Chile


Our last stop in South America was a few days in Chile before we headed home.

Gaucho Poon



The Andes outside Santiago

The Galapagos Islands


Sit out in the Pacific Ocean, 965km West of Ecuador.
A long way from anywhere else.
A Mecca for zoologists, environmentalists, conservationists, ecologists, evolutionary theorists ..... and fat American tourists.

When Charles Dawin visited the Galapagos Islands in 1835 in the Beagle, he saw some weird and wonderful animals that would change his thinking, and change the world.

It is the remoteness and isolation of the islands that drives the evolutionary machinery. It was the isolation that made Darwin think about all these species, and their origin....


I admit that it was the part of my trip that I had looked forward to the most. It has been a dream for a long, long time.
And it was everything I dreamed it would be.


Sandra with Mum and Pup


Marine Iguanas


Penguins


Up close and personal


Local beauties...


Red Crab


Genovesa pinnacle


Galapagos Hawk (Buteo galapagoensis)


They just bubbled up out of the sea...

Blue Footed Booby


Masked Booby chick


Magnificent Frigate Bird

Giant Land Tortoises


On the Road...

Cute


Genovesa Straight

Ciao Ciao Argentina.
Hola Ecuador.


After spending 3 months in Patagonia counting condors the expedition finished.
I headed North, met Sandra in Chile and then flew to Quito in Ecuador.

Ecuador lies on the Equator (duh), and is warmer than Patagonia (lat. 41 degrees below). Quito sits at 2300m on a high plateau, surrounded by active volcanoes: The Ring of Fire.

It was nice to be warm again.






Quito is a hive of people. A bright and thriving mass of local folks doing their thing. Sometimes that thing is relieving stupid gringo tourists of their UDS. Or worse...


But not us.
We had a great time.
Check Quito out below.....

The Basillica above the Old Town.


Church of gold


Cotopaxi: The highest 'active' volcano in the world. 5897m



Extreme Poon.

The way to the top...

Is a steep and winding one.

"Whenever confronted by two paths, always take the hardest one."
(Tingwe: Himalaya)















Booyah!
Made it.

Crossing the Frozen Lake...


The refugio at Frey is built beside a lake.
In Winter it freezes solid.

We crossed the lake to get to the trail back down the mountain.
The thing about frozen lakes is that you just never know what´s going to happen...
(Note the distance between the trekkers....)

Happy Climbers...

Taken from the saddle just below "El Principal" at Frey.
Ade, "el Gaucho" Nick, and Nahuel the guide...





Trekking Hombres...





From Left to Right...

Maxi (the guide): cheats at dice.

Blake (the quiet American): loves a laugh, a drink and a fight.

Ade (the Pommie IT consultant): a sensitive new age type.

Gaucho Nick (behind) (a Pommie): avoid dice and/or drinking games with this man...

Nahuel (the guide): a hard, cold man who can run like a deer in crampons.

Jane (whiskey Jane): swears like a sailor.

Mark (a Muppet from Utah): Is from Utah and looks like a muppet.

Ice Climbing.


At Frey there is a frozen waterfall falling 40m from the side of a cliff.
To climb up you need ice axes and crampons, a good rope, and a good mate holding onto the other end of it.





It seems like a long way up.
It takes about 10 minutes to climb and my arms felt like lead at the end...

"Use your feet! Use your feet!"
Kept shouting the guide.

"Easy for you" I thought....

It was a tough climb....

Trekking to Frey...

After 6 days trekking and climbing in the mountains around El Bolson, we headed North to the hills around Bariloche, including the climbers Mecca at Frey.

We trekked for 6 hours up into a high valley bowl surrounded by jagged peaks.

Nice view...

Looking across the Rio Negro Valley.
We climbed above the clouds and got a view of the mountains we would be climbing tomorrow...

Refugio hopping...

The Argentines are very clever.
Instead of taking leaky tents up into the mountains, they build cozy huts, well stocked with firewood, comfy mattresses, tasty food .... and nourishing beverages....

There is nothing like a refugio after a hard days trekking in the moutains.

Ricketty Bridge....

Roll some Indiana Jones tunes....
This is a fine example of some back-country construction.
After several days of heavy rain and snow-melt the Rio Negro was raging.





Here are some very nervous trekkers crossing the river...
One at a time....
Slowly...

Snowshoeing to the top...


They may look stupid, but you´re not going anywhere without them.
Simon from Canberra here looks pretty darn cold.





