Yesterday I went
Fjording through the ocean inlets that connect
Puerto Natales to the
Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers. Absolutely beautiful is my response. As we ventured by boat towards the land of ice the water slowly turned a lighter blueish green due to the sediments from runoff of the glaciers. We passed a huge cormorant colony which looked like penguins, but can fly. We were accompanied by seals and giant condors in this magical land of water and mountain. The trip was incredible as you will see by the pictures above. At the Serrano glacier we hike for a half an hour on land to reach the end where it meets water. Apparently one of the Chilean ladies in the photo with me had been on this same tour twenty years ago and told me that back then you
didn´t have to hike in to meet the glacier, but that it was already touching the water. That was also a time when they allowed tourists to hike on top of the glacier…until they lost too many souls deep within the crevasses. She said that they were allowed to go on a skiff up close to touch the edge of the glacier where it meets the water, but a few years ago a tourist group doing the same risky think a bit north of here was caught right under a sudden
breakoff of ice and the wave created from the impact with water was so enormous that it flipped the boat and killed a bunch of vacationers.
For lunch we stopped in at a lonely restaurant on the side of the sea and ate the largest portions of lamb on a bone I have ever seen, and drank a
Pisco Solo, which is alcohol made from grapes in two fermentaion processes, the first making the lower grade aguardiente. During lunch is also where I met another wonderful young Chilean couple, also in the picture above. They told me, among many other things, that the average professional income in Chile is about $1,000 per month, they pay 10% income taxes and the equivalent of 19% sales tax on EVERY type of service or product bought within Chile. Luckily for tourists this fee is waived.
From here I will let the pictures do the talking, but I would recommend to anyone thinking of traveling down here to make half of your trip among the mountains, seas and glaciers of Patagonia…if not in Chile then in Argentina (it´s much cheaper).
Tags: Chile
This entry was posted
on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 11:51 am and is filed under Chile.
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