trekking in patagonia

so as soon as i get to patagonia, i get to go on a solo backpacking trip. i've gotta do some sort of a trip through the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine so that i can talk to all of the travellers about the treks through the park. i've been so busy with everything else that i haven't had much time to read about the treks. but the other night when i was supposed to be sleeping because i thought i was getting sick, i read about the treks for hours (i was writing all of the distances on the map and it took a while to convert the kilometers to miles....) and it was so exciting, i woke up healthy the next morning! so check this out - there are flamingos in the park!! real flamingos! they're called flamenco chileno (chilean flamingos) and they're bright pink because they feed on the aquatic insects and small molluscs found in the saltwater lakes in the park. rad.

the park is 100 km north of Puerto Natales, which is the town i'll be living in. the area was established as a Parque Nacional in 1959 and declared an international biosphere reserve by Unesco in 1978 (same year i was born.....coincidence???). the park is famous for its glaciers, craggy mountains, glacial lakes, wind, and superb trekking. the glaciers in the park are appendages of one of the largest continental ice fields in the world - the Hielo Sur (aka the Southern Patagonian Ice Field; 14,000 sq km and stretches 320 km from north to south). one of the highlights is the Glaciar Grey, which terminates into the north end of Lago Grey. A wall of ice 200m thick continuously drops blocks of ice, some as big as houses, into the lake. The icebergs are blown by the wind to the shoreline where they melt. You can hike on the glacier and as long as the icebergs and wind aren't too dangerous, there's a boat that makes a trip down the lake. i think i'm going to have to check this place out.

more about the park to come.....