Friday, February 6th, Torres Del Paine

Greetings!

I hope you missed the blog. The combination of a long travel day, and a hotel which charged for the use of the Internet, led me to decide to skip a day. We’re still there, and I’m writing this in Word in our room, in the hope that I can minimize the amount of time spent on their internet connection. I could easily afford to rent their access, but we’ve been having such a good time gaining hotel-included wi-fi access that the principle of paying for it additionally just doesn’t sit right. But I did pay for access in Turkey, so I probably should just get over it.

The Hosteria Las Torres, in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, is a great hotel in all other ways. The journey to here is an adventure in itself – complete with narrow mountain roads across lands in which one sheep needs 20 grazing acres to survive. That is, when he’s not competing with guanacos (small wild llamas), rheas (small ostriches), foxes, and pumas. And the bridge over the last river is so narrow the only the smallest of vans can squeeze in between its suspension wires. The area is a hikers dream, incorporating an Ahwanee level ambiance with a working estancia (gaucho ranch). The weather is outstanding. The mountains keep the rain from the Pacific ocean from reaching us, much like the Andes further north. The temperature is fairly moderate, as this is early summer down here. In the evenings and early mornings, we're surrounded by horses munching on grass outide our windows. And the chef must have his eye on a Michelen rating, because the meal content and presentation have been several levels above the usual tour fare.

For the last two days, we’ve gotten up early for breakfast, and traveled over 400 kilometers to hike into unbelievable views of granite towers and glaciers. This tour is a great introductory geology lesson, as well as a means to better understand the flora and fauna of the tip of South America. With long days on the road, the 18 hours of sunlight are beginning to take their toll. The depleted ozone layer requires plenty of sunscreen, and we carry lots of water.

Tomorrow, we drive another 400 kilometers to Punto Arenas, where we spend the night and catch a flight the next morning to Puerto Varas, a southern Chilean seaport and our last stop before this tour ends in the Chilean capital of Santiago. We’ve got three more locations, and five more nights, before start into a four-day ferry ride up the Southern Chile coast, and then spend a week in the high desert of northern Chile (Atacama).

To see over 200 photos taken in the last two days, click on:

Thursday's Photos

Friday's Photos

Gregory

Friday, February 6th, Torres Del Paine

Greetings!

I hope you missed the blog. The combination of a long travel day, and a hotel which charged for the use of the Internet, led me to decide to skip a day. We’re still there, and I’m writing this in Word in our room, in the hope that I can minimize the amount of time spent on their internet connection. I could easily afford to rent their access, but we’ve been having such a good time gaining hotel-included wi-fi access that the principle of paying for it additionally just doesn’t sit right. But I did pay for access in Turkey, so I probably should just get over it.

The Hosteria Las Torres, in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, is a great hotel in all other ways. The journey to here is an adventure in itself – complete with narrow mountain roads across lands in which one sheep needs 20 grazing acres to survive. That is, when he’s not competing with guanacos (small wild llamas), rheas (small ostriches), foxes, and pumas. And the bridge over the last river is so narrow the only the smallest of vans can squeeze in between its suspension wires. The area is a hikers dream, incorporating an Ahwanee level ambiance with a working estancia (gaucho ranch). And the chef must have his eye on a Michelen rating, because the meal content and presentation have been several levels above the usual tour fare.

For the last two days, we’ve gotten up early for breakfast, and traveled over 400 kilometers to hike into unbelievable views of granite towers and glaciers. This tour is a great introductory geology lesson, as well as a means to better understand the flora and fauna of the tip of South America. With long days on the road, the 18 hours of sunlight are beginning to take their toll. The depleted ozone layer requires plenty of sunscreen, and we carry lots of water.

Tomorrow, we drive another 400 kilometers to Punto Arenas, where we spend the night and catch a flight the next morning to Puerto Varas, a southern Chilean seaport and our last stop before this tour ends in the Chilean capital of Santiago. We’ve got three more locations, and five more nights, before start into a four-day ferry ride up the Southern Chile coast, and then spend a week in the high desert of northern Chile (Atacama).

To see over 200 photos taken in the last two days, click on:

Greetings!

I hope you missed the blog. The combination of a long travel day, and a hotel which charged for the use of the Internet, led me to decide to skip a day. We’re still there, and I’m writing this in Word in our room, in the hope that I can minimize the amount of time spent on their internet connection. I could easily afford to rent their access, but we’ve been having such a good time gaining hotel-included wi-fi access that the principle of paying for it additionally just doesn’t sit right. But I did pay for access in Turkey, so I probably should just get over it.

The Hosteria Las Torres, in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, is a great hotel in all other ways. The journey to here is an adventure in itself – complete with narrow mountain roads across lands in which one sheep needs 20 grazing acres to survive. That is, when he’s not competing with guanacos (small wild llamas), rheas (small ostriches), foxes, and pumas. And the bridge over the last river is so narrow the only the smallest of vans can squeeze in between its suspension wires. The area is a hikers dream, incorporating an Ahwanee level ambiance with a working estancia (gaucho ranch). And the chef must have his eye on a Michelen rating, because the meal content and presentation have been several levels above the usual tour fare.

