Mar 05 - Easter Island Bound !

Mar 05 - Easter Island Bound !

Early start today for our very exciting trip to Easter Island. In truth, we have noot researched this much so it is going to be a big surprise when we get there.
What we didn't know was that this island was going to hold a very big surprise for us.

Its a long trip, 5 hour (or 4800Km) flight as the island is half to New Zealand although still part of Chile. Next stop after here is Tahiti at 5900Km

The loonies are on tour again.
Pauls' hearing trumpet on display

Got to the airport to a very nice surprise that we were travelling Business Class !  We spent half an hour playing with our chairs and back massager and then Mandy the star went on a successful hunt for the champagne.


The flight needless to say passed very quickly !!

Flew over miles and miles of ocean, nothing but nothing apart from sea. 5000km of nothing to be precise !

First views of Easter Island from the air showed large breakers and a very green island. We landed the large dreamliner plane with little runway to spare. The runway is the full width of the island at that point !

Easter Island - a tiny dot in the ocean literally

We subsequently discovered that the reason the runway was so long and could take such a large plane was that it was one of the alternate recovery sites for the space shuttle and NASA had paid for the runway extension ! 










We got off the plane, entering the baggage hall to a wall of heat & humidity. The baggage hall was sweltering and we were all soon melting, especially Steve & Janette who had on their hiking boots & socks.
We were all carrying winter coats so looked very well prepared for the Easter Island 
weather.


We came out of the airport to be met by our guide for the next couple of days who put flower garlands on us & off we went. Steve and Paul looked lovely....

Don't we all look lovely !!

Our hotel in Hanga Roa (the only town) was about 5 steps from the airport runway but not a concern as there is only 1 flight a day in the afternoon !!  The hotel like all the building here is low rise and characteristically rustic but very nice with a little pool which the rooms sliding door open onto with a little terrace and shaded open air eating area. 
Most important - good air conditioning !!

The local taxi company was a bit of a concern
and its true to say that all of the taxis were
like this but many a lot worse.

We dropped our cases at the hotel and went exploring, The street map was very advanced....three streets turn left and that's the main street. There isn't much more !  By the time we had walked 3 streets, we were melting in the humidity so we stopped at the little shop that sold nothing but ice cream and ice lollies. We had only managed to walk half a mile before we needed to re-hydrate 

Steve found the local camera shop as he
was still looking for spares but to no avail

A trio of Pratts

We carried on down to the harbour and the fishing boats, all large canoe type boats, had just brought in a huge swordfish which the locals were carving up and apportioning out.
All very community oriented and interesting.

The only town and harbour 

All  of the restaurant fish is straight off  the boat

First day in this really unusual but extremely  humid place. Everything is pretty rustic but seems to kind of work, the people are fun & friendly, the atmosphere is very laid back. Certainly not advanced tourism but all the things you need are here in one form or another. The Supermercado wasn't super but did sell bottled water and every shop whatever its purpose sells carvings of the Maoi (the stone heads)


After a walk back and freshen up, we went back to the harbour area for a sunset drink and dinner.

We bagged a seat with a great sunset view and after a couple of pre dinner drinks watched the sun set over the surfers and some great cloud formations. For dinner, Mandy & Janette had some fantastic fresh huge tuna steaks, the local speciality. 

Really looking forward to our first day exploring the island tomorrow with our guide.

It was becoming clearly obvious  that Easter Island was not   some remote rock with a few stone heads on but a "paradise" like island with a spirit and massive history as well as a fair tourist business....Moreover, the people were relaxed and fun.

Mar 03 - Santiago here we are !

Mar 03 - Santiago here we are !

After a leisurely breakfast we headed out to explore Santiago. 

First stop was the hardware shop to get Steve a set of allen keys for his camera tripod which the fascist security at Birmingham airport had decided were dangerous weapons and confiscated them. 
A friendly English speaking Santiagoan helped out to get us what was needed. Everyone is so friendly, very unusual for such a big city and we are sure that everybody is going to be easy to get on with.

Then on to the central market where every kind of fish and shellfish was available. Santiago and Valparaiso have great seafood.

Steve was hating this, complaining about the smell of fish even though it was minor compared with the stench of penguin poo we had experienced 

We then spotted a city bus tour and decided that was the best way to get our bearings, so we headed off to the office to buy our tickets.

Now we had had several warnings about looking after our belongings and trying to remain low key for safety reasons in Santiago, but the tour bus company blew that out the water ! All we needed was a neon sign and we would have had the full set………

Fortunately for us, Santiago while a big city (9 million people and half the population of Chile) had none of the edginess of Buenos Aires and felt much more friendly and safe. Everyone we encountered was friendly which for a big city was really great.

