January 24, Tuesday – Torres Del Paine, Chile

We took a long drive across the park stopping for photos along many of the lakes.  

We also got another great look at the Cuernos de Paine (Horns).

There were almost no clouds so we had some awesome photo opportunities of the many mountains in the area.

We stopped for a short walk to Salta Grande or Big Falls.  We had seen them on our first trip here but only from a distance.  This time it was up close and personal.

At the park headquarters we walked through a rock “garden” which displayed large specimens of the various rock types found in the park.  Most of the signs were gone but Filipe, our naturalist guide, was able to name and describe all of them to us. 

We stopped for lunch just outside the park at Villa Serrano.  The restaurant had a beautiful interior of lunga (southern beech) wood planks and huge windows with sweeping views of the mountains.

Then it was off to the main attraction of the day…a boat ride on Lago Grey up to Grey Glacier.  The walk to the boat took us across a footbridge over a rapidly moving river.

The we walked to a narrow moraine left by the glaciers.  

The moraine was about a one kilometer or so stretch of loose small round rocks.  Like walking on marbles.

But the walk was worth it.  The mountains surrounding the lake were pretty spectacular.

We saw a number of large icebergs floating around in the lake.

There was one giant iceberg that had quite an ice bridge.                                 

While the Grey Glacier isn’t as spectacular as the Perito Moreno Glacier we saw in Argentina it had it's own charm.  And it had three arms.  

We were able to sail along the front of the glacier.  It was obvious that the glacier had been doing a lot of calving, the waters around the base of the faces were full of small and not so small ice flows and bergs. 

When we got to the last arm we saw a massive calving. Unfortunately it happened so fast we didn’t get any pictures.

On the way back to the hotel the Paine Grande peak was fully visible…not a cloud near it.  That is very unusual as it is almost always covered by clouds.

The other highlight of the day was a puma sighting.  Actually it was a tawny dot with ears tucked inside a dark green bush.  He was so far away that we took a hundred or so photos trying to get one that would look something like a puma when blown up in size. 

One of the other tour groups had a great look at a mom Puma and two cubs.  They were kind enough to share.

We managed to get a pretty good picture of a Blue-Billed Argentine Lake duck.

And an Andean Condor with the mountains in the background...pretty awesome.

Of course we saw lots of guanacos today...as we have every day.

Last sighting of the day was a fox on the driveway leading to the hotel. 

We took a walk down to Lake Sarmiento after dinner.  

Interesting bird tracks along the lake.

We ended the day with a late night session of sky gazing.  We saw the Southern Cross, the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds, Castor and Pollock, the Gemini twins, and upside down Orion, and the Milky Way.

So today was a great day with some awesome highlights:  waterfall, glacier calving, Plaine Grande with not clouds, puma (puma dot), a fox and sky gazing.  Home run for the day.