Flavia & Gregory go LA

We’ve now been in San Pedro for 5 days. San Pedro is a stunning place, every excursion we have done has surpassed the previous one, it is crazy!! Our first visit was to the Laguna Miscanti and the Salar de Atacama, the former being a beautiful basin of water at 4,000 + meters above see level (San Pedro is at 2,700, not joking either!) surrounded by some most yellow bunches of grass, while the Salar is the third largest salt flat in the world and housing flamingos (Laguna Chaxa).
The second day we went to the Valle della Luna and Valle della Muerte. This trip is done in the afternoon to catch sunset at the Moon Valley, which is extraordinary. Between 6.10 and 6.20 pm the colors of the cordillera change to very intense and many variations of pink and yellow, it is a tremendous show! Unfortunately, in this case the pictures do not capture the real colors nor the continuous change that takes place in the scenery during those 10 minutes.
On day 3 we canceled our trip to the Salar de Tara (it eventually hit us that it costs like all other 3 trips together and, after having seen what we have seen, probably not worth the money) and we hired bikes instead, at a 10% of the Tara trip cost!! We went to visit the Pukara ruins, which date back to the XII century and are OK. From there, though, it is possible to walk up to a monument on top of a hill from where one has a view over the Valle della Muerte and other cordilleras, which is really really really great. Not happy to have walked under the midday sun up to the viewpoint for a couple of hours and having drunk out all the water, we decided to take the bikes back into the Valle della Muerte (without water…) to get a closer look at the formations of the Cordillera de la Sal which we had seen the day before in the afternoon. Wow! The last part of the valley we had only seen from the bus while exiting the valley. Being on the bike gave us the chance to cycle through the canyon amongst these high cones of red clay, chalk and salt and take millions of photos! This is a place where you could take a picture every 2 minutes and each would be different and stunning just the same.
Today we went to the Tatio Geysers. This means being picked up at 4 am in order to be on site at 6.30 am in time for the geysers to start. It is 90 km away from San Pedro, at 4,300 meters of altitude, and the road is quite rough. When you get there, the guide prepares breakfast while people wander around the geyser field, being told to pay attention to where they put their feet as the frozen ground can give away and one might fall into the boiling mud under the surface!! The way the geysers work is that the water that comes through the field from a river is heated underground from the magma that lies below (at some 700m). At night it is very cold (-10 C or less), so when you get there at 6:30 in the dark the sun is still down and it is still very cold. As soon as the sun comes out, the temperature rises dramatically and this change in temperature causes the phenomena of the geysers shooting up boiling water and steam. We were not very lucky today as it was only -5 (!!!) when we got there and it was a little cloudy, which meant that the change in temperature was a couple of degrees less than we needed, so we did not have the sudden shot of water. But we saw A LOT of fumaroles and then visited the biggest geyser, where 3 people have died when falling in….basically boiled to death. Bloody hell! One of them apparently wore glasses that had steamed up and he did not see where he was going. Gosh. As for the others, I have no idea how the hell they could fall in the geysers, it is a good meter wide and the steam is a few meters high, no idea how one can walk into it. On the way back from the geysers we could see the scenery and hey! Fabulous again, of course. Beautiful colors, lots of vicunas (cameloid family), and a wonderful blue sky.

This is our last day here, and we are sorry to go. The place is lovely, the people really nice and the scenery out of this world. But I think we can take it, since we are leaving to Bolivia on a 3-day jeep tour through the Salar de Uyuni (the biggest salt flat in the world), visiting a few lagunas and other wonders on the way. Tonight we are going back to the only restaurant we have been while here (we have noticed a tendency to go back to the same place if we like it) it is called Torres del Paine because the owner is from there. He is a lovely man who the other day saw us passing by (half dead coming back from the bike trip) and called us in to invite us for a beer, and then invited us to go back for one of his pisco sours, on him again!!! Really lovely man, he lost his wife 18 years ago, she was shot during a protest in Santiago under the Pinoshit (like many call him) regime. That really touched me.

