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.
Perhaps these ancient denizens were also aliens? It makes sense!
ReplyDeleteSo, I see some ericaceae, yeah? And what else? Are those ferns or club mosses? Everything is so nifty and scrubby and hardy.
Discovery of the day: I can use html in these comments! That's like discovering you can put half and half in your coffee instead of instant creamer. ♥ ♥ ♥
I hope the weather holds for you!
Thanks, jd! Gloomy this morning but no rain, hooray. And yes, bingo, Ericaceae... the bark is very like manzanita, too, dark red and peeling. I think the longer-petaled white flowers look like Magnoliaceae as well. Plant nerd out.
ReplyDeleteOooooo! I'm excited by jd's discovery!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I'm also horrified by the idea of a meat pillows. GROSS! The little tiny flowers (ericaceae?) remind me of flowers we saw in Mendocino...am I correctly remembering manzanita there as well?
Plant dweeb (I just follow plant nerds around and hope that some knowledge will be absorbed).