Nov 19 2018 - Torres Paine National Park

We spent the day in Torres Paine National Park.
Woke up this morning to a freezing room. Later we learned there are new heaters that are not fully hooked up or testedl. We tested - they are not working correctly.
When we arrived, my window faced east overlooking a gorgeous view of the Paine mountains.  The room was comfortable with the sun shining in. By the time I went to bed, the sun was down and the room was a little cold. By morning, I hated to get out of bed - the room was freezing. I had been very comfortable under my wool blankets, but getting up was horrible. But not as bad as tonight. The weather got cold and rainy in the afternoon, which meant no sun to warm the room before I went to bed. It was worse than this morning. Even the wonderful wool blankets was not enough.

We headed to Torres Paine National Park. There are mountains everywhere. I can't get enough of them.

The first thing we see are less than 10 guanaco (type of llama) along the side of the road. We were not happy when the tour guide did not stop. But he told we there's a better place up the way. When we question him about how many he claimed we would see more (I have to admit, most of him didn't believe him). But he was right, we saw a lot of guanaco over the next couple hours. By lunchtime, the guide would say," there's guanaco, do you want to stop?".... silence.

We also saw the normal cow, sheep, and horses (since we're staying at a working farm) as well as the patagonian grey fox, several upland geese (female is all black, male have some white), and an andean condor (their national bird).

It was sprinkling as we stopped for lunch. Wasn't too long before we decided the rain and cold was not a good combination and came back to the van. On the way to our next stop, we came across more guanaco, but they were all sitting down. According to our guide, when the  weather is bad, they sit down, facing away from the rain, to wait it out closer to the ground. I can understand trying to minimize the cold wind if I were outside and couldn't go in - but sitting on the ground? On the other hand, sitting on the ground and getting your pants wet, is much better than being knocked over by this crazy wind.

Over the course of the day we did several hikes, including a short hike to Paine waterfalls and a lonnnng  walk to see the Grey Glacier, Grey Lake, and the pieces of glaciers floating on Grey Lake. The worst part of the hike was the long, long walk across the stone beach through the middle of the lake. It was like walking on loose sand for 20-30 minutes, each way. The glaciers pieces were beautiful. Very blue. But honestly, if you want to see a lake of glacier fragments, Iceland's can't be beat. 

More tomorrow...