DAY 1:

Salar de Atacama: Laguna Chaxa

Laguna Miscanti

DAY 2

Valle della Muerte

Valle della Luna

DAY 3

Pukara ruins. Gregory (serious): It must be terribly hard to get down here when it rains...!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pukara mirador

Valle della Muerte by bike

DAY 4: Tatio Geysers

Warming up the milk for breakfast...

Machuca village church on the way back

San Pedro lies in the middle of the Atacama desert 100 km away from the next big town, Calama. With just over 4,000 inhabitants, it offers 30+ places to stay and a similar number of tour agencies. Some people think that San Pedro is far too touristy and commercial. It may be so in high season, but at the moment, which is fairly quiet, it is just perfect. At least, we love it. It is actually nice to meet other travelers, and there is so much to see!!!

After the first night in the first hostel we found - where we didn’t sleep for the cold – we got ourselves a lovely little room in Hostal Sonchek. This is central and very secure, with some 12 rooms along a courtyard with all possible facilities we can dream of: well-equipped kitchen, basin to wash clothes, lines where to hang them, garden with chairs and tables, plenty of shelving and hooks in the bedroom and in the toilets, and a table-tennis table!! Once I spotted the table tennis I had made up my mind, while the girl showing me the place could not understand why I did not want to continue the viewing any more. > > We are going to spend some 4-6 days here, so it is vital that we have a good place where to rest between one excursion and the other.
There are a lot of places around where you do not find a single hook where to hang your stuff. Do these people have an idea of what tourists need when they stay in a room out of a suitcase or rucksack?? Obviously not, which means they also do not have a clue about what their guests need in general. It can be truly infuriating. So this Sonchek place has got it all in place, we give it a 4 stars if anybody needs a recommendation for a hostel here.

We have been round to the famous and recommendable museum already – very nice and rich in desert mummies and ancient skulls – and booked the 4 compulsory tours to Valle della Luna, the Lagunas, the Tatio Geysers and the Tara Salts, the last of which is not quite confirmed yet. While booking this last one we discovered that Rachel, co-passenger back on the Exodus truck, is in town!! Because when you book you need to leave your hotel and room number, we were able to trace her down and pay her a surprise visit last night. That was really funny.

NOTA ITALIANA SUGLI APPENDINI NELLE CAMERE IN AFFITTO
Solidarizzo con mio papa´, che si infuriava per il fatto che i bungalow del campeggio non avevano sufficienti ´chiodi´alle pareti. Qui di posti cosi ce ne sono a bizzeffe e io soffro con la stessa intensita´!!! Se continua senza chiodi potrei anche cominciare a fare una crociata personale agli appendini!!!

Our room at Hostal Sonchek

The famous San Pedro de Atacama church

Hermosa mujer Atacameña at the museum - famous beautiful mummy retrieved from the desert with full hair and skin

Mummy in a jar

From Pisco Elqui we travelled straight to Copiapo'. Literally ‘straight’, given that the bus from Pisco Elqui took longer than usual to get down to La Serena bus termina, despite racing with another bus to get there (who gets there first starts back up the valley first, and who goes first picks up the most passengers, who pay money). They crawled for the first stretch of the valley looking for passengers, then, when the bus that was following got close, they started zooming down the valley in formula one style. By then, however, we had lost a lot of time and we were risking missing the bus. When we told them this, they rushed to the terminal even faster and deposited us right next to the Copiapo’ bus, handing over our luggage to the next operator. So that was cool.

