Patagonian explorations. Fin del Mundo...

Perito Moreno panorama, courtesy of google photos!

[One of the benefits of living in a very remote place, like the Falkland Islands, is that we have to pass through, or over, some very interesting landscapes.  Occasionally, we get the chance to linger.....]

Patagonia is the southern "cone" of South America, with Chile on the west of the Andes, and Argentina on the east (although it gets a bit complicated around Tierra del Fuego!).

Perito Moreno

 In October, we interrupted our return to the Falklands to see more of southern Patagonia,  We stayed in Puerto Natales, Chile, about 100 miles north of Punta Arenas, our gateway to the Falklands.  Near Puerto Natales is the amazing Torres del Paine National Park.

 Over the border in Argentina, about 5 hours drive away, there is more stunning scenery around El Calafate.  The Perito Moreno glacier is famous for its frequent calving, which seemed to happen about every 15 minutes while we were there.

Ice recently calved from Perito Moreno glacier.

 It's hard to give a sense of scale, but the front of the glacier is about 2 miles wide. The huge "Ka-Booms" as the ice separates from the glacier and crashes into the lake were startling. However, given the time it took the sound to travel, it was not immediately obvious where it had come from!  Hence the lack of action photos!

Seno Ultimo Esperenza, Sound of Last Hope!

 Meanwhile, back in Chile, we did a relaxing boat trip up the Seno Ultimo Esperenza, which was so-called as the sailors had exhausted all hope of finding a way through the maze of fiords and islands to the Pacific Ocean.   This was one of the last areas of the world to be "found" by Europeans.

Serrano Glacier, Torres del Paine.

The trip included two glaciers, and for the Serrano Glacier, we could walk around the glacial lake and gaze at the hundreds of iceberg bobbing about.  Very different from the Perito Moreno experience - no coach parties!

Torres del Paine

 The Torres del Paine National Park is huge, and we took a whistlestop tour to remind ourselves of its highlights.  It didn't disappoint. (We had previously spent a week in it in 2013 - see my blogs for April 2013 for more information on the park).

Lago Grey icebergs, Torres del Paine

 The beach (above) at Lago Grey (Grey Lake in English!) was formed by a huge glacier retreating.  But icebergs still float the 12 miles down the lake from its existing snout, which is part of the enormous Patagonian Icecap, which straddles almost the entire width of Chile.

Torres del Paine from Puerto Natales

 The small town of Puerto Natales has a frontier feel, cut off from the rest of Chile by the Patagonian Icecap to the north.   The road north goes through Argentina, and buses take about 30 hours to the next city.  The ferry north takes 4 days! We headed south for 3 hours to Punta Arenas, where we boarded the Stella Australis, Southern Star, to explore the Beagle Channel.

Stella Australis in a sheltered fiord

 This ship sails between Punta Arenas and Ushuaia (on Tierra del Fuego)  in the summer, calling at Cape Horn, weather permitting!  Captain Fitzroy, of the Beagle, and Charles Darwin, spent three years charting the waters here before moving on to the Galapagos!  It's a very unspoiled region, although whoever introduced beavers about 60 years ago, is probably regretting it now! With no predators, the original 14 have multiplied to over 100,000!

Landing at Cape Horn

 We were very lucky with the weather and managed to get ashore on Cape Horn Island without getting too wet.  The landscape was similar to the Falklands, with most of the same plants underfoot.

Cape Horn lighthouse

 Nowadays, a Chilean Navy officer and his family man the weather station.  A very lonely existence, except when the odd yacht or the Australis calls in.  A very moving place, when one considers the hundreds of  shipwrecks around it.

Cape Horn on a calm day.

 But the short cruise also educated us a lot about the indigenous people of the region, of whom there were 5 separate groups.  Some were seafarers and fishermen; some hunter-gatherers; some nomads.   It is thought, by some academics, that the seafarers arrived from Polynesia, and the nomads from North America - less than 10,000 years ago.

Wulaia Bay - in the 19th century, missionaries brought Fuegans from here to the Falklands, and the UK.

Some communities kept fires constantly burning in their canoes to keep warm. And when Spanish sailors reported back to their King that it was a land of smoke, he replied, "there is no smoke without fire, so it is the Land of Fire - Tierra del Fuego!"

Sadly, most indigenous people were wiped out after coming into contact with Europeans and their exotic diseases.  In the mid-19th century, missionaries from the UK established a mission station on Keppel Island in the Falklands, and brought over some Fuegans to try and "improve" the lot of the indigenous people. Different times.

Ushuaia, above, is the main city of Tierra del Fuego, and the embarkation point for most Antarctic cruises.  You might notice the Andes rising up to the north and east, yet this is Argentina - it should be on the other side of the mountains!  The border area around the Beagle Channel has been hotly disputed in the past.  It was only relatively recently resolved by Papal intervention....

