empty!’

‘We’ll have to use the reserve tank,’ says Daniel.

‘Oh, good. Have we got a reserve tank?’ I say, turning round.

‘No,’ says Daniel, pissing himself.

Oh, cojones.

The van makes it to the hotel but we glide in on no more than fumes. The hotel is empty – it’s like
The Shining
. Alistair and Alessandra get on the phone to
Helen and Hamish, who are looking at every option to get us out, including rescuing us by helicopter, Navy SEAL-style! Calls are made to the British Embassy. They send an email with the latest
advice and as I read I become increasingly nervous. What started off as a mild inconvenience has turned into quite a serious situation: ‘The mood is getting progressively ugly and there is a
tendency to violence. The best advice is to stay where you are.’

This is not good news. I need to be back for Taylor’s parent-teacher meeting and to film
Joe Maddison’s War
with Kevin Whately and Derek Jacobi, but I can’t think of
that right now. I am so poorly and now it’s gushing out of both ends. I take to my bed. Besides, I can think of worse places to be trapped. It suddenly hits me that we are stuck in the
world’s biggest open prison. For some reason I start thinking about Jeffrey Archer. He went to an open prison and could go home from time to time and work in a theatre, and he got to keep his
title. That doesn’t sound like punishment to me, but then I can’t remember what he actually did. Was he charged with crimes against literature? OMG, I might be charged with crimes
against music. But if I go down I’m taking Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh with me.

‘Robson. Robson!’

‘Yes?’

Alistair is staring at me. I realise I am delirious with dehydration.

Patrick fetches a doctor from the village. He checks me over and gives me a potion to get rid of a parasitic infection, most probably amoebic dysentery. Lord knows how I got it but somehow I
did. That night I sleep soundly and so does my bottom.

Salmon Fishing Part Deux

We still can’t leave Patagonia so it looks as if we’re going to have to make the best of the situation. One thing the protesters can’t stop us doing is
fishing, especially with the Serrano River located right by the hotel. We have another chance of catching a giant chinook with Patrick. But before we start fishing, we start off by setting the
mood. Patrick plays the guitar, I sing, and Alistair has written us a song to perform. We sit next to the Serrano on chairs, wearing shades, while Patrick strums his guitar and we perform the
Chilean Blues.

I woke up this morning

I couldn’t get out

I couldn’t get about

Need to catch me a trout

It may be fate

It may be a fluke

But I need to catch me a chinook.

Patrick says, ‘You have a lovely voice, Robson.’

I start to tell him about my time in the music industry: ‘I had three number ones and kept Michael Jackson and Oasis off the top spot . . .’

Patrick gets up and leaves midway.

I turn to the camera: ‘He’ll be back – there’s no fuel in the van!’

I spy a little boy fishing on the bank. I wander over.

‘Please don’t tell me you caught something.’

The little boy replies, ‘Yes, I catch a trout.’

He takes me to his dad’s car to inspect it. I’m about to be upstaged by a twelve-year-old. He opens up a plastic carrier bag. It’s a decent size but thank God it’s not
the size of the chinook we – I mean Patrick – lost. I take it out to inspect it.

‘That is a beautiful wild brown trout . . .’ The fish twitches and I drop it! I try to pick it up. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry. So sorry.’

It’s all going to hell in a handcart. I have never felt so harassed as an angler – trapped and held captive in Chile. But if I’m feeling the extreme pressure, Patrick looks one
seriously worried man. As we prepare our lines he confides in me, ‘I have never felt so much pressure in my life; it’s like my whole life depends on catching the salmon. That cannot be
right – I’m not enjoying this.’