Copiapo’ is the worst town we have visited so far. If anybody is planning to stay there, even because passing through, DON'T! We tried to reserve a night over the phone and only managed to find somewhere after 6 attempts. When we finally got there, at Residencial Rodriguez, they had not actually reserved the room and did not have a double for us (fortunately - the place was reeking). So we checked across the road at Ben Bow (where it was supposed to be full) and found that half of the 30 odd rooms were actually available?! Took one and paid for 2 nights, thinking we were going to stay there for a while since we were going to visit both the coast and the interior from there. While Gregory was sitting down in the main Plaza playing chess with the locals and losing badly, I did a reconnaissance tour of the place and discovered that the trips that we wanted to do in the interior to Parque Nacional Nevado de Tres Cruces cost £60 EACH FOR THE DAY!! Same to go up to the Pan de Azucar from there, absolutely bloody ridiculous. On top of this and the town looking pathetic and not seeing anywhere nice where to eat, the room stunk of cigarette really badly and the residencial did not appear too safe either – long, impersonal corridor with flimsy door lock. Really bad vibe about everything and unaffordable trips. So I took courage and went back to the owner and explained that the tours in town were too bloody expensive and we could not do them and therefore we wanted to leave the next day – and so could we have our money back... He did actually refund the second night and so, after a very exciting meal at SchopDog, a Chilean fast food, the next morning we were off to Caldera.

Caldera is a small port village that is used as a base to visit la Bahia Inglesa, supposedly too expensive to stay at. That was a great decision. We got there early in the day, got the cheapest residencial on the main town square - which actually was a lot better than the Ben Bow back in Copiapo’, dropped our stuff and off we went to Bahia Inglesa. It is actually really pretty like in the pictures, only it is not summer any more and the water is 15 degrees… Not cold enough to deter Gregory, determined to swim at whatever cost (back in Pisco Elqui the swimming pool was less than 15 degrees and full of leaves and insects and he still went in and got bitten everywhere…). We actually both bathed for some 20 minutes and then enjoyed a coffee at the fairly new Dome Café before heading back to Caldera. The Dome Café’ looks like the domes of the Eden Project in Cornwall (a lot smaller obviously) and offers 3 small room-domes at decent prices, by the way, so this is a good place to stay next time!

Next morning we went to Chanaral, about 1 hour north of Caldera, which is the base town for the Pan de Azucar, a national park on the coast with beautiful beaches. We booked a taxi to the park with Hector, the guy at the Sutivan Residencial where we were going to stay in Chanaral, so when we got there off we went to the park. Unfortunately the weather was terrible – it never rains, but the weather can still be quite cloudy – so we missed out on the beautiful golden colours that the sun brings. All the same, it was worth going, it is really beautiful and we saw lots of pelicans and decaying cactuses. The cactuses along the coast are getting eaten up by some sort of bug that, combined with the sea mist, eats them out till they disintegrate. Not a pretty sight, though on the whole the park is stunning.

Hector at the Sutivan Residential is a lovely old man with lots of time and good will to help out with anything - recommended.

From Chanaral we left for San Pedro de Atacama on a 10-hour direct bus, which was 2 hours late and got us there in the late evening.

Copiapo´ disused train station

Caldera port

Bahia Inglesa

Pan de Azucar

Decaying cactus

Our lunch at the Caleta de Pan de Azucar

Monday morning we left the Hostel Forestal in Santiago for La Serena, 500 km north, on the coast. Pato at the hostel told us that it is a 'beautiful colonial town'... Maybe colonial, but certainly not one that I would have noticed if it hadn't been mentioned...maybe because I have been to Central America already? Not sure. Maybe people have funny taste. The lady at the house where we stayed in La Serena recommended that we went to the beach La Herradura for a swim, and it turns out that it is really ugly and you certainly cannot swim in it, not with a gigantic tanker sitting in the middle of it loading iron mineral!!! And then the Argentinians we met told us that the good beaches are back at La Serena!!! Never mind, it was a wasted day to La Herradura but then the only real reason why we went to La Serena was to do an astronomy tour. The hills around La Serena are famous for their observatories, some of which can only be looked at, while in others they let you use the telescopes > that's the whole point, isn't it???!!! So we went to Collowara - we wanted to go to Mammaluca but it had been rented out for the whole week by a group of Brasilian astronomists. Tour left at 7 pm, to get up there for 9 and then back at midnight. Well, at the beginning I was sceptical, I thought it was all a tourists' set up, but in fact from up the observatory hill you could see the MILKY WAY!!!! And this with a naked eye, without the telescope. Just incredible! We watched an introductory movie and then moved on to the telescope. They showed us Jupiter, a few costellations (Chinese to me, I have no fantasy), and then Saturn. SATURN!!! When I looked in the telescope it seemed like a cartoon drawing, white with its ring just perfect like in the poster drawings! Surreal. So it was a good experience, thanks to Gregory who insisted to go.

