Dec 27^th-29 Las Torres, Chile

We are now deep in the Andes in the national park.  Our base camp is at the foot of a massive peak with has a glacier covering 2/3rds of its height (glaciers are basically permanent snow that is packed down over time with a thick layer of ice beneath.) 

The days are incredibly long at this time of the year-the sun rises at around 6am and it is still light at 11:00pm.

We are now seeing a fair amount of wildlife.  We saw condors fishing, seagulls following our boat astride and eating crackers held up by tourists, geese, pretty pigeons, rias (which are in the ostrich family), horses with their young, fields of sheep (more than we have ever seen before), cows running (who knew they could run?) and guanaco.  I have inserted pictures.  The guanaco was the most interesting-it is from the camel family and is protected (from hunters that is, not puma).  We saw lots of live animals living in family groupings with many young ones; and we saw remains of the puma raids in terms of recently killed guanaco young now being picked over by raptors.

The lakes are unbelievably beautiful and different in color based on the sediment and pH.  We saw one lake with an alkaline pH of 8.5 where no fish could live with an azure color.  Another lake was perfectly clear so you could see an object 60 feet below.  It was fed by a river that had rapids that basically cleared the sediment.

The mountains are majestic with sharp peaks often hidden by cloud cover.  They are granite below and sedimentary on top (from the volcanos).  And, then there is the glacier which we visited on a boat.  Pieces had broken off so we also saw icebergs of different sizes, so melting within a few weeks of breaking away.  Global warming is evident by the recession of the glacier but the weather is quite cold as we have moved away from the equator.  It is in the mid 40’s with winds that are up to 60 mph-I sometime have trouble standing.  You need to dress in layers.  I was comfortable in a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, a woolen sweater and a winter coat. (and a poncho as it rains frequently). 

I visited caves used by the aboriginal people (it was cold and rainy so Karen worked on editing her book).  There were some cave paintings, one of which I captured.  It was not very hospitable climate but the guanaco did not mind and clearly are comfortable with people as I could walk up within a few feet of them.