We were very glad we did the city tour when we realised how vast this city is ! We would never have covered the ground the tour did. We were on the bus for 3 hours and just covered the main central areas. It let us see which areas we wanted to try & visit in more depth and was a great introduction.

There is a real street culture here and the area we are staying in has lots of great bars and restaurants, so we strolled out in the evening to a little area in La Sterria and had some beers, Chilean wine & pisco sours in a bar on the street and ended up spending the evening there watching the world go by. 

Not a bad way to spend an evening !!

Mar 02 - Farewell Patagonia - hello Paul and Mandy !!

Tomas drove us down to Puerto Natales the nearest town where we said farewell and took our transfer down to Punto Arenas for our flight to Santiago. We were very sad to leave this beautiful place and the thought of the largest city in Chile does not have too much appeal at the moment !!

The drive took 4 hours through the flat and seemingly endless steppes of the Andean plains. We were already missing the mountains and views of Patagonia but looking forward to meeting up with Paul & Mandy in Santiago this evening.

Our driver was a real character. He was a chef who had been working in Antarctica on the Worlsley expedition where Worlsely who had tried to follow Shackleton’s path across Antarctica but had to be medi vac’d to Punto Arenas and sadly died. 
Cesar had also worked in Santiago and was full of useful recommendations & suggestions.

When he heard we had seen a Puma and a Huemel in Torres del Paine, he dropped us off saying he was off to buy a lottery ticket as he was channelling our luck !!

We arrived in Santiago after a 4 hour flight, this country is so long & thin, the distances are immense.Flying in over it, the city is vast. It has a population of 8 million (of a total Chilean population of 16 million !) and is surrounded by the Andes as a dramatic backdrop.

At 26 degrees and humid, we were already desperate to get rid of our hiking boots and thick socks !!

When we got to the hotel, Paul and Mandy had decided to deal with jetlag by self medicating with Pisco Sours at a local hostelry !!  We caught up with them at round two and tried our best to catch up. Great to all be together again & ready for the next stage of our adventure !!

Mar 1st - Patagonia Finale

Mar 1st - Patagonia Finale

Our last day in Patagonia dawned with true Patagonian weather. We couldn’t see the mountains at all, the wind was ferocious and the rain like bullets. 
As we needed some time to sort our gear out and pack for tomorrow, Tomas suggested it would be better to do that this morning as the weather was going to clear a bit by lunchtime.

In the afternoon, it was looking better, so we headed out round the other side of Lake Sormiento for a hike round the lake. It was full Patagonian wind and the lake which had been like glass yesterday was crashing against the beach today but it was really beautiful. Noticeable was the bright turquoise colour caused by the white coral like rock of this unusual lake.

As the afternoon wore on, the wind dropped again and we had a beautiful day again. We then went out to the Estancia on the edge of the National Park to see how the ranches in the area were organised.  

The Gauchos stopped by and had a drink

There was a lovely wooded area near the main Estancia and we went in there to have another view of the top of the lake and as we drove through Tomas spotted a female Great Horned Owl. We stopped and got out to see it and higher up in the branches there was the male. Next moment another female flew in, we had found an owl family all staring at us.

Two gauchos from the Estancia came by and said hello to us. Tomas showed them the owls which they hadn’t seen before. They were given a drink from our truck and after a chat, they were on their way presumably to do gaucho stuff.

The Great Horned Owl living in the estancia.  




Nowadays, Gauchos are heavily involved in tourism using their horse skills.

A lovely end to our wonderful time in Patagonia. A truly beautiful wilderness.

Tee shirts in the morning and then........

The Chile Argentina Border -
gate is opened by a junior soldier

28 Feb - Patagonia continued

28 Feb - Patagonia continued

The best bedroom view ever

We opened our shutters this morning to see the most fantastic view of the Massif Central & the Towers in glorious sunshine. Just stunning….. our weather luck was holding !!

After breakfast we headed out again with Tomas for another day exploring. Our first stop was on a small lake where some Pink Flamingos had landed. We trekked round to get some better shots and Steve’s new lens proved handy again !

The Lago Amarga was calm & beautiful in the morning and the reflection of the Massif in the sunshine was just lovely.From there we went to the Lago Azur and had a trek round the lake following the river round to a waterfall which divided the two lakes. The scenery all the way round was just breathtaking.

Little not so furry friend

While Steve was setting up his best photography shot at the waterfall, Janette wandered off and heading down a path nearly trod on an little armadillo !  Very cute.

