Monday, January 09, 2006
Two days of walking with Laura
The next morning once again times were changed, but at 9am we met our guide for the next two days, Laura, and our driver Luis.
Laura is a most amazing girl. She is an astrophysicist from Tenerife who has travelled the world. She fell in love with the park, and then afterwards fell in love with a man from the park. She spoke perfect English and although this is her first season working in the park, she is an encyclopaedia of flora, fauna, geology, history, glaciers, explorers, and truly adores everything that she spoke of. For two days it was just us and her, and it was a most amazing experience.
On the first day we took a walk on the eastern side of the park to Laguna Verde. The original plan was for the walk to be one way for four hours, with a two hour drive home, but we decided to walk to a lake about three hours in, then walk back for a shorter drive. We learned so much that day about all the unique flora of the park, and had a magnificent view from the first hill we climbed (about 500 metres fairly steep) over the whole park.
EDIT: I just wanted to add in two things.
The first is that Laura taught us the term ¨onion stop¨ which means remove a layer of clothing! With the highly changeable weather in the park, the fact that you are climbing sometimes, and other times walking in forest glades, we had a lot of ¨onion stops¨.
The second is the common names of some of the flora in the park were just beautiful. My favourite was a yellow flower shaped just like a clog, which was called ¨shoes of the virgin¨. It was a beautiful flower and a beautiful name. Another was a thimble, and there were golden buttons everywhere!
We then drove to Hosteria Grey and walked on the beach and touched icebergs and saw the Glacier Grey from a ¨mirador¨ (lookout).
ON the following day we started about 8am, and drove to Lake Pehoe where we caught a catamaran across a very windy lake. We walked to Glacier Grey about 11km (not too difficult and very beautiful), and then caught a different boat to cruise in front of the Grey Glacier. We drank a Pisco Sour on the boat, complete with glacial ice (a special drink of the region, and warms you up very well). On this day we experienced true Patagonian winds, and sometimes felt as though we were about to become condors and fly off the hills we were on!
Overall Patagonia was fantastic. It is very unspoilt, and hopefully will remain that way. As Laura says, it is a unique place in the world, and it will be hard to beat.
Laura is a most amazing girl. She is an astrophysicist from Tenerife who has travelled the world. She fell in love with the park, and then afterwards fell in love with a man from the park. She spoke perfect English and although this is her first season working in the park, she is an encyclopaedia of flora, fauna, geology, history, glaciers, explorers, and truly adores everything that she spoke of. For two days it was just us and her, and it was a most amazing experience.
On the first day we took a walk on the eastern side of the park to Laguna Verde. The original plan was for the walk to be one way for four hours, with a two hour drive home, but we decided to walk to a lake about three hours in, then walk back for a shorter drive. We learned so much that day about all the unique flora of the park, and had a magnificent view from the first hill we climbed (about 500 metres fairly steep) over the whole park.
EDIT: I just wanted to add in two things.
The first is that Laura taught us the term ¨onion stop¨ which means remove a layer of clothing! With the highly changeable weather in the park, the fact that you are climbing sometimes, and other times walking in forest glades, we had a lot of ¨onion stops¨.
The second is the common names of some of the flora in the park were just beautiful. My favourite was a yellow flower shaped just like a clog, which was called ¨shoes of the virgin¨. It was a beautiful flower and a beautiful name. Another was a thimble, and there were golden buttons everywhere!
We then drove to Hosteria Grey and walked on the beach and touched icebergs and saw the Glacier Grey from a ¨mirador¨ (lookout).
ON the following day we started about 8am, and drove to Lake Pehoe where we caught a catamaran across a very windy lake. We walked to Glacier Grey about 11km (not too difficult and very beautiful), and then caught a different boat to cruise in front of the Grey Glacier. We drank a Pisco Sour on the boat, complete with glacial ice (a special drink of the region, and warms you up very well). On this day we experienced true Patagonian winds, and sometimes felt as though we were about to become condors and fly off the hills we were on!
Overall Patagonia was fantastic. It is very unspoilt, and hopefully will remain that way. As Laura says, it is a unique place in the world, and it will be hard to beat.
