Parque National Torres Del Paine to Rio Verde

Friday – January 7

While leaving our hotel at 8:00, a red fox was lying in the grass near the path leading to the bus. I took some photos of it.

Our bus took us to the same trailhead where we were yesterday. We walked over the swinging bridge, along the lake’s beach and climbed into a large flat-bottom 20-person boat. It took us a short distance where we boarded a large sight-seeing boat which took us to the glacier at the head of Lago Grey. The view of the glacier was wonderful. Because it is receding, we could see where it had carved some of the rock faces in front of it. The wind had calmed down from the previous day but it was still cold next to the glacier. A highlight of the tour was having a pisco sour served with 12,000 year-old glacier ice.

Back on the bus, we drove back to the restaurant near the Argentina border where we had lunch a couple of days before. This time Ann and I had roast beef sandwiches with tomatoes and avocado. She had a cappuccino while I had a local cervesa.

We got to Escancia Rio Verde around 6:00. Our tour leaders kept emphasizing that this is not a hotel. It’s a sheep ranch that has rooms and food. Electricity is produced with a generator and tap water is not potable. They asked us not to take showers because they were having a draught. Rio Verde has become a trickle. Our room was clean and comfortable – on a par or better than many rooms we have had in Europe.

The large rustic common room had a huge fireplace. It also had tables set up for meals. Our dinner was served family style. We had a soup containing a whole potato, corn, carrots, etc. It was our main and only course. It was filling. We did not needmore food.

We got back to our room around 11:00. It was still light outside.