A bit of hiking, a bit of history a lot of food!

 

Today, we had multiple choice for excursions around the area and the hotel.   They all looked cool - from horseback riding, to all day hiking in a different area, to hiking nearby, to learning about the history of the hotel itself.  But, since you can't do it all....  I went on a morning hike to the "condor view point" - on the the cliffs over the Last Hope fjord and Sofia lake, while Joe took the tour of the hotel, to learn about it's fascinating history as a meat packing plant in the early 1900'th.

The hike was great along a path that goes up the interesting conglomerate hill (for those who know Skunnemunk mountain in NY, it's very similar!) 

The views along the way - of the valley and the cow pastures, and the Estancias (ranch) were beautiful, and the views from the top just spectacular.  

Our guide said it was very rare to see the reflection of the mountain in the lake, because it is in general very windy, so there are too many waves.   

You can indeed see the impact of the wind on the trail:  at the bottom, the trees are tall and straight (they are called beech trees, but I don't think they are related to the beech trees we are familiar with.....). 

As we go up, the trees get stunted and lean away from the wind, until there are barely any trees at all - even though the to is only about 1500 feet above sea level.  

The trail through the forest at the bottom is beautiful, and the "old man's beard" lichen that covers many of the trees make it look like a fairy land - the lichen is a sign of a very clean environment, as it is very sensitive to pollution.  It is not invasive.  

On the other hand, there are invasive mushrooms that the trees fight agains by forming calluses around them.  It's too early in the season to see the mushrooms, but some trees are covered with the large and bulbous calluses - too bad the mushrooms were not fruiting as they are supposed to be edible and good.  

 The cliffs are a great place to view condors, and indeed we saw many.... however, I had mistakenly taken the camera off autofocus.....  so the pictures are so-so.   

 But before I had done that, we also saw a buzzard eagle, and may rufus necked sparrows eating the calafate flowers  (add picture)

There were many spring flowers on the way up and everything is very green.  That dows not last long, as within a month, it will be very dry.  We were however too early for the many orchids- we saw a lot of orchid petals, but only one lady slipper orchid.  

Many other native flowers at the end of the blog.  

While I was hiking, Joe took the tour of the hetel’s history, which is fascinating:  It was build as a central meat (mostly sheep) processing plant and refrigeration in 1911 - the steam engines, ammonia compressors and conveyor mechanisms (including what is now used as an incline to bring customers up and down the main stairs) are really impressive.  And the hotel has done a great job at preserving the original structure and machinery- while providing a 5 starts experience!

We had time for a quick lunch and then I went on a second (much easier) hike to one of the most important sites around here:  the Milodon caves.  These are huge caves carved in the conglomerate by a long go r lake, and def about 14000 ago by miledon- an ex ont giant sloth.  

Its discovery is said to have influenced Garwin development of evolution. Theory before he got to the Galapagos.  These are very impressive! (The little dots in the middle are people!). .

We had a typical asado dinner - that’s A LOT of grilled meat!  And early to bed because we are off early to Argentina!

Torres del Paine and more!

 

I used the picture of Torres del Paine as the cover for this blog, because it is iconic.  And also so beautiful!  But I hesitated, because the icebergs at grey glacier were just amazing - and more surprising (at least to me) because I did not expect them.   But more about that later.  

Today, we drove to the Torres del Pain national park, and continued to be very lucky with the weather.  In fact the picture above looks so much like a postcard of the area that some people may be skeptical that I took it.  But I did - the 3 “towers” reach up to between 8500 and 9000 feet, and the “grand Paine”next to it is over 10,000 feet.  What makes them so striking  is that the road we are on is basically at sea level, so they look really tall!  And you can see them from just about everywhere.

Although the Paine massif is technically part of the Andes range, it was formed much more recently by a singular event (something to do with a magma dome…..  google it….), while the Andes continue to evolve as one tectonic plate slides under the other.   Also, it is much more recently by, thus the jagged look.   Basically, the magma dome thing lifted the Andes up by 10,000 feet, and in some part, you can still see was was originally, the Andes - some of the peaks are two colored because the top is basically the bottom of the Andes.  In most places, that part has been eroded and you just see the granite.  Paine means “blue” in the native’s language - although the mountains are obviously not blue (they are grey granite), but look so sometimes with snow covered.

The road to the park took us along vast ranches where sheep and cows were grazing.  Where there are sheep, there are sheep dogs.   This one was very big!  (And apparently had worked too hard and was very tired…)

 and where wild guanacos roam in large herds - guanacos are related to llamas but were never domesticated.   You also see single ones- those are young males who have not yet successfully gathered a group of females to procreate with.  

 We also saw a bunch of rias (South american ostriches), hanging out with the cows and sheep..  Saddly, the is the only puma we saw...

... 

We stopped by a pretty waterfall - in the background, you can see the Andes (snow covered and smoother that he Paine massif), and then just oohed and aahed at all the lakes and sights.   

 After lunch at the Grey lake restaurant, we took a walk on the terminal moraine of the grey glacier, and it was just remarkable (see top pictures):  there are iceberg falling from the glacier and you could be in antarctica!  It is also suddenly very windy because of the wind coming down the glacier. 

On the way back, we stopped at a final overlook where, in one shot, you can see everything we did today:  From left to right:  The Andes, the Grey glacier, grand Paine and the back of the Torres! The road, all 250km of it, is bumpy and dusty, but well worth it!

There were just enough clouds as we drove back to make the light look eerie over the fields…..

Here are some pretty wildflowers we saw today- and a butterfly…

And random picture which I’ll organize later