Viewpoints, wildlife and the Grey Glacier

Torres del Paine national park

On the last full day, the easy option was so easy that even I decided to get off my butt and go with them.  And as Nic had already done a similar walk to the challenging option, and was still coping with his blisters, he stuck to this one too.


Guanaco



Rhea



 We left at a civilised 10:30am and drove around the park, stopping at various different viewpoints along the way.  Obviously the views weren't as good as those that you got if you walked closer to the peaks, but they were still impressive and much less effort. 



As we walked up to one of the lookouts, we passed by a set of Guanaco bones, which had presumably been a puma kill and then picked clean by the various smaller animals and scavengers in the park.  Once at the viewpoint we got some good condor sightings as well as the views of the mountains.

Patagonian fox eating another fox






We also saw rhea, live guanacos and a Patagonian fox.  The fox had found the remnants of a puma kill, which looked like another fox, and was happily if slightly warily, eating while we watched.



Salto Grande waterfall

 



We stopped off at the Salto Grande Waterfall.  The walk up to this was incredibly windy, and it was actually quite an effort to stay on your feet at times.  You could quite see how it was that the wind carried the fire so effectively.  And we saw plenty of evidence of the fire during our drive, but I am posting on that separately.



Torres del Paine national park

After stopping off to eat our lunch we headed for the Grey Lake.  Here we took a short walk down to the beach and got into a zodiac to reach the ferry that was going to take us around the lake and to the edge of the Grey Glacier.


 

Torres del Paine national park







The ferry was back on its normal duties now after having been pressed into action rescuing people who had been stranded by the fire.  The captain had only had about three sleep a night for three days as he made multiple journeys carrying firefighters out to try to control the fire and collecting walkers and staff whose route back was cut off.

Grey Glacier



And all this trying to land the boat on a rocky shoreline, with no piers, in very high winds creating huge waves on the lake.  Thankfully by this time he had caught up on his sleep and wasn't having to cope with such difficult conditions. 

Grey Glacier



The trip across the lake was best done from inside the boat.  The waves were fairly strong, and even going slowly, the icy cold water splashed up over the front of the boat.  When we got to the glacier itself, the water was calmer, so we ventured out into the cold to look at the glacier and take our photos.

Nic at the Grey Glacier



  



There was a free drink included in the trip, I think solely for the novelty of serving the drink with ice from the glacier.  Not that we needed any extra ice by this time.

The glacier was nice enough, but having recently seen the Perito Moreno, we decided to head back into the comparative warmth of the cabin after a while, and look at the rest through the window.

 

Grey Glacier



We were nearly driven back out again by a rather noisy, grizzly and irritating child, and a number of us agreed that we were sorely tempted to throw him overboard.  We just about resisted, but I think we all had our fingers crossed that he would fall in when he started moving around early on the zodiac on the way back!







Chivay, Canyons and Condors

Our next stop was Chivay.  We had a long drive to reach it, passing through a snowstorm at around 4500m.  Much of the journey was over rough roads and so it was boneshakingly bumpy - literally.  We passed some of the time playing cards, but frequently had to grab hold of the ones on the table to stop them from falling off from the vibrations.

Chivay is a small town on the edge of the Colca Valley.  There is very little there and although the tourists come here now, the valley and canyon were only 'rediscovered' by the outside world, including much of Peru itself, in 1979, so the area is still quite traditional compared to most places.  It was only then that they built the road around the canyon, so  even access to the villages and towns was quite limited until the 1980s.



Colca Canyon



Our guide for the day told us that the Colca canyon and valley, and the river that runs through them, are named after the caves found in the mountains either side.  Apparently the original settlers created cave rooms in the mountains which captured the cold air and which they used to store their food. These Colcas were their refrigeration system, and the area is named after them.



Condor at the Colca Canyon



The canyon is the deepest in the world and is certainly very impressive.  Both the valley and the canyon are worth a visit for themselves, but the main reason that people come here is to try to catch a glimpse of the condors.



Condor at the Colca Canyon

 The condors nest in the canyon and in the morning, if you are lucky, you can see them starting to take flight on the thermals.  We were warned that other groups brought here have sometimes not seen them or only had a limited view of them, so we knew that there were no guarantees.      But still, ever optimistic - if a bit sleepy still, we set off for the canyon at 6am.



Condors at the Colca Canyon



When we arrived at the lookout site, we were just about the only people there, so we could get the best viewing spots over the edge of the canyon.  And almost immediately we spotted a couple of condors a little way off and below us.  Then we waited to see if they would get closer.



Condors at the Colca Canyon



It took a while, but gradually they did get closer.  A lot closer.  These huge birds, with an average wingspan of 3.4metres, circled below us for a whole and then directly over our heads.  A few perched most helpfully on a rock about 20metres away from us, so we had an excellent view of them as well as those flying above  us.



Condors at Colca Canyon



I'm not especially into our feathered friends, but still this was quite an exciting experience to see them so close and the ease with which these huge birds glide around.  We managed to count eight condors, some younger brown ones and a couple of older black and white ones.

This was a good sighting.  Plenty of other bus loads of tourists arrived while the condors were flying,  but we had prime viewing thanks to our early start.

Nic with llama and hawk




After condor watching was over we set off back through the valley and stopped at a couple of villages along the way.  Nic had his picture taken with a llama and a hawk in the first village - not touristy at all !



Izzie, gossip llama and llama



More amusing though was our driver Izzie's encounter with the llama.  Izzie has a woollen hat that looks like a llama, generally known as gossip llama.  She was wearing this hat when she met the llama in the town and it seems the real llama wasn't overly impressed as it tried to bite it.



On the roof seats at Colca Canyon

 But the best bit of the drive back was that we finally got the opportunity to try out the roof seats.  It was great to be sat in the roof with the wind in our hair and an excellent view of the valley.  That is definitely something to be repeated when the opportunity arises again.

Back in Chivay, we had a buffet lunch before heading back for a relaxing afternoon and evening.