Brrrrrrrr! This is supposed to be the summer!

  Punta Arenas, Chile
Monday, January 5, 2004

And so begins a new year and with only a couple of weeks left, I really need to pack things in. But before I tell you what I've been doing in the last day or two, here's a couple of photos from the past couple of weeks.


The Atacama desert from the plane


View of one of the lakes on the lake cruise between Bariloche in Argentina and Puerto Montt in Chile.


Another lake on the same cruise


Waterfall on the border between Argentina and Chile - lake district cruise


This was supposed to be a photo of the ferry for the trip from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales but actually the ferry is behind the boat you can see in the photo. You can just see the ferry in the background and it looks exactly the same as this one anyway!


Sailing through the Fjords of Patagonia, Chile


Another day, another Fjord

So what about the last couple of days? Well once everyone had recovered from their hangovers it was time to get organised and while most people headed off for a week or so of trekking around the Torres del Paine National Park I jumped on a tour bus - unfortunately I did not have the luxury of a week to spare or anything remotely resembling suitable clothes for trekking!



The Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile. This has to be one of the most visually stunning national parks in the world. The actual Torres (towers) are to the right of the photo - there are 3 vertical peaks in granite. To the left you can see Los Cuervos (the horns), the pointy peaks with black tops. And the bird you can see in the photo is a condor.

We took a day trip through the National Park stopping at various lookouts to see the mountains and whichever way you look at them, they're stunning. Needless to say I took loads of photos so here's a few for you.....


Torres del Paine National Park


Torres del Paine National Park


Torres del Paine National Park


Torres del Paine National Park

Also in the park we went to visit a lake that's fed by a glacier - Lago Grey and the corresponding Grey Glacier. You can walk along the end of the lake and just see the terminal face of the glacier. If there was more time we could have gone and climbed on the glacier or taken a boat trip right up to the face - oh for more time ....


Lago Grey and some of the chunks of ice that have fallen off the glacier floating around as icebergs


Lago Grey and its glacier - you can just see the terminal face of the glacier in the distance

While travelling through the park we also saw some of the native fauna. There were condors all over the place although they proved difficult to catch on film as they were usually soaring way above us. As we drove through there were loads of Guanacos - a relative of the llama, alpaca and vicuna. And loads of Rheas, or Nandus as they're known locally, a bizarre looking bird related to the Ostrich and Emu.


Guanacos grazing


Rhea or Nandu

While on the subject of native fauna I ought to mention the Milodon. Now the Milodon was a ground dwelling sloth that stood about 4m high that lived in Patagonia about 10,000 years ago and as well as finding fossilised skeletons around they found some skin in a cave near the Torres del Paine national park so on the way you have to make a stop at the cave to see the cave (not that impressive as caves go) and the very tacky plastic model of a milodon - hmmm, nice! I'm sure there's a better model in the Natural History museum in London actually!


The milodon - grrrrrr!

Then yesterday I went to Argentina for the day to see the Moreno Glacier. This is one of the world's few advancing glacier and although it was a very long day (6 hours drive there on gravel roads and the same back) it was worth it to see one of the world's great sights. The glacier isn't just a visual experience, you can hear it creaking and groaning as it makes its way into the lake and you only have to be there a short while to see huge chunks of ice crashing down into the lake.


Approach to the Moreno Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina


Terminal face of the Moreno Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina.

Which brings me nicly up to date - well up to today at least. This morning it was time for another tour conveniently combined with a bus trip to Punta Arenas, the town in Southern Chile where I am right now. On the way down we stopped off at the Penguin Colony in Seno Otway. Here they have about 6,000 pairs of Magallenic penguins - this is relatively small as just in the middle of the straits there's a colony of 50,000 and up in Argentina there's a colony of half a million. Even so, there's penguins wherever you look and that's plenty penguins for me. In the penguin reserve you can wander round and watch the penguins coming in from the sea, washing themselves in the sea, preening, feeding their chicks and just generally waddling around in that funny way that penguins do.


Penguins coming in from the sea and bathing on the shore


Magallenic Penguin


Magallenic Penguin

So that really is me up to date. Now I'm in Punta Arenas in the very South of Chile but really there isn't very much to do here so tomorrow morning I'm heading off to the Land of Fire, Tierra del Fuego to head back into Argentina.