We are fine

We got back today from three days of camping and were alarmed to overhear something about a huge -- 8.8 -- earthquake in Chile. Not until I checked my email did I find out that this earthquake here in South America also posed a threat to Hawai´i, some 7,000 miles away. I´m hoping that the tsunami warnings are only warnings and no destruction occurs.

In the meantime, we´re fine, very far from the earthquake ourselves, so don´t worry on our account.

Little beings and big views

We´re gambling on the weather again.

Ushuaia is a small town, and there´s not much to do that´s not quite pricey.

So we´re going back. To the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, that is, to camp for two nights. We seem to be making a habit of this returning-to-parks thing.

Are we pushing our luck to go back after getting such lovely weather yesterday?



(I just found out that Ushuaia is the same temperature as Vancouver, you know, where the Winter Olympics are being held... but it´s SUMMER here. I do not envy the people who live here. Then again, no doubt people say that when they visit San Francisco.)

Anyway, here´s what we´re going back for.

















(Yes, I just had to post more plant pictures.)

So wish us luck.

Speaking of weather, I have to share this, as I already have with Marty, Blake, and Rebecca: I read in an old anthropological report that the native people who lived here -- where summer is the temperature of Vancouver winter -- did not wear clothes. Maybe they put some oil on their skin and a small loincloth, but that was usually it. Sometimes they wore guanaco skins draped over their shoulders.

They slept with a guanaco skin around their torsos, their bare legs in snow, and -- get this -- their heads pillowed on a large piece of frozen meat. A guanaco haunch, presumably.

Humbling doesn´t even begin to describe it.

Fin del mundo ... but where´s the ¨fuego¨?

The skies cleared today and our spirits lifted. We see why native people lit all those fires that gave the place its name -- it´s grey and cold here. And we´re (marooned?) here longer than we meant to be.

To keep from going stir crazy, we said damn the rain and went out hiking, and were rewarded with beautiful weather to enjoy the splendors of the Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego.

[Oh, but first, a few thoughts on our hostel: Young, dreadlocked, awake at the wee hours. Beyond psyched on the Bob Marley canon. ¨When you´re here you´re family, mon.¨ Not since my years in Santa Cruz -- or our time in Thailand -- have I listened to this many Wailers tunes. If there were a global icon wrestling match between Che and Bob, who´d win? Post up your thoughts.

Now back to the outdoors.]




Chimango: a very odd scavenger-raptor that took a keen interest in our sandwiches


This bird (a southern lapwing) showed no interest in us... but it had green shoulders and red eyes!


The lakeside shoreline, feeling a bit like a golf course


From the interpretive center: happiness is a young girl and her guanaco


Also from the interpretive center. I dare you to find a sexier beast. Fueguian red fox dare!

A couple of days ago, on the way down from a hike to a local glacier, we came upon an Argentine rodeo, replete with twangy country music and guachos dressed to the nines. They were taking a break from their mate to get bucked off low-slung muscular horses.




He did get up and walk away -- eventually -- but it looked like he might have broken a collarbone...


With no bones broken, this guachito seemed be having the best of times

Different strokes

Always the botanizer, Elizabeth has been taking time to pet the moss and admire all the intricacies of South American plant life.







I seem to be preoccupied with less edified pursuits.




Wet, wet clothes (hanging off the cool loft I made for our tent) -- Torres del Paine, Take 1

Last stop Patagonia

Canal de Beagle! (as in Darwin´s ship... Ushuaia is the grey area on the left)

We´ve moved on from Puerto Natales and are now in Ushuaia, purported to be the southernmost town in the world (the Argentinian city fathers apparently are ignoring Chile´s Puerto Williams, but no matter).

Our exit was not without drama: we were misinformed about the departure time (7 am, not 8), sprinted to the bus company at 7:05, but ¨ya fue¨(already left), couldn´t get a refund or any help from the surly bus company lady, ran like crazy to catch a bus to a totally different destination, only arguing our way on with the help of our last $20 bill, wondered why we´d gotten on a bus to the wrong destination, were traded onto a bus to the right destination in the middle of the highway, were almost kicked off the bus at the Strait of Magellan, did some more pleading with the fortunately merciful conductor, persuaded him to go to some lengths to call the other bus company and coordinate with their driver -- and finally, somehow, caught up to and boarded our intended ride at the Chile-Argentina border.

Twelve hours after that first sprint, we arrived in Ushuaia. Did we mention Z´s got her first South American tummy bug? Well, anyway, we made it. Phew. Let´s hear it for the kindness of strangers.

Now you can use a world map to find your hotel!

This was presumably our last exit from Puerto Natales, but we realized that we actually visited the town no fewer than 4 times (PN, trek 1, PN, penguins, PN, trek 2, PN), so it seemed like it´d make sense to commemorate this grey but welcoming town.

So here are a few glimpses of the sights around Puerto Natales, Chile.

Downtown, almost 10 pm


Cue Otis Redding´s ¨Dock of the Bay¨


Taking down the mighty Milodon (prehistoric sloth, whose millenia-old skin and scat were found nearby)


Get the Milodon to drive you... slowly...


If this wasn´t clear already, it´s central to the town´s identity


That shifty-eyed evolutionist gets a lot of mentions too


Man, the tool user


Blake, doing his best Barbara Woodhouse impersonation


Not very well trained but very well loved


Blake working on a milk mustache


Rebecca plotting...


Celebrating espresso


All traffic yields to the sheep

Pingüinos!

Good weather for flightless birds

When we got rained and frozen out of the Torres del Paine after our laborious preparations, without even a glimpse of the fabled peaks, we needed consolation. So we headed south to see us some penguins.


The Strait of Magellan -- and it looks flat, doesn´t it?


Looks can be deceiving -- more on this later

We opted to spring for the somewhat pricier trip to Isla Magdalena because it promised more satisfying quantities of waddling birds.

We were not disappointed.



The penguins are remarkably unconcerned with humans. We met a penguin expert, returning from his last visit to monitor nests, who told us that they don´t have many natural predators -- even the massive sea lion colony nearby apparently doesn´t pose a big threat, except for rogue young males.

So we were able to stroll along our carefully delineated path-for-humans and the penguins waddled across as they liked, and it was all very orderly. Our small group laughed and pointed and took pictures and some people got quite close, and they didn´t seem to mind. If they did, they just waddled off.


Perambulating purposefully

The penguins are on Isla Magdalena to mate. The authorities have thoughfully provided signage to explain how this works.



My favorite part is the stage at which they stare at each other. I think this is the first date.


Do you feel the magic?

I´m not sure whether this date occurs before or after the males have hooted their little hearts out.



To a human ear, this is not exactly Sinatra. Thousands of penguins are constantly craning their necks and honking passionately away, so if you closed your eyes, it might seem like you´re in the midst of an orchestra of donkeys. The reality is no less odd.



Anyway, the hooting and the staring result in this:



We got there at a time when the little ones are in their awkward stage.




But of course they´re still adorable.

Unfortunately, the penguin expert told us, there has recently been a serious drought on the island, killing off much of the vegetation. The usual high winds now blow the dirt around and when storms come, dirt can fill up the burrows, suffocating the babies. Horrible. With roughly 65,000 breeding pairs on the island, the population hopefully isn´t in imminent danger of collapse, but it´s another of the nasty indirect effects of climate change.

The penguin expert told us this and much else while we were on the long, rough trip back. I was grateful for something to concentrate on aside from the pitching and churning. Though it was kind of fun too. Check out the video at the end of Blake´s post to see more on that.


Note the color of the passengers´ faces