Central and South America

A closeup from further up the river in the picture above.

Arriving in town after something like 20 hours of travel my new best friends Wilson the driver and Ramon the guide pick me up at the airport. I have an hour or so at the hotel, brush my teeth, and we’re off for a drive to see some sights. Oh I am happy. Sightseeing! Let’s go!!

Notice here it is Flat… more topography to come.

This guy is the crested caracara.

We ate lunch here. Except for the first night when I was on my own and ordered the King crab and congrio, the food on this part of the trip reminded me of Hawaiian plate-lunch. I was simply delivered what seemed like a tour-package plate of food: a meat or fish, some cooked vegtables and some boiled potatos. Then dessert came. Breakfast was a modest buffet. This was the pattern for three days and two nights. It was all well prepared and fresh, fine really, I just have no real idea about the variety of food in Patagonian – unless maybe I do…

The other waterfall.

The Cementerio Municipal. Rich in life and death.

Wilson. I asked him how he got that name. He said his mother liked all kinds of names… (get all the sibling’s names).

My idea about the people of Chile is that if you could imagine a country called EU you’d get a feeling for who lives there. From what I could see and from what people told me, the country is populated 95% by a vast mix of European immigrants. (PS, when pressed Chileans admit that discrimination against non-Europeans is pretty universal.) You’ve got your Spanish of course, and Portuguese and Germans by the boat load. Also Basques, and French, Irish and English and a ton of Croatians and no doubt many more I left out.

Because the country is so long and so flat and so mountainous and so wet and so dry with all variety of stick and stone and a vast coast line there is a place for every talent, which is what drew all these hard working immigrants in the first place.

I put this rap here so I could mention the sheep. How adorable is that baby?! In the late 1800s the territorial governor brought over 300 sheep from the Falklands. Sheep flourished here, and the vast estancias (‘great cattle- or sheep-grazing establishments with a dominant owner and a dependent resident labor force’) developed which wouldn’t have happened without the many sheeep-farm-experienced immigrants.

First full views of the mountains to come and Torres del Paine National Park.

LP: ‘Before its creation in 1959, the park was part of a large sheep estancia, and it’s still recovering from nearly a century of overexploitation of its pastures, forests and wildlife. In 1978 it was declared a Unesco Biosphere Reserve.’

Neato.

More.

The edge…

The Magellan penguin colony is on the eastern bank of the Seno Otway inlet. There are inumerable islands and inlets down here so it’s pretty much water water everywhere.

The walk around this protected reserve was quite excellent, well maintained paths, clean facilities etc.

Various sources allow that 10,000 breeding pairs of penguins nest here from October to March and here it is November but…

More. The range is called Paine Massif, ‘medium high mountains emerging suddenly from the plains of the Patagonian steppes’.

Like the weather, this sight caused gasps of enthusiasm from Wilson and Ramon. You can see this scene in a postcard but even though Ramon had traveled in this park since its inception, he had never seen for himself the babies on the mother’s back.

Every bus and car that passed screeched to a halt and tourists poured out to take this picture and even the guides were all a-buzz. I had to run off down to the lake bank, with windmill arms against the flurry of attacking mosquitoes because the swans kept moving further and further away, much to the merriment of W&R, but at least by now they were getting used to it.

Representing the pioneers.

So it was in the program that we were to do a city tour – see the museums, the public buildings, the scenic drive. Ramon was slumping his shoulders so I would be sure and see. He was heaving sighs. What? ‘City tours are such a drag but ok let’s go.’ Fine. Fine. Fine. No problem. What are you going to have in these museums anyway? Let’s do something else.

We, being me and Wilson and Ramon have been together for about five seconds and I’m already in a twist. OOoowAH can we stop huh-please-just-for-second-huh-pleeease?

Foto-foto! became our mantra and rib-poking joke. From time to time Wilson would stop the car on his own and turn to me and say ‘foto-foto?’ or Ramon would point out a sight and in an insistent voice would say ‘foto-foto!’.

I have heard back from Ramon and will now fill in all the names of the birds.

This is the gorrion, also called the house sparrow.

Here we have guanaco, in the same family with llamas, alpacas and camels.

When I saw my first pair of these guys I went balistic. Foto!foto!!foto!! Wilson and Ramon were chuckling but I didn’t care. Then a few miles later there were a hundred of them and then hundreds more. They move in herds like buffalo in a cowboy movie.

more.

Crystal Symphony. And all that pollution is from shore – an uncontrolled fire of burning wood chips I heard. (Note: if 1/1000 of this smoke was coming out of the ship’s stack we would be Toast with the authorities.)

So now goodby to Wilson and Ramon, with hugs and kisses and grateful thanks and fondest memories.

You can go directly to: Patagonia, the Chilean Fjords, Cusco and Machu Picchu, and the Amazon Rain Forest.