PS: did I mention that it was pretty darn cold?

Mount Piltriquitron...

The final phase of this expedition involved 2 weeks of trekking in the Mountains to the South of San Carlos de Bariloche.

We picked up 4 Argentine mountain guides to take us up into the hills and teach us how to survive, how to walk with snowshoes and crampons, how to not fall off the side of the mountain, how to avoid getting caught in an avalanche, how to find your mate who does get caught in an avalanche, how to play ¨quispe¨ when it is too cold to go outside....

On the 2nd day of the trek we climbed Mt Piltriquitron.
This photo was taken at the top.
But there was a total white-out and we couldn´t see a thing.
Apparently I´m standing a couple of feet away from a precipice....
Such is life in the moutains.

Chica Condorera...

This is the Chica condorera.
(It´s a big lump of rock.)

The condors sit on ledges on the leeward side of the rock to avoid the bad weather.
There are a bunch of condors sitting on the rock right now ... trust me, they´re there.





The snows are just starting.
Winter is setting in.
It´s very, VERY cold.

Hairy Armidillo...

So while I was sitting quietly watching condors, this little critter came and said hello.



Fact: Hairy Armidillos LOVE chocolate.
(This guy crawled right into my backpack to get at a choccie bar.)

2 Weeks with the Condors...

So I´ve just spent 2 weeks looking at Condors at a big old ranch-farm type place called Estancia Perito Moreno. It is owned by some uber rich Swiss guy who made his money in Chocolate. (True story). He runs a few sheep and cows on the place, but his main interest is keeping it as a game preserve. He comes out from Switzerland for 10 days every year to go a-deer huntin´.

The estancia is a special place because it contains a bunch of condoreras. In the winter the condors move out of the Andes and come down onto the Cordillera where they sit out the worst of the weather. We monitored the condor numbers and some aspects of their behaviour from hides setup near these condoreras.















So here I am sitting in one of the hides.
(It´s very cold.)
A few days after this photo was taken the big rains came and flooded the hide.
Yuk.

The final day of the Wild Goose Chase.


The trail wound through a valley of black volcanic gravel.

"Thus spoke Zarathustra" was my preferred soundtrack for this day.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.


Moon walking


The day was fine and clear.

The following day we waited in the freezing cold driving rain for 5 hours before our lazy, incompetent Danish logistics guy picked us up.
(Thanks Jesper :)

Total sense of humour failure.

Sunset over Laguna Verde.




I´ve had worse days...

Wild Goose Chase...

Our first real project for the expedition was to conduct a waterfowl survey of the lakes and waterways of Southern Lanin. The purpose was to assess the impact of the introduced American mink on the populations of ground nesting waterfowl.

We trekked for 10 days counting birds at nominated survey sites. Most of the trekking was along established trails, but many had not been used for some seasons and were well overgrown.

We didn´t see another person the entire time.
The weather was perfect and the scenery was stunning. The lakes and rivers were thick with trout.



The only downside was that we didn´t see many birds.
Either the American mink is cleaning up .... or the birds have headed North for the Winter.

I do hope it´s the latter.....

Lanin One.
Me Zero.




Another time big fella....
Another time....

Summit Attempt.


On the 3rd day of mountaineering training we attempted to summit Volcan Lanin.
It was a tough day.

We slept in a refugio about halfway up the hill.
Just a little hut bolted onto the side of the mountain.
Insulated against the cold and battering wind.




Up at 3.00am for a carbo loaded brekky of mashed potato and hot chocolate.
We climbed for 6 hours but never even looked like making it to the top.
The hot weather made the surface unstable and rocks were tumbling down from some steep cliffs near the top.

At least the weather was nice and the views from the top were stunning.
Just over the border in Chile, other volcanoes smoked quietly and ominously.

At 12.00 we turned back and headed back down to base camp at Tromen.
I learned that you cant necessarily climb these things just because they are there.
There is a bit more to it than that....

VT and me on the way up

Lanin National Park.


A huge National Park in Nequen province about 2hrs North of San Carlos de Bariloche.
The dominant feature is the Volcan Lanin: at 3770m the highest peak in Patagonia.
Not extinct, but "inactive" .... whatever that means.



At Lanin we underwent 10 days of expedition training.
Wilderness first aid, stetcher theory, Emergency evacuation, communications protocols, Navigation, Surviving the cold, Technical Mountaineering, Crevasse rescue and Ultimate Frisbee (because what good training program doesn't include Frisbee?)



Mountain Thong?