Paine massif while transferring from the hosteria's vans to the bus. The light area in front is Rio Paine.
The next day dawned stiff and sore. Today’s walk (04.11.12) would lead us out of the park – in the same fashion as we had entered the park – walking.
Jonathan and I had given some thought to staying on the bus given how stiff and sore we were, but decided that walking was the best way to deal with it. So we packed our bags and loaded them on the hosteria’s vans. The vans took us back across the narrow bridge where the bags were transferred again to the bus that would eventually take us to Punta Arenas.
The bus took us a couple of miles down the road where we disembarked. Charlie led us up over a ridge overlooking the valley we were leaving where the hosteria staff had set up our breakfast. A guanaco wandered by during the festivities.
Charlie described the walk as “off-the-trail” to provide an opportunity to possibly walk among the wildlife – critters willing. After breakfast, we crossed the road and left the the valley across the open fields. Being cold, I was wearing my polartec jacket. Even before breakfast, we were exposed to the “wild life” as there was a guanaco carcass, mostly bones, in the ditch beside the road where we stopped for breakfast. As we walked across the plains we spotted more guanaco bones, the result of puma predation. One carcass we came upon still had the skull. Johan took the skull with some difficulty as there was still some connective tissue holding it to the spinal column. How he plans on getting that thing through customs is beyond me. I thought about picking up one of the scattered vertebrae from a previous pile of remains, but chose not to do so for that reason.
One observation that may or may not make it into the travelogue: You can really call our hiking boots “s*** kickers.” The sheer amount of feces we encountered was remarkable. From that river of cow dung we had to navigate on the first walk, add to that the horse apples and ox piles on the country roads, more horse apples on the trails to the Towers, the guanaco middens (they tend the defecate in one spot), and puma scat. Enough of that.
During one of the previous bus transits – I believe it was the drive from Puerto Natales into the park – Charlie had described guanacos and their habits. One thing he described is their “curiosity” and claimed that if you rolled on your back, threw both your arms and legs in the air while the guanaco was watching, he would come over to investigate. This caught Cecilia’s imagination. So when we came across a pair of the beasts, Cecilia moved away from our group and towards them, rolled on her back and threw arms and legs in the air. She had our attention and perhaps the guanacos’ as well. One of them made a tentative step in Cecilia’s direction when Stan ran over to join Cecilia. I think if Cecilia had been alone or with only a couple of people, she might have gotten a face-to-face with the guanaco. I’m not sure of the wisdom of this – guanaco are in the camel family and share that family’s propensity for spitting.
Paine massif while transferring from the hosteria's vans to the bus. The light area in front is Rio Paine.
Looking up river.
Breakfast was at the top of this hill.
And yes we had to walk to get to it.
Convening for breakfast.
Converging on breakfast.
Jonathan and the guanaco that came to breakfast.
Dennis, Cecilia, and Eileen (can't make out who's standing behind Eileen).
And they're off!
Cecilia and Stan attempting to lure the guanaco closer. (Photo by Eileen).
When the rain started, Dennis brought out his umbrella.
Another guanaco.
The view from the overhang where the ancient cave painting is located.
The grey fox waiting for handouts.
We saw lesser rhea through the windshield.
We continued across country and the rain that we had anticipated for the entire trip finally materialized. I donned my poncho which would have been fine if the snaps that were supposed to hold the flaps together had done their job. Next time I’m going to get a higher quality poncho. I did not put on the rain pants.
Our walk met up with a trail that went along the side of a fence that marked the boundary of the park. Guanaco were plentiful on both sides of the fence. Then we took a right turn up a valley, then up the valley side to an overhang as the rain thickened. Under the overhang were some ancient cave markings suggesting that this outcropping of rock had been sheltering man for many, many centuries.
From there, we went of the top of the ridge and eventually returned to the trail we left earlier. This trail led us to the ranger station at the entrance to the park.
Our bus and the hosteria staff were waiting there and provided champagne as we toasted the completion of the final walk of the tour.
Also seemingly waiting for us was a grey fox who sat on the opposite side of the fence from us, the bus, and the champagne. I was surprised that she would tolerate such closeness and so many people. However I observed Juan Carlo, our bus driver, tossing some food her way, which she ate – explaining why she wasn’t spooked by people. Such proximity was good for photo opportunities and lots of pictures were taken.
We boarded the bus and I was dripping from perspiration. I was wearing a wicking t-shirt and a wash and wear shirt. I shucked the outer shirt which was uniformly wet. The wicking t-shirt seemed dry enough so I wore that.
On our way back to Puerto Natales, we stopped at Tres Pasos (Three Passes) Inn where there were statues of poet Gabriela Mistral (she also adorns the 5,000 peso note) in the garden. I stayed inside (it was cool, and I was only wearing a t-shirt) while Jonathan went to the garden to hear Charlie discuss the life of one of Chile’s two Nobel laureates in literature.
The lunch was another exploration of typical Chilean cuisine – a stew with lots of vegetables and chicken. It was just right for a cool and drizzly day from my perspective. Jonathan described it as “thin, tasteless, and overcooked.” The dessert was a dried apricot which was poached in syrup with wheat. Very unusual but nice.
On the drive to Puerto Natales, we saw a number of lesser rhea, ostrich-like birds, that live in Patagonia. After stopping in Puerto Natales for gas, we drove on to Punta Arenas.
Punta Arenas was a larger town than I expected. There is still a port as the town does sit astride the Straits of Magellan. The hotel was in a converted mansion of one of the local land/sheep barons. It was a lovely hotel, although the conversion to hotel rooms resulted in some rooms being shoe-horned into some small spaces.
We were to have our farewell dinner that evening so I very gingerly climbed into the tub for a shower. It was there I noticed that my fall at the top of the moraine had indeed resulted in a bruise – I had my very own southern cross.
Dinner that night was special. The appetizer was enough crab for a main course and it was fresh. The meat was firm and did not have any of the spongy texture that shows up when it’s been frozen. The main course was a filet of beef atop a remoulade of vegetables. Dessert was a pair of scoops of ice cream both local flavors – one was like butterscotch and the other used barberries. Wine flowed freely (and Jonathan and I had started with pisco sours).
Jonathan receiving a farewell gift from Charlie and Ingrid (Photo by Sue).
Elisabeth, Maria, and I smile for the camera (Photo by Sue).
The larger party (Photo by Sue).