Chile 2016

Wednesday9November

This new day will also be dedicated to Torres del Paine National Park. After Grey Glacier visited yesterday, we will explore the rest of the park from point to point with our rental car. It starts with Lake Toro, whose impressive blue contrasts with the menacing grey of the clouds.

The small island in the middle of the lake hosts the Pehoe Hotel.

A little further on, a walking loop starts from the Salto Grande waterfall. Like yesterday on Grey Lake, the wind is blowing terribly. And after waiting for a heavy shower to pass, we embark on this short 2-hour hike.

The loop runs along Lake Nordenskjöld, named after its Swedish discoverer. The mountain in the background is Cerro Paine Grande. On the other side are Grey Glacier and Grey Lake. We better understand the name of this lake ("grey") as it contrasts so much with the blue of this lake...

Dead trees line the beginning of the path. It's hard to resist this icy wind...

On the black sand beach, no question of swimming today...  

Oh, but we're not alone here! A guanaco (Lama guanicoe) grazes peacefully in its small patch of grass... This camelid is the one most often encountered in Patagonia. It is the wild version of the llama, just as the vicuña is the wild version of the alpaca © Wikipedia. (which makes us 4 species of llamas...)

Poor thing, after the heavy rain that gave way to intermittent light rain, it doesn't look its best with its completely soaked coat...

We find notro (Embothrium coccineum), a shrub a little less present than in the Lake and Araucanía regions where we were a few days ago.

We are approaching the Cuernos, the Paine peaks that give the national park its name. The sun is struggling to break through the clouds, at least enough to let us glimpse them...

The trail leads to the Cuernos viewpoint, still in front of Lake Nordenskjöld.

Back to the starting point.

And back to Salto Grande where the Nordenskjöld flows into Lake Pehoé, aided by a small rainbow...

The "strong winds zone" sign confirms that it's blowing more than usual around here...!

We get back in the car in search of a picnic area! The search takes us past Lake Sarmiento.

No picnic spot... So we stop in front of one of the best panoramas available to us, Mount Almirante Nieto and its 2640 meters of altitude...

Scattered on the slope, clumps of Anarthrophyllum desideratum form "false" rocks covered with small red flowers. No large stones, however, under these "cushions" made solely of the plant...

We get back on our wheeled steed to reach the next viewpoint...

And we cross paths with other steeds, these ones with legs and wool... They are still guanacos (Lama guanicoe), the wild llamas of Patagonia. And they are kind, they present themselves from all angles... Rear end and front face...

Left profile...

And of course, right profile.  

The next stage is again a short walk to reach the small Lake Inge, located north of Lake Nordenskjöld.

"The Paine massif is much younger than those of the Andes mountain range. The latter formed between 60 and 13 million years ago, while the massif formed only 12 million years ago". © Wikipedia

I leave it to geologists to identify this soil...

We continue our advance towards the east of the park to the Paine waterfall of the river of the same name.

On the bank, an Austral thrush (Turdus falcklandii) checks that these tourist intruders don't steal its earthworm dinner... Don't worry, we won't touch it!

The moon and its craters appear in the evening sky. It's almost 7 PM, high time to go home!

Last photos of the park as we leave. Facing Lake Amarga, the 3 peaks of Paine can be made out behind the "Admiral Nieto" mountain between the last rays of the soon-to-be setting sun.

Then we greet a majestic Darwin's rhea (Rhea pennata) guarding the park exits... This large bird is the Amerindian cousin of the ostrich. Although smaller, it remains very imposing nonetheless!  

So here we are on Route 9, which will take us directly to Puerto Natales. It will only take us 1h30 and 100 km, much faster than on the way there. The road is beautiful and clear like the sky. Only a few typical bus stops will distract us during the trip...  

It's 9 PM and a good meal awaits us at the "Tierra del Fuego" restaurant in Puerto Natales. This Wednesday, it's very quiet, we are the only customers... Unless astonishment has seized all the inhabitants, because the TV is looping on the election of Donald Trump which took place the day before... This cuts us off a bit because we hadn't had the info yet...  

We'll need a good soup and a good plate of fries to recover...