Tormenta

Wow there was quite a storm here in El Bolson last night - a lot of rain, lightning and thunder that would roll around in the valley for 2 - 3 minutes. Incredible!! Katja and I were camping and were fine until a lake started forming in my tent. Typically tents leak and drip from above when it's raining. Not my tent - I love my tent, it did great. Unfortunately we did not pick a good place to place the tent and the ground could not soak up all the water. This also happened to another tent so I did not feel as bad. There was much water around the whole camping area. I have never been chased out of my tent before. But I ran for shelter at about 5:30 am because I did not feel like swimming inside my sleeping bag. 3 cheers to a synthetic sleeping bag because I could still go back to sleep in it even when it was wet. Katja had a down bag and there was no more sleeping for her.
Quite the funny evening!

El Motoco

The Andes are absolutely incredible!! There is so much hiking and trekking to be done. I am currently outside of Lago Puelo, Argentina - about a third of the way up. Argentina is the eighth
largest country in the world. South America has the fifth (Brasil) and the eighth largest countries in the world. It is quite a vast and diverse continent.
Anyway, I met back up with my friend Katja here in El Bolson and then went 30 minutes south to Lago Puelo. We went backpacking for 3 days up to the El Motoco refugio and then climbed up to Roca del Tiempo. We hiked along the Motoco river - the inferior, medio and superior (lower, middle and upper), hiked in 2,500 year old forests, lakes, mountains and of course glaciars. Roca del Tiempo was 2,020 meters (about 6,000 feet) and it had some snow on it. In Argentina, they have a bunch of refugios where you can sleep inside or camp. Luis was our caretaker at the refugio and he was an excellent woodcarver. Besides stumps, he also carved small fairies and people out of twigs as well as some beautiful signs. I loved how they use recycled cans as trail markers here. They used both the lids as well as main body of the can flattened with painted arrows on it.






































































Across several water crossings, they had these crazy suspension bridges. Indiana Jones??!! These pictures help depict some of the craziness but there were gaps two and three times as big as the gaps shown. Sorry but I was too busy trying to cross them instead of taking pictures. Some of these passarellas are 100 - 200 feet above a rushing river. Crazy. I think I had to scream and laugh at the same time as I went over these.
Overall, some great hiking.

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡IT WAS SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!

So here I am on the Beagle Channel and a few days ago I was on the Magellan Strait. I have been thinking about how Magellan and Darwin traveled in their time, what the sights were like, what wildlife they must have seen and what the boats must have been like. Well my timing was luckily impeccable once again. Here I am in Ushuaia, Argentina a place they like to brag about being at the end of the world ( I am only 1,000km from Antartica and 10,602km from NYC) and there is a bicentennial celebration for the regatta. They had boats from all over the world - Spain, Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Portugal etc. But these were not any ordinary boats, they were the boats of yore, of Christopher Colombus (Cristol Colon) days. I could not believe it. I got to go on the boats and explore. There was a huge 1 hour long fireworks display last night that was absolutely incredible and then I watched them sail out of the harbor this morning. Wowzers!



































































I went for a hike today up Glaciar Martial in Ushuaia. As I was hiking up, it started snowing!! YIIIIIPPPPPPEEEEE!!! I absolutely loved it. This is the first time it has snowed on me in South America. What a great surprise! A gift from the heavens above. I had tears in my eyes. When it is snowing, it is my favorite time to be outside. It was extra special because typically March is the best snow month in Oregon and for the past 4 or 5 years I have been skiing in mid-March during my spring break. It is nice to know the snow gods and goddesses found me anyway. I am one happy camper!!

What was surprising to me is there are glaciars here in Ushuaia that are only 1,000 - 1,200 meters high (3,000 - 3,600 feet). I was able to walk 8km from downtown, right up to the crevasses and moraines of a few glaciars. I went from watching boats in the harbor, which is on the Beagle Channel, to hiking in the snow.

Change is in the air:
***The equinoxes just occured - for you northeners, it is the beginning of spring and for us southerners it is the beginning of fall - which I clearly felt today with the snow against my face - Snow falling from the sky (not a snowball)
***Health care reform passed in the US
***I am headed north! I have traveled from the Carribean Sea all the way south to the tip of the South American continent in Tierra del Fuego. This is my turning point in my trip. The only further south I can go is to some islands or to Antartica. I am not headed to Antartica at this time. Although, last night I was lucky to look at a bunch of photos (now I thought I took a lot at Torres) from an Irish couple who just returned from a 8 day cruise down to the icy continent. Since it is the end of the season, they got a deal and only spent $3500 a person. Well that is what I spend in about 3 months and since I have about 3 months left, I am deciding to head north and happily so. It has been quite the journey. I look forward to 3 more months in this incredible continent of Andean delights, Spanish and wonderful people from all over the world!

