04mar06

slowly woke up in our 4 star bed, and desire to laze and maximise bed time abruptly halted when we saw it was a stunning pure blue sky peeping through the curtain.  within moments we had decided to catch the 9.30 ferry back to land and were showering and packing and gulping breakfasting and doggy bagging uneaten food.  the boat sliced through still waters and the whistling of cold wind in our ears was punctuated by camera clicks.

the morning sunrays penetrated the deep green roadside trees on the dirt track down to national park quelat.  a very friendly park attendant who enjoyed laughing A LOT, indicated on the park map which trail to take up to the glacier, and after failing to charm him into giving us a sticker for our car (clearly we weren’t as funny as we thought), we bought a couple. large wooden bridges crossed the river and small wooden bridges crossed the muddy bits. we passed flowers of vivid red and yellow and some cute little birds who were either friendly, tame, or like their neighbouring penguins down south, had lost the ability to fly. an hour later and we arrived at the top, sweating but energized by having finally done some exercise.  we were pretty close to the immense glacier and could see the ice melting to a waterfall, hitting the rocks far below with a large spray.  unfortunately the glare of the overhead sun made photos tricky and gave us a headache, so turned and sat down for our delicious breakfast leftovers which i promptly spilled on to the soft mud.  suddenly there was almighty crack and we swivelled to see a huge chunk of ice come thundering down on to the rocks below.  tonnes of ice hitting rock in a valley makes unbelievable bass.  the 20 million year old glacier was crying out it’s very last breaths, for in the last 50 years global warming has caused it to shrink to just a lip hanging off the moutain.  neither could we see the chunks of ice floating in the valley below which the three year old guide book told us to look out for.

e-j grabbed the video camera, put on standby and we waited for chunk 2.  nearly an hour later the clouds were coming over, e-j’s patiently waiting wrist was tiring, and it was time for us to move on, so back went the camera into it’s bag. on cue came chunk 2 with twice the impact of 1. knowing we’d missed recording it again, we savoured it for ourselves, then returned to the car. 

israeil bombing of lebannon must have been on pause, as half their air force was in patagonia.  we picked up another two hitchikers, these guys were friends of david and roy and had split into groups to better their chances of hitchiking.  and these guys were pilots, the others navigators, they insisted on clarifying.  clearly no room for them and their outsized rucksacks in the car, they were happy to cling on to the roof rack as we did the 25 km down the road back to their next waypoint

spent the afternoon on an uneventful drive to choaique through deteriorating weather; sunshine’s better but rain adds to world’s end atmosphere.  we found a little hotel run by a sweet little old lady who showed us a sweet little old-fashioned room with a firm bed.  she told e-j she was wanted to sell the place and get a place for two, only two.

 

we grabbed a meal at a popular place in town, and went to bed.