This is why we travel so far….

I had a hard time picking the one picture that would perfectly illustrate the title of today’s blog.  I settled on a picture of the Name TBA glacier, because that was the end point of our boat ride up the fjord, and one of its highlight.  But certainly not the only one.  I guess the highlight would be just the experience of sailing up this glorious fjord, on a perfect day, taking in the sights, the wildlife, and the changing color of the fjord as we went up.  But you can’t put that in one pictures….

Puerto Natales, where our hotel sits,  is at the mouth of the nameTBA fjord.  So this morning, we boarded a boat to take us up said fjord. As we started at the opening, we got a better view of the TBA mountain that is visible from the hotel.

There was no wind and bright sunshine, so the steep mountains on each side were reflecting prettily on the blue waters.

 

And, since it is spring and the fjord is topped by many glaciers, there are waterfalls everywhere.  This one is called the Condor falls, because condors often fligh above it. And indeed, we were not disappointed.  These were flying very high, so the pictures aren’t great.  We should be able to get closer ones tomorrow.  

We were lucky to spot Torres del Paine in the distance - probably the most iconic site in the national park.  It is often in the clouds - and far away from where we are…. We are getting closer tomorrow, but the weather may not be as nice.  

 We stopped at a large cormorant colony.  Since it is spring, many were nesting!  (More pictures of cormorants at end of blog).  

 And then we caught sight of many sea lions resting on a ledge at the bottom of a cliff.  One of the male did a great job a posing for the tourists! (More pictures of sea lions at end of blog).  

We stopped the boat to look at one of the many hanging glaciers - 40 years ago, this one reached the water, but, like most glaciers these days, it is now receding - there is still one very large glacier that is growing in Patagonia:  glacier do go through normal cycles of growth and recess, so that’s not a surprise.  But the majority of them are receding right now due to global warming…..

We headed out to the other side of the same mountain, where the same glaciers has another outlet, and where there is a path that leads to it.  So we disembarked for a while and strolled up the moraine to see the glacier, the ice flows that break off it, and the lake and rivers that flow from it.  

Along the path were these “devils strawberries” - so named because they are toxic, and many calafate berries,  not just edible, but famous for making a syrup that makes a great pisco sour!.  So on the way back, we celebrated with one of those, with ice from the glacier1

On the way back, we stopped for lunch at an estancia (ranch) for the traditional asado lunch of grilled chicken, lamb and sausage 

 . And then, as a special treat, dolphins and Magellanic penguins swan by our boat as we were coming back (bad pictures, I know, but they make the point!))

There were also black neck saws carrying their baby on their back - which is adorable.   And various waterfowl’s which I will identify later.  

 

Before dinned, there was an interesting presentation about the history of Patagonia - it was genuinely good, but I’m too tired to write about it, so google it!   Then a very nice wine pairing dinner, which would have been even nicer if it had started a bit early……  because now, I am too tired to make sense of this blog…..  so here is a picture of desert…..

Following are a bunch of picture of fauna and flora that will need to be organized later….

In

In

Patagonia at last!

 

Chile is a very long country! (2670 miles, which is almost exactly the width of the US).  Which means that just because we made it to Santiago - almost exactly in the middle- does not mean we were in fact anywhere near our final destination.   So we got up bright and early for a 4 hour flight straight south (actually, it is only about 3 hours, but our flight was not direct and stopped a a largish industrial town on the coast first and then on to Puerto Natales, where we are now). 

We flew along the coast - I was on the right side of the plane, so got a view of the coastal landscape the entire time, while the left side got more of the mountains.  But the “coast” is a misnomer:  the southern part of Chili does not have a coast per se, rather, it is a finely carved set of fjords, islands, lakes and rivers, and it is hard to tell where the ocean starts and where the land ends.   When we started, all the land part was covered with agriculture, and all the water parts was covered with salmon farms (that’s an overstatement, there is obviously much more free water than there are salmon farms, but there are a lot of them!  Chile is the second producer of salmon in the world - after Norway- and the industry is growing).  

As we got south, sign of human habitation started to thin out and then disappear, and then snow appeared onthe rugged peaks.   

And then, we entered a land of glaciers that were very impressive! We are going to get close and personal with one of them tomorrow, but seeing all of them from above was very cool - also a bit scary, because as we started our decent into Puerto Natales, we flew alarmingly close to them.   But apparently, that’s the fly path and we made it. (More pictures of glaciers at end of blog).

  I’ll have more about the history of Puerto Natales tomorrow.

 For now, suffice to say that our hotel used to be a factory (part of it is a museum) is cool, right on the fjord and offers fabulous views (sunset from the very large bay window in our room is the top picture)    As well as fabulous food and drinks……

 It also has a lot of water fowl that I am not familiar with, including these black neck swans and their babies!. 

  These upland geese are everywhere and it’s mating season, so they coo at each other, it’s very cute.  The locals probably think we are insane taking their picture….  It’s like tourists taking pictures of squirrels in Manhattan, but they are not common to me and I was excited. 

 These grown nesting southern Lapwing got VERY mad at me when I got too close, so I backed down…..

 The water looks tempting on such a pretty day, and indeed some  locals were swimming:  i may try it, but having seen the glaciers from above, im thinking it’s really cold!!!!!

We are very south, so the sun sets late (8:40pm), but we managed to stay up long enough to watch it and write about it!.  

 

Some  more pictures of glaciers and fjord