Stunning Waterfall dividing 2 lakes

The scenery everywhere is so different. From here we could see the Horns of the range instead of the Towers we see from our hotel. It was just beautiful

The Horns

For lunch Tomas had brought a picnic and set up at a little picnic site near the lake with a great view of the Massif. However, Patagonian weather had other plans !  We had just set everything up and the wind picked up, the mist came down, the rain started and you couldn’t see a foot in front of you. It was very funny. We hung on to the table cloth and after 5 mins the wind dropped, the sun came out, the mountains reappeared from the mist and all was well.

We were packing up to move on to our next stop when a pretty deer came wandering through the picnic site and came right over to where we were. We thought, pretty deer, but then Tomas our ranger nearly had a fit and when we turned round all the Chileans in the area were running over with cameras, cell phones trying to take pictures of it !

It turned out to be a Huemul, the Andean deer that is the emblem of Chile and extremely rare. There are only 1000 in the world and 40 in the whole Torres del Paine national park. 
Tomas had not seen one for several months and even then only at a distance, so the fact it had decided to join us for lunch was pretty special apparently !

In the afternoon we walked round Lake Sormiento which is an alkaline lake which houses bacteria that produce oxygen. They leave calcium carbonate deposits round the lake as the water recedes so the whole lake is surrounded by coral like orbs, very surreal….its like Mars.

Another day of stunning scenery and great luck with the weather and the wildlife. 

Back to the hotel to soak our feet and have a nice dinner with some good Chilean wine !

27th February 2017 – Patagonian Paradise

27th February 2017 – Patagonian Paradise

Tomas, our ranger, arrived to collect us early for our sunrise photography session and off we set across bumpy tracks and a riverbed in our indestructible Land-Cruiser and 45 minutes later we were on a beach on the edge of the Bitter Lake with the most stunning views of the Massif Central and the Three Horns.

Patagonia is a geographical region half owned by Argentina and half by Chile although Chile has the interesting bit including the Lake District which we do not have time to visit and the the Torres Del Paine region which is probably the most famous and stunning. 

Breakfast is a little different

Steve got all set up and was snapping away happily. When we turned round, Tomas had set up a picnic table and had made fresh coffee & scrambled eggs so we ended up having breakfast outside with this fantastic view ! What a start to the day….

The sand her is black volcanic dust and the whole region has very mixed geology due to a huge lava tube pushing its way though the original sedimentary rock and then being folded by earthquake activity,

On next to another angle view of the massif with a powerful waterfall and then on to the Lago Azur, blue lake, where again we had the whole place to ourselves. We needed a walk after breakfast so we walked the full way round the lake with the Massif Central always as backdrop.

Wildlife abounded, there was a herd of Guanaco’s (like small llama’s) with babies, Caracara birds, lapwings, Ibis, small ostriches all around the lake.
Guanaco (pronounced "wan-a-ko" was a difficult name for Steve to remember until he was told the story of an Australian who advised that they have them in Australia too.
These males fight by biting each others' testicles so in Australia, they are called "One Knackers" and Steve was now able to remember the name of them with easy.

We were really lucky again with the weather. It rains most days and the Torres del Paine is renowned for the strong winds that sweep across all the time. Today there was no wind, we had lakes like glass and no rain. Once again, the weather gods had been good to us.
The huge (hourly) climatic variation here are caused by the prevailing air off the Pacific coming into contact with the Andes and in a panorama, you can easily see all of the seasons in one view.

Everybody is friendly here probably surprisingly to us and everybody wanted to help including a Gaucho that passed by as we were the only people on the lake.

Back to the hotel for a quick bite and then out again in the afternoon to the Bagualas range of mountains for a run through Condor valley. 

Condors flying high over a target

The Condors nest high up in this austere forbidding range and soon we had up to 10 Condors flying overhead. They are huge birds with a 3m wingspan and they fly high unless hunting. 

Thanks to Steve’s new telescopic lens (thanks birthday contributors !) we managed to capture some images of these majestic predators.

We set out back to the hotel for dinner passing through a valley with large boulders & mountainous backdrop when Tomas our eagle eyed ranger spotted movement up on the hill……..it was a Puma !!

We watched him pass through the area, saw him pounce on a kill (we think a hare) and hone in on the Guanacos who set up alarm calls once they spotted him. Eventually he headed further up into the brush and we lost him, but how lucky had we been. Our ranger said the last time he had seen Puma in this area had been 4 months ago and he had never watched one hunt a kill. Just fantastic !!

Finally, as we were looking for a mobile signal to ring Janettes' sister to wish happy birthday to, we happened across a sheep sheering station used only for a couple of weeks a year so we had a nose around as it was unlocked.

On way home after the day, our lodge is under here

Patagonia - 4 seasons in one day

Caracara bird

Amongt the Volcanic rocks there are fossils -
about  3 miles away there is a field of sharks teeth