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