But this is Patrick’s chance to redeem himself and he needs to show the world what an excellent angler and ghillie he truly is. We wade out and start casting. After five minutes, one of
Patrick’s beautiful casts gets a fish. He knows how to play the lure better than me, and lets it drop much deeper. I think my retrieve is too quick but it’s sometimes hard to judge.
Salmon will take at any depth and it’s your job as an angler to find the right level; Patrick instinctively knows in these waters. It’s important to take into consideration the weather,
for example; with low pressure they stay down, while high pressure brings them up. When it’s sunny they take lures below, when it’s windy it keeps them down as well. If you can judge by
sight, all the better – but this depends on the water clarity.

Patrick hands me the rod and, as I start to gently play the fish, it leaps. It’s a glorious platinum chinook. She’s not as big as the last one but her bright silver scales mean she
has just come up from the sea. After a few days she will start to take on the colours of the terrain. As I begin to reel her in she turns towards the bank – I am the wrong side of her! I try
to bring her round but at the moment she’s in charge. She swims towards me.

‘I am too close!’

The closer the angler is to the fish, the more likely the line will go slack and we’ll lose her.

‘Walk back slowly,’ says Patrick. ‘Slowly.’

I keep walking backwards. I’m on the bank, still pacing back. I fall down a rabbit hole and into the gorse. I get up, still bringing the line towards the bank.

‘You did it! You’re there. Perfecto!’ Patrick lands the fish and we both go wild. I start to breathe; I didn’t realise I had been holding my breath.

‘You did it!’ Patrick is jumping for joy and I am so happy. We hug.

‘I have never been so scared in my life. Oh, my goodness!’

It’s a thirty-pound king salmon, so healthy, so vibrant; it’s a credit to the species,
Oncorhynchus tshawytscha
. And that’s easy for me to say! She has come up to spawn
and who am I to stop her? Well, I kind of did, temporarily. I release her into the icy waters saying, ‘Go forth and create other king salmon of good health and size.’

I run around the hotel grounds naked to celebrate my victory. I feel liberated. They can keep me here against my will but my spirit will not be broken. During my victory lap,
Alistair gets a call.

‘Put your clothes on, Robson, we need to get across the border NOW! The British Embassy has negotiated us a two-hour window.’

The van is still packed up and we leap in, me dressed in full fishing gear, unable to locate my clothes at the bottom of the baggage mountain. We bid a fond farewell to Patrick and Torres del
Paine. The British Embassy has played a blinder and we are waved on through the barricades. It is only thanks to the negotiations and tireless efforts of the British diplomats and Helen Nightingale
that we got through, as the strike continues for many more days.

We cross the border into Argentina. Just like the salmon, we are free once more.

October 2010, At the Ends of the Earth, Series 4

It’s 2 a.m., I’m in a cab on my way to RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire. As we enter the military compound I see floodlit razor wire and men with attack dogs. My
stomach lurches. I’m definitely outside my comfort zone.

After rigorous security checks by military personnel, including an iris scan, fingerprints and tabs in my passport, I enter the strange airport lounge. Three hundred servicemen are asleep on
chairs, trying to get some last-minute shut-eye before journeying to far-flung places such as the Falklands Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ascension Island, which is where I’m heading. The
passport-control man looks at me steadily; he wants to know why I’m going to Ascension.

‘I’m off to fish there,’ I reply.

His face breaks into a smile: ‘You’ll enjoy yourself. On its day it’s the greatest fishing destination in the world.’

Billed as the Jurassic Park of fishing, Ascension Island is a tiny dot seven miles wide and nine miles long in the middle of the vast Atlantic Ocean, about halfway between West Africa and South
America, and because of the island’s remote location I’m told it’s home to some of the best game fish in the world, as well as many unique and strange species. The only way to get
there is to catch a lift with the armed forces, who fly there once a week.

As I creep past the sleeping soldiers I’m keenly aware I’m out-numbered by people who get shot at or shoot at others for a living; they have been in some extreme situations in the
real sense, not like Ross Kemp or me with a back-up team and a nice hotel to sleep in. These are the men in the arena who live life on the edge and have seen some frightening things, and they are
paid a pittance to risk their necks. As my dad used to say, I just ponce around wearing make-up for a living.