Penguins

They are trying to make a home inside but the rangers will not let them.













Dylan, Yuuko and I took a boat ride on the Magellan Strait. It was huge!!! I could always see land on the west side of the boat but not consistently to the east. I learned that before the Panama Canal was constructed, this strait was used as the main thoroughfare between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
From Punta Arenas, we rode the boat north for about 2 hours to Isla Magdalena which is the home to up to 170,000 Magdalena penguins. At the beginning of Fall (in the southern hemisphere), there were only about 20,000 because the rest have already migrated north with their end destination being Brazil. It was still incredible to watch and see them a foot away from me. They dig holes or burrows in the ground to protect themselves from the elements and the wind. Boy it sure was gusty. I could lean into the wind with all my weight for a minute or two without tipping over.
On the way back, we saw dolphins swimming and jumping alongside the boat. What a treat!!!

More of Torres del Paine

We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor.... The wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts 3 weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.
Thoreau








































Okay, okay. I had to add some more pictures. I have so many photos and need to share some more and the crazy thing is... the pictures still do not give a full picture of all of what we saw! I wish I had gotten more photos of all the rainbows we saw. I saw more rainbows and spectral arcs of color being reflected off of so many different surfaces - lakes, clouds, rivers, the snow on the glaciars etc..

The hike to Glaciar Grey














































































The hike to Valle de Francais:




























































































The sunrise hike to the Torres:

Torres del Paine

Torres del Paine - impressive, amazing, fantastic, demanding and definately worth every second!!! The name actually translates as Towers of Blue (Paine meaning blue from a native language). There was a group of 6 of us who decided to all hike the infamous W. Neil, from volunteering in Ecuador, Dylan, from volunteering in Valle Chacabuco, Pete and David who trekked with Dylan and I across the incredible Villa O'Higgins/El Chalten adventure and Yuuko who Pete met in Coyhaique. We made a wonderful team.
I was surprised to find out that Torres del Paine is actually not a part of the Patagonia Andes range. It actually is a small mountain system all on its own - the Paine Massif. It was formed when magma penetrated through a crack in Magellan's basin and through time, sedimentary rock was pushed upwards. There is also granite which can be seen in the Towers and the lower part of the Cuernos (horns).















We started with a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from Puerto Natales. We then took a catamaran across Lago Pehoe. From there, we began our journey by feet and for the next incredible and spectacular 5 days we trekked 96.9 km. We first hiked up to Glaciar Grey and Campamento Los Guardas. It was stocked full of mountains, rivers, waterfalls, glaciars and the icing on the cake were trees that were changing colors! Fall is coming.





































































































































The next day, we hiked back down out of the valley and over to the base of the Valle de Francais. This valley is absolutely spectacular!!!!! At the end of the valley, the view was an ampitheater of mountains. Increible!! By far a must see. The rivers absolutely were gushing, swelling and amazing in their force. I can not believe it is the end of summer here. Our rivers in Oregon tend to be so much lower at the end of summer. I can only imagine what it is like here in the spring. Yowzers! We were soooo fortunate (y muy suerte) because we only had some drizzling by day and some rain and wind that night at Compamento Italiano. Other than that we had glorious clear weather with very little wind - which is a rarity.
Yuuko was an incredible trooper throughout this adventure. Her boots totally fell apart. I had some electrical tape, she had some cord and we borrowed more tape from a fellow backpacker to keep her boots together. By the last day, she just pulled the total sole off of one of the boots. Crazy!




















































































We hiked up and back through the Valle de Francais and then stayed at Campamento Los Cuernos. This campground also had a refugio with lodging, restaurant and a mini store. We decided to buy some wine and celebrate. It was my 6 month anniversary here in South America. I had told everyone before the trip that Tuesday was 6 months here - but I had totally forgotten about it. (I guess I was a little distracted with all the vistas.) But Dylan remembered. What a great way to celebrate - I could not have planned it any better!!








































From Los Cuernos, we hiked over to the infamous Valle Ascensio where the Torres are. As soon as we set up camp at Campamento Torres, half of us hiked up to see the towers. Quite impressive must I say!!! I still think I like Valle de Francais better but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The next morning we hiked back up to the mirador for the sunrise. It was quite beautiful.


















































































Good Bye for now........