Sunday, January 7, 2018

Torres Del Paine National Park, Chile, January 5, 2018

After breakfast, half of us went with John our official guide into the park to do a couple of short walks.

In the visitor's centre is a topographical map of Torres Del Paine showing the lakes, rivers and mountains covered in snow.  It's 2400 square kilometers-


and was started in 1979 when an Italian rancher donated his land to the government.  It is beautiful.  There are many lakes that are all different colors of blue because of the different sediments on the bottom-


Getting closer-


And closer-


The mountains are made of granite - quartz, feldspar and mica.  During the past millions of years, the wind has whipped through this area, changing the landscape and forming the towers.  It would be interesting to see what they'll look like in the future.  

The wind was howling so I decided not to go walking but to sit in a restaurant and enjoy the view.

The second walk started at the island of Pehoe-


where we stopped for lunch-


The view from my table-


I didn't do the second walk either.  I'm sure both walks were lovely but that's okay.  I enjoyed what I did.  Apparently on the second walk, the wind can gust up to 140 km/h and judging by the video, it just might have been!  

One final view-


Driving out of the park -



Striated rock formations-


We've got a 5 am start as we drive for 2 long days to get to Ushuaia, the town at the end of the world.

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