Crossing the Magellan Straits, to mainland South America.

After leaving Ushuaia, our ship would return by a different route to Punta Arenas, arriving around the same time that our weekly flight to the Falklands departed!  So, we had to leave the ship in Ushuaia, and get a bus north, in order to catch that flight. Once over the Andes, we travelled across the pampas for 12 hours on a bus that had seen better days.  After 3 hours, we discovered the toilet door had no handle and couldn't be opened!  The highlight of the journey was the short crossing of the Straits of Magellan.  Named after the sailor who discovered them and opened up the New World, saving the dangerous trip around Cape Horn. They were suitable choppy.

Black-neck swans at Puerto Natales

After a brief refreshment (Cerveza Austral) in the Shackleton Bar in Punta Arenas, all too soon our Patagonian adventure was over.

At the Punta Arenas airport, we mingled with scores of passengers heading for Stanley to board their ship, the Akademik Vavilov - more of which in 2016!  They were sailing for South Georgia, where they were going to film a re-creation of Shackleton's famous walk across the island in 1916.  Camera teams were accompanying them.  Our enthusiasm about the project waned slightly when we realised that all their ski-ing and filming equipment would mean no room on the plane for fresh fruit and vegetables for the Falklands!  And so it proved! Back to Earth.

Fin del Mundo - The End of the World!

Peter

Torres del Paine: Grandeur, Guanacos and Gauchos

[The weather has been  glorious in Stanley this week, but a cruise ship, Veendam, has yet again cancelled a visit, which has meant more time for me to sort out photos from a recent trip to southern Chile....    This blog recounts some episodes of my life in the Falkland Islands.  This chapter covers a week in Chile.  It's a bit longer than normal, as I thought the scenery worth sharing, and it may be the last for a while due to mundane activities getting in the way of publishing a blog.....]

Lenticular clouds above Torres del Paine National Park

"Torres del Paine is not a mere park, but a park of parks, a destination of travellers to whom a park is more than a place in which to be entertained, but rather an  experience to be integrated into one's life.  Torres del Paine is the sort of park that changes its visitors....."
...........from South American National Parks, quoted by Sara Wheeler in "Travels in a Thin Country", a great insight into Chile.   They are not wrong!

The park is home to thousands of Guanacos

One of the reasons my wife and I wanted to live in the Falkland Islands was....to get away from the place!  No, seriously, one reason for moving there was for the opportunity of seeing South America, which otherwise would be beyond our reach.

Andean Condor, biggest bird in the Americas...rarely seen on the ground.

The Falkland Islands are about 350 miles east of South America, and there's a weekly flight to Chile, operated by LAN, which is the only flight away from the island, apart from the regular one to RAF Brize Norton in England.
So, if you ignore the 35-mile bumpy drive to the international airport at Mount Pleasant, and the long, dull wait before the flight, it is quite a convenient way to start explorations of South America.

Similar in size to the English Lake District....

Our flight continued on to Santiago, but we disembarked at the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan.

Unusually calm lake.

Our destination that evening was Puerto Natales, a 3 hour bus drive to the north across the flat Patagonian country that looked similar to the Falklands.  Puerto Natales is about 2 hours drive from the Torres del Paine national park.  Next morning, we had an early breakfast overlooking the fiords and mountains, and then continued on to the park.

Los Cuernos - The Horns

As we got closer to the park the landscape changed dramatically, and snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance.

Grey granite, below. Brown sandstone above.

Soon we entered the park and enjoyed the incredible scenery the park had to offer.....

Salta Grande (people at lip of Falls). A waterfall between two lakes.

The main massif in the park is not part of the Andes chain of mountains, but a separate, albeit adjacent, geological feature.  It was formed when molten magma forced its way up and into the layers of sandstone, then cooled forming a 2,000 metre layer of granite, sandwiched between the older sandstone!

The Horns, from the south. Grey granite, brown sandstone.

The whole massif was  uplifted when continental plates collided.  Ice caps covered the land for millions of years, and eroded the rocks into dramatic shapes.  When the ice melted about 10,000 years ago (roughly about the same time Man first reached this region), the underlying granite was exposed.

Bring your own seat, for one of the best views on Earth.

And so, we are left to gaze at Nature's beautiful creation......

It's like a gigantic Pavlova with a chocolate topping!

"Beef or Chicken?" Chilean style

Talking of food...... lunch was taken in a  beautifully-located lakeside restaurant, with panoramic views.  We sampled the traditional Chilean grill, and were offered the choice familiar to many long-haul travellers, of "beef or chicken?" !  What it did show was how easy it can be to deliver delicious food to hordes of visitors all arriving at once.