For the last two days, we’ve gotten up early for breakfast, and traveled over 400 kilometers to hike into unbelievable views of granite towers and glaciers. This tour is a great introductory geology lesson, as well as a means to better understand the flora and fauna of the tip of South America. With long days on the road, the 18 hours of sunlight are beginning to take their toll. The depleted ozone layer requires plenty of sunscreen, and we carry lots of water.

Tomorrow, we drive another 400 kilometers to Punto Arenas, where we spend the night and catch a flight the next morning to Puerto Varas, a southern Chilean seaport and our last stop before this tour ends in the Chilean capital of Santiago. We’ve got three more locations, and five more nights, before start into a four-day ferry ride up the Southern Chile coast, and then spend a week in the high desert of northern Chile (Atacama).

To see over 200 photos taken in the last two days, click on:

Wednesday, February 4th, Upsala Glacier

Greetings!

Led by our wonderful local tour guide, Dana, we were driven (thank you Mario) to see five glaciers today. On a big beautiful catamaran with 200 passengers and twin 1500 horsepower turbines, we zoomed off across the cold, pale blue waters of Argentina's largest lake at the foot of the Andes. Dodging hundreds of icebergs from the walls of the glaciers, we marveled at their deep blue interiors. Blue and white skies over blue and white waters separated by brown, green, and white mountains. The Argentine flag displayed in every view.

This is our last full day in Argentina, as we cross over into Chile sometime tomorrow afternoon. Tonight, we all went out to eat in town (El Calafate) at Rick's. It's a barbecued meat (beef, lamb, chicken, and sausage with a buffet salad and bread) place on the main street, where we had all we could eat and a good red wine (Malbec) for $25. Like it's namesake in the film Casablanca, the story morphs tonight as two members of our group leave for Easter Island and Vancouver. We'll miss Michael and Donna, and hope we can stay in contact.

Diego and the remaining 11 of us cross over into Torres del Paine National Park tomorrow. We understand that, though passports will be kept at the ready, Chile isn't charging for entry. That's good since we spent our last Argentinian peso on the taxi back from the restaurant.

To see the photos for today, click on: Upsala Glacier

Tuesday, February 3rd, Perito Moreno Glacier

Greetings!

Beautiful glacier, good weather, and interesting travelers. What a great day! On top of that, we had one of our best local tour guides, a refreshingly enthusiastic young woman named Dana who speaks with an Irish/English/Argentinian accent, maintains an office full of information in the bus seat, and brought out puppets at one point. She bowled us over by asking our names (and memorizing them), something few local tour guides have time or inclination to do. We're eager to see her again tomorrow.

We carry on to Upshala Glacier tomorrow, and are hoping the sun and wind are as unusually bright and calm as today. To see what I mean, click on the photos for the day at: Perito Moreno Glacier

For a short video of the Glacier, click on: Glacier Video

To visit a website of some bicyclists we met at a grocery store here in town, click on: One Road South - Education Through Adventure -a bicycle expedition throughout the continent of South America

ps. Just for Sheila, we're including the following photos of her dad:

Monday February 2, Ushuaia Revisited

Greetings!

I finished today a video consisting of some of the photographs and a sound file of the seals and cormorants on Seal Island in Ushuaia Bay. Here's the YouTube Link: Ushuaia Bay

Sunday, February 1st, Ushuaia

Greetings!

On Patricia's birthday, we had a wonderful time! We ferried the Beagle Channel, and visited some small islands where we got up close with a colony of South American Seals and lots of Great Cormorants. Fulfilling one of Pat's birthday wishes, we saw four Albatross on the way there.

After lunch back in Ushuaia at an Irish Pub, we were bussed to the Ushuaia National Park. We hiked into some great woods surrounded by glacier-filled Andean peaks, to get a taste of what is ahead of us on the Argentine-Chilean border, and in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. The variety of disiduous and evergreen beech trees which grow in this shallow slope soil are beautifully twisted and peppered with mistletoe and lichen.

We saw hidden lakes, heard of ocean-to-ocean winds, and encountered birds that nest on the surface of the water (Great Grebes). Returning for a dinner of Barbecued Lamb,Potatoes, and salad - followed by a candled chocolate cake for Pat, it was a day very worthy of her birthday.

Tomorrow, we fly to Calafate near the Chilean border, for a look at our first real glacier, and begin a bit more rigorous hiking.

For a look at the day's photos, click on:Sunday, February 1st, Ushuaia In addition, our friend, Glen Patterson, has given us a link to some photos of this area which are beautiful, and feature terrific shots of the flora: Glen's Photos