Woke to a spectacular morning and sat on the jetty and photographed the early morning sun moving across the mountains. We chose to do two 'easy' walks today to ease into our first full day and our first was to Nordensfeld Lake past a beautiful waterfall, the hardiest of mountain plants in flower and ancient, tortured, twisted Northofagus (a close relevative of those in Tasmania and elsewhere) to arrive at a vantage point that gives the ´best´view of Torres del Paine. We were lucky to have fabulous blue skies and crystal clear views, the first in over 10 days apparently! Lucky Us! There are no words to describe how you feel when you are confronted with these beautiful mountains, so I won't try. I am just so glad to have had the privelge of being here and experiencing them, even at a distance.
Our second walk was through totally different landscape, green grass and lakes and huge uplifted hills of sedimentary rock, all the while surrounded by purple and yellow and white wildflowers and the amazing teal green that is the water of the lakes.
Saw condors land right outside our bedroom window today, a fox and a guanaco herd (or is that a flock - kind of like llamas or alpacas) grebes, and tiny little birds whose name in Spanish means backpacks because of the orange triangle on their back.
The wind is incredible, pushing you along ... or over, whipping water off the lakes in clouds that look like patches of fog being whisked along and clearing a cloudy sky in seconds. Just like Melbourne, in Patagonia if you don´t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes.
Our day has been one long hoped for but never truly imagined.
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