On 27th March I flew from Punta Arenas to Santiago to meet Father, who´d flown in the day before. The idea was to spend a couple of days in Santiago then fly back down to Punta Arenas to visit Torres del Paine for 8 days at Explora Lodge. Santiago was absolutely baking hot - at least 30 degrees and really too hot to do anything. We decided to go up the hill at the back of the city (the name escapes me), to view the statue of the Virgin Mary and get our bearings - still not used to the sun being in the North, renders all sense of direction completely useless! We caught the Funicular up the hill, and decided to stop off halfway at the zoo. Neither of us areparticulalry keen on zoos, but it looked very shady and we thought it might be nice to have a relaxing wander round and maybe see some animals that weren´t hiding! The zoo was ok, not as bad as I was expecting, although I hate to see animals behind wire fences, especially animals like tigers and lions and elephants, because to me they should be roaming around somewhere. On the flip side we are protecting them from extinction, but you can´t help thinking if life in a zoo can be called a life at all for them. I don´t know. The good news is that there are plans to move the zoo out-of-town to a bigger location and thereby give all the animals a bit more elbow-room, so there is hope yet. Here´s Father walking to the Funicular in his free Iberia T-Shirt, which was godsend as his suitcase was still in Madrid (not impressed!).
Some shots of the animals in the zoo - as you can see mostly taken through the wire mesh that covers the cages. Everything just snoozing and lazing about in a very chilled South American way, except for the babboons who were, quite frankly, going ape.....
The statue of the Virgin, built 1908, watching over the city. Except she probably can´t see a thing because of the smog. Also the atmosphere and majesty of the scene was spoilt slightly by some hideous piped music consisting of vaguely religious-sounding wails - not very inspiring. Down at the foot of the statue is an open-air prayer/gathering place, as well as a tiny chapel, and there were lots of priests milling about vaguely, and sunbaked old ladies climbing the steps to the foot of the statue.
After Santiago we flew back down to Punta Arenas and from there went up to Torres del Paine National Park, which is about 300 miles north of Punta Arenas and is the same latitude south as London is north. The journey was pretty tiring, especially the 5 hours minibus ride, but the comfort of the lodge made up for aches and pains, and the view the next morning was worth everything - I literally jumped out of bed and took it, and only a few minutes later the sun had fully risen and it was all over!
The first walk we did was over to the Grey Glacier, part of the Patagonian Icefield, which is the third-largest body of fresh water in the world after the Antarctic and Greenland. It is made up of 38 glaciers, of which the Grey Glacier is really only a wee bairn in comparison...It is also one of the fastest receding glaciers in the world, and it retreated 100m last year, which is pretty staggering stuff! It also means that in terms of glaciation it is perfect, because you can actually see the raw state of the rocks as they are left by the glacier, without things like weathering to get in the way, which was really really interesting. I couldn´t believe how blue it was!
Dad and I in front of the glacier - not the best of photos but you get the idea!
I think this was one of my favourite walks of the trip (although they were all stunning). We had a ride in the Grey II boat, so we managed to get very close indeed to each face of the glacier, and I got nostalgic about A level geography remembering all the technical terms: nunatak, terminal moraine, snout, erratics etc etc etc. Some more shots of the glacier....
This shot here shows the Grey II looking back across Lago Grey to Los Cuernos (The Horns) on the right and through to Torres (The Towers) themselves.
Here´s Los Cuernos from the opposite side of the park on a very windy day!
Here is one of the trees victim to forest fires, which are a real problem in the park. This fire happened in 2002. It destryoed over 12,000 hectares of parkland and was started accidentally by a Czeckoslovakian tourist, who was fined only $200!! The policy of the Rangers is to let the trees grow back naturally, mainly because re-planting is so expensive. The only "good thing" about this fire was that it mainly affected pampas grassland, which rejuvenates more quickly than the lenga (Southern Beech) forests. The only other plus is that the skeletal trees only add to the drama of the park, and can produce some pretty good pictures (at least they don´t move about like the guanacos!).
This was the best day in the park: beautiful high and sunny skies and hardly a cloud to be seen. This is a shot of the Cordillera Paine, or central massif, which is the highest peak in the park (the one on the right), and which has only been climbed successfully twice. Apparently the little bumps are in fact treacherous "ice mushrooms" which are extremely challenging to climb. Looks great from down here though.
Here´s Father on the "Alto de Toros" walk - good job we enjoyed the sun while we could, the last two days were absolutely rotten weather!!
Lichen on a tree branch and me experimenting with my newly-discovered "macro" setting on my camera!
The view across Lago Toro to the Andes, with the Pehoe river in front and the pampas stretching out to the base of the mountains - really really beautiful.
And here are some animals that managed to stay still long enough for me to take their picture! First, some condors who were very close to us, and then a guanaco looking very regal!
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