From La Serena we decided to spend 3 nights up in the Elqui valley, which is the valley in Chile where they grow the grapes to make PISCO - see cocktail PISCO SOUR, made with pisco, lemon and sugar (in Peru they add egg white and sometimes in Chile too). Beautiful valley with lots of vineyards and small villages with pictoresque church and arid mountains all around it - and the first cactuses!

So here we are, in Pisco Elqui, we are the only guests at the Hotel Elqui, where we own the whole top floor of the ancient wooden hotel - very nice! The village only counts with 1000 inhabitants and we are out of season, so it is really the ideal spot to chill out away from people. The hotel also has 3 swimming pools, only problem is that they are not being used by anybody and so are full of leaves and insects... But nevertheless the place is lovely. Here's some evidence:

Gregory at the observatory

Elqui-pisco valley

Pisco Elqui downtown restaurant

Today we came for a day trip to Valparaiso, the centre or the beginning of many of Isabel Allende´s stories - which I had to see no matter what!!

Well it has lived up to our expectations, the small houses on the hill are cute and there are tons of them all over the hills. In fact, thinking caefully, they very much look like the favelas in Rio, not that I would ever dare saying this to a local here... We spent our day on Cerro Concepcion and Cerro Bellavista, walking through the beautiful alleys and murales which are found everywhere on the upper part of town. We then spent some 3 hours in a nice little restaurant with a great view on the port and a very cheap set menu with wine, pisco sour, starter, second starter, main, dessert and god knows what else.

And while we are walking around what do I see? A poster saying that Inti Illimani are playing in the evening at 21.30!!! As I start sulking to the locals about the fact that we are going back to Santiago and that Inti Illimani are playing in the evening and does anybody know if they are on tour and where next - and nobody knows - I discover that Inti Illimani are actually Chileans and not Bolivians and that they have been exiled for ages under Pinochet and that one of them lives in Valparaiso and has a restaurant!! Ah! So next we go to check out the venue - and Gregory somehow manages to sneak inside and there he is, talking to the black member of the band!!!! They even took a picture together!!!! All this while I am waiting outside because the lady guarding the door is telling me that I cannot enter - so why did she let Gregory in? Because he is black!!!!!! Yes, yes, because he is black like one of the band and the reality is that there are no blacks here, so the nice lady must have thought he was a friend of his! We have only seen 4 other black people so far, one was earlier on today and Gregory and the guy shook hands at least SIX TIMES. While many women look at him and then react with a ´negrito bonito´ or simply a ´que bonito´!! The youngsters simply tend to cheer or smile. So it appears that he is a rarity and they find him cute, as well as young - most people seem to think he is 35. I have not so far dared asking how old they thought I am...I DON´T WANT TO KNOW!!!

Anyways, here are a couple of pics of Valparaiso

Murales

After Pucon, where the weather was horrible and we could not see one single volcano cap because it was all a misty cloud, we drove straight to Santiago - home town of my once friend Gonzalo. It was a couple of days of farewell with the group, lots of people going their own way, some going back home, some staying for a conference, others continuing on the truck and 3 unfortunate new souls joining. Well, hopefully not really unfortunate, let´s just say that things had gotten a bit rotten in the past couple of weeks with our leader, so we cannot be entirely confident that all will be well. Anyways, WE are off and I think it was just at the right time. Time to slow down a little and relax!!!