After lunch, we explored more of the park by bus.  The gravel roads were twisty, narrow and undulating, but much of the park has no roads and hiking and horses are the main modes of transport.

Lunch with a view

Coming around one bend, our guide suddenly asked the driver to pull over and let us get out to take photos.  We couldn't understand why she was so excited, taking photos of the mountains herself.  Surely she had seen this view hundreds of times?  "Oh yes", she agreed, "but never reflected in that lake.  It's always so windy!  Today is special!".

Reflections from our trip....

deliberately left blank!

Icebergs!

Another famous lake, Lago Grey, has a glacier at one end, and the wind has blown icebergs from it, 15 miles to the other end of the lake!  The place is notorious for the strong winds.......

Lago Grey.  The rickety pier for the Glacier boat trips.

Horses are popular form of transport.

Eventually, we had driven about 40 miles from north to south within the Park, and were dropped off at our hotel near the southern entrance, whilst the bus returned to Puerto Natales.  Prior to travelling, I had checked the map and had concerns that our hotel was too far away from the mountains to get good views.  I needn't have worried!!

The hotel had panoramic views of the park, and we were soon treated to a display of lenticular clouds, which occur fairly often in these windy latitudes.  They are caused by high winds being forced up over mountains.

Sunset, moon and lenticular clouds.

Dawn on the Horns.

The next day we took a zodiac trip down the Serrano river.  Although not really "white-water rafting", we had to get inside a wet suit and wear life jackets, in case we fell out the boat.

Ready for anything

The river skirts the edge of the Southern Patagonian Icecap - the biggest in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica - and we could see numerous glaciers flowing down valleys to calve into the river.

Serrano Glacier

Without the boat, access would have been difficult and time-consuming.  There are no roads.  This area was one of the most remote in South America, and one of the last places where Europeans migrants encountered indigenous people.  Sadly, about 100 years ago, most of these people succumbed to the usual cocktail of introduced diseases like smallpox.  So the area remained a wilderness, until tourism began about 20 years ago.

Glacial ice blocking the outflow of the lake.

Now, the region is mostly National Park.  The Torres del Paine park abuts the vast Bernardo O'Higgins National Park (13,000 sq. miles, compared to 927 sq. mls for Torres).  By the way, in my old stomping ground of Richmond upon Thames, London, there is a statue of Bernardo O'Higgins, a former resident who went on to liberate Chile from the Spanish!

The end of the glacier

 The closeup views of the glaciers tumbling down the mountains allowed us to see how much they had retreated in recent years.  Spectacular...... but better was to come!

Rickety bridge and person with vertigo.....

On subsequent days, we tried to do less-sedentary activities, and the main one in the park is hiking.  The paths are well-signposted,  with time and distances to the next viewpoint or camp-site clearly marked.

 However, apart from occasional bridges and rustic hotels, the park is very unspoilt and the landscape is undiminished by the growing number of visitors.

Spanish - English directions

We were to see several birds and plants which we were familiar with from the Falklands.  Most had different names, but it is clear some have migrated across the ocean from Patagonia at some point in the past.

Well-marked paths

One aspect of the wildlife we noticed that was similar to that of the Falklands', was that it was not frightened of people, and didn't run or fly away until we got very close.

Black-faced  Ibis. Familiar to Stanley residents...

Quite the opposite.  One evening, we watched two Patagonian foxes run around chasing hares for about 20 minutes, sometimes walking between groups of people and coming within touching distance of us.

Patagonian Fox hunting hares at night.

Patagonian Fox walking past us in the dark...

Hare!!  One of many.

Don't stand on the wildlife...

On one walk, there was a little mouse in our  path which didn't seem the slightest bit bothered by our presence.

"O, wee, cowerin', timorous beastie!" Rabbie Burns.

The Caranchos are scavengers and quite common on the Falkland Islands, away from settlements, but these were spotted very close to our hotel, so were obviously adapted to live off our scraps.

Southern crested Caracara. (Carancho)

Ready for the gauchos

 Horses were used for getting about, and tourists could learn to be gauchos for the day, or even head up into the hills for a camping expedition.  I usually sneeze when near horses, so declined the offer of a day in the saddle.

The trainee gauchos head off for the day....

Near our hotel was a large hostel and camp-site, with a shop and restaurant.  There was also one of those world maps, where you can post up where you come from, although there seemed to be some dispute on whether the Falklands were part of Argentina or not.

The political debate even reaches a hostel in the park.....

A board in the hostel, showing where everyone comes from....

 Peter the Penguin, posting from Antarctica, and someone from the  Islas Malvinas, Argentina, oops, The Falkland Islands....  You just can't get away from politics!

Misty dawn

So, I hope this has whetted your appetite, as the most spectacular part of our trip is yet to come.   More soon, domestic chores permitting....

Peter