Santiago is not as bad as I had expected, though the air is really terrible as they describe it and you can forget seeing the Andes on any day!!! First day we went to the fish market, where we were attacked by a storm of fish restaurant owners trying to get us over to eat at their place. When we finally sat down in one, we had then to endure the wrath of the others who were cursing us for not eating at their place - quite an incredible scene!! In a nice way, but on the way through the market at least 3 of them shouted ´mala!´ and ´mala, me engañaste!´to me!!!! Generally they were quite nice though, despite the grudge for not eating at their restarant, and the fishemongers were very friendly and playful. One found a baby shark in a pile of prawns that he was cleaning and insisted that we took it home with us, saying that we could essicate it and display it..right.

Second day we went up Cerro Cristobal, which is a bit of the Andes sticking out into Santiago and from which you have a great view of the city. So we took the funicular up to the top of the hill and then from there a cable car that looked like an egg over to the end of the Cerro. Not a bad day at all.

We left Bariloche around 8 am on Easter Day: 4.8 degrees!!!!!!!!The days are nice and hot but the nights are really cold, and it is not even winter yet…

On day 2 in Bariloche we went for a walk in the woods and then spent the afternoon in a SPA place with pool and sauna and had a massage. Managed to get back home just before 9 pm to collect our laundry and then got back to the Rincon Patagonico Restaurant for a second meal (located at km 14 in Bariloche - the campsite is at km 13 - all locations are identified as per their km distance from town). We ate there the first night we arrived and the place is really worth it. A huge building built with shiny huge wood trunks offering delicious food and parrilla.

See www.rinconpatagonico.com

We went back there and had the same grilled provoleta especial – grilled cheese with a mushroom delicious sauce – and lomo con champiñones – beef fillet with a mushroom sauce again and squash mash. We then indulged in a £5 dessert (this is as much as a main course, my heart was bleeding but Gregory didn’t want to have none of it), we could not even finish it between the two of us!!! Very nice, but then we had to face the cold tent and sleeping bags, of which one of the zips has broken and we can no longer shut… thank goodness we only have another 3 nights camping to go with it!!! From Santiago onwards it will be hotels or cabañas of some sort, so we will dispose of the broken bulky sleeping bags altogether, and we are counting down!!!

The 10-hour journey to Pucon was good. We chose the 7-lakes route – much longer and winding but panoramic – however nothing comparable to either the lakes at Torres del Paine or the General Carrera. Pine trees and dark blue lakes everywhere and lots of mountains. The best view was at the border with Chile, with the Villarica volcano and fabulous monkey trees all around it. We stopped for a few pictures there and then got into Pucon at around 7 pm, just in line with the usual trend to get to places and plant the tent just after the sun has gone down and it is pitch black and you cannot see what you are doing. This method has ensured that everybody on the truck has lost at least one piece of equipment along the way – pegs, tool bags, dividers for the rain, you name it. The dividers for the rain are a popular bit to lose, since they are tiny and they easily fall off onto the ground if one is not careful when dismantling the tent. Gregory and I have lost at least 3 of them – sometimes finding them back the next night though, hidden somewhere inside of the layers. On the first night with the new truck we lost the pegs bag, which flew away when we rough-camped ON THE SHORE of the Magellan Strait with gale force +++.

Anyways, first day in Pucon and it is POURING DOWN. Thankfully we have managed to find and put the 2 rain dividers in place in the tent this time round, otherwise we would have been floating in the campsite by now...
We cannot even complain because it has not rained once in these whole 3 weeks, and the west side of the Andes is notorious for its rainfall. Because it is raining, the volcano trip has been cancelled (Gregory and myself were not doing it anyways, £40 to go up a volcano????), so we are thinking of having another SPA afternoon since Pucon is famous for its TERMAS – this is a region full of volcanoes so there are a lot of thermal hot springs to enjoy. Or we might just laze around in some cafe´and do Internet stuff, which we have not had much time to do while on this holiday. One might think that we spend our day doing our blogger, but in fact we are constantly rushing through it.

I have found a way to reduce photos to a very small format so we should have solved our photographic space problem:

Lake view in Bariloche

Dawn in Bariloche - 4.8 degrees...

In the truck after we left Bariloche

Volcano Villarica from the truck

At the border onto Chile

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Here we are in Bariloche, one of the most popular holiday resorts for Argentinians.

Bariloche is a very famous place and terribly commercial. It is the Switzerland of Argentina, in fact (along with San Bermando’s dogs for which you have to pay 10 pesos for a picture..) it offers plenty of chocolate and really looks Alpine -like. Like a Spanish-speaking South Tyrol...crazy!!

Since we covered 26 hours of driving over 2 days instead of 3, we have earned ourselves an extra night in Bariloche for a total of 3, isn't that cool! Amongst other things it means planting the tent one less time and leaving it up and standing for 3 consecutive nights, which is a rarity and very very welcome.
Yesterday we went up the highest cable car mountain, Cerro de la Cathedral, and took an Easter egg with us to wish you all A VERY HAPPY EASTER!! BUONA PASQUA A TUTTI DAL CERRO DE LA CATHEDRAL!!! Gregory actually had understood that we were going to a cathedral in the mountains, never mind, what can I do… When we got up there he got the idea, so that’s ok.

We have decided to go out for meals while we are here and have a party on the second night, which we had last night. That means joining up 2 days budget into 1 and buy illegal alcohol (Kim our guide says that we cannot buy alcohol under the budget, however we have already protested and bought wine back in Falafafu’, so I think she has resigned herself and accepted ammutiny…)
Well, the party was great, BBQ delicious and the PUNCH knocked most of us out... I have taken a picture of the punch given it was sooo good, see below..

Cable seats up to the Cerro Cathedral

View from Cerro Cathedral

The mighty punch

From the wonders of the Fitz Roy Parque we started our next 26-hour driving stretch up to Bariloche following the Ruta 40 in Argentina first and then the Carretera Austral in Chile, stopping twice to sleep ‘rough’ by Lago General Carrera and in a pine forest in the Queulat National Parque. It wasn’t a real rough camp in either places though: at the lake we stopped by the lake shore at a patch that Rob knew - with toilet - while in Queulat we camped by a clear spot in the woods where toilets and a quincho were available (a quincho is a shelter hut where a fire can be made and it usually has tables and benches.) While the Ruta 40 was barren and desertic, the road around the Lago General Carrera was stunning. The lake lies horizontally between Argentina and Chile and it is known as Lago General Carrera in Chile (West side) and as Lago Buenos Aires (East side) in Argentina. This lake is absolutely beautiful, surrounded at the Chilean end by predominantly alpine forest and at the Argentine one by dry pampa. The road is narrow and winding and EXTREMELY dusty, with the truck filling with dust regularly, but all worth the views.

In the Queulat National Parque we had a semi-free morning to go and hike up to the mirador to view the Ventisquero Colgante, which is a hanging glacier over a green lagoon. Kim, our guide, told us that it could be done in 3 hours round trip, so we had from 8 till 11 to do it and then be back to jump onto the truck and continue on. When we got to the path the sign said 2.5 hours (presumably each way) so we tried to hike as fast as we could. After about 1 hour we crossed some of our fastest hikers in the group who had decided that it was too far away and wanted to be back at the truck for 11. Some of us decided to continue for another half hour (at least use up the time we definitely had, and who cares if we are 30 mins late…) .. well.. not even 10 minutes after we crossed with the others, we reached the viewpoint!!! Poor things. Unfortunately for us the glacier was covered by the mist so it was only half a success and fair for the others, I guess... Of course we were all back at 11 on the dot to continue the Austral odyssey onto Futalefu, which we have renamed FALAFUFU’ for ease of pronunciation for everyone on the truck.

By the way, I wanted to clarify who Rob actually is. Rob is our current driver, in fact the owner of the truck that came to our rescue from Ushuaia – driving 8000 km down from Lima to pick us up!!! Clearly a bit of a crazy guy and very knowledgeable and solid. Rob used to work for Exodus, then bought off the truck and started his own company. He is kind of suffering at the moment because his tours consist of himself and a chef and a maximum of 14 passengers, who clearly do not have to bother to cook and mess about with the truck. Because he his lending his truck to Exodus and we have to cook, he has ended up with 20 people handling his equipment and placing most of it in the wrong place at every meal… I think he has resigned himself to let it all happen and then take stock and repair once we are all gone, poor thing.

FALAFUFU’ is known for its white water rafting opportunities. Since only grade 4 and 5 are available, and at high cost (some £ 50 per trip) we have decided not to take part and take the day out instead, doing Internet and sitting by the river at the camping site. Our Exodus itinerary is quite fast-paced and this sort of opportunity to have a rest does not come often… Sometimes it gets crazy. The other day I put on only one sock and only noticed 5 hours later when Gregory informed me that he had found one of my socks outside the tent… so I looked at my feet and realized that one of the woolen socks was missing!!! How tired can one be??!! Most days it is 5:30 and 7:00 starts (start meaning everything including tents packed and ready to go), unless we are not traveling, in which case we have breakfast at 8 or later. But hey! It is an interesting experience and thankfully, after 7 weeks of it, it will end on the 12th in Santiago, where we will stay for at least 3 nights to recover before we start our independent travels north up to the Atacama Desert.

A few pics of the Carretera and the Lake General Carrera:

From Torres Del Paine National Park we travelled some 4-5 hours north to El Chalten, a small town at the base of the Fitz Roy mountain peak. While half of the group went on a ice-trekking trip of some 12 very exhausting hours with crampons and hanging cable river crossings, we decided to go trekking up to the Fitz Roy viewpoint - el Mirador Laguna de los Tres. This is marked as a 4-hr trip each way... it got recommended to us from a really nice couple of Argentinians that were staying at the same hut that we hired, so there we went. We missed the 7:30 start that we had agreed with another couple in the group and set off at 8:30 instead, after a nice and for once relaxed fried-egg breakfast. At 10 am we caught up with the same very couple at the first mirador - they had left early but it was dark and they got lost in town and could not find the beginning of the trail for an hour!!! My thoughts had to go back to the delicious eggs I had earlier while being late....

This park, north of the Parque de los Glaciares, which includes Perito Moreno (more south), is almost better than Torres del Paine!! Stunning, very different park, though when we were at the Torres we were sure that was the best park we had ever seen! This one does not have blue lakes everywhere, but has the most stunning autumn trees I have ever seen, just beautiful (the pictures will explain better). Anyways, we climbed up to the base of the peaks, this time to find a very blue laguna and a crazy wind. When we finally decided that it was too cold and windy to stay up and it was time to return and face the other 5 hours on the way back, the wind got us. In order to descend we had to go round a small rocky hill on top of the view point, and this point was hit by extreme wind. Fortunately the wind was blowing towards the mountain and not away from it (if it had, I don't know what would have happened) anyways it was blowing us down onto the ground along with sandblast and for a few minutes I thought we were stuck up there - we had to throw ourselves onto the ground in order not to be flown away and could not move for ages! Well, for a few minutes that seemed ages, but that was enough to really worry us that it might not stop.. We finally managed to take advantage of a minor wind recess and crawled to the base of the viewpoint. From there it was a very steep way down through the rocks and a fantastic view. About an hour away from base, we bumped into a PUMA!!! We were walking and Gregory was in front. I saw the puma walking in front of us about 30 m away, I said to Gregory un puma, un puma!! Gregory turns round and says yeah right!! When he realised that I was extracting my camera and pointing in front of him, Mr Bonds finally bothered to turn and look ahead and realise it was no joke!!! It just looked at us for a few seconds and continued walking down his path, completely uninterested. I managed to take a picture but I moved the image, I guess between the hurry and the fear!! Well I was not sure if I was supposed to be scared or not, the puma was not coming towards us and it is not huge (maybe 150 cm in length?). In fact, I wanted to move up a bit closer for a better picture, very discreetly of course, but I think Gregory guessed my thoughts and yelled not to even think about following the bloody puma!! Well it seems that we were exceptionally lucky, puma sightings are extremely rare.

I am being kicked out of the Internet shop as it is closing