Another Fine Day in Patagonia

Good Morning Sunshine,

I know its just 3am Pacific so I don't expect you to read and respond immediately - but I wanted to take advantage of the semi-speedy internet in the early hours of Patagonia to post photos and update you on a few things. First, you didn't fire back a response to my query regarding the etymology of this bird.

Well, we did some digging in another bird book and found it clearly to be the red gartered coot. So please rest easy on that front. 

Also, Mom sent me a few more photos to post - here is that hollow iceberg we saw on Lago Grey. I tried to get the ship's captain to take us through the middle, but he declined, saying something about "loco", though I've seen no trains here. 

This view of the Paine is my favorite so far. Amazing that such a rock wall could be formed, much less stand for all these millennia. Can you imagine showing up the base of this, wondering what is on the other side?

We've really enjoyed our stay here at the Cabanas del Paine. We toured the greenhouse & garden with the chef, Sebastian, and gotten to know the serving staff pretty well. Interesting they all learned their English in Canada and perhaps sadly none wanted to visit the USA. "Too dangerous" was the phrase that Alvaro used (he studied a year in Toronto). Most guests don't stay as long as we have and, in retrospect, we could have knocked a couple days from this part of the trip. My favorite part of the Cabanas, though, is the lawn service. Here are a couple pictures showing them hard at work. I'm amazed how they can multi-task - mowing and fertilizing at the same time.

And now it is back to the birds. On our walk yesterday we saw this lovely american kestrel, which is the smallest of the hawks. I didn't see that I posted any pictures of the flock of chilean flamingos, so here is one of those.

Well, we are going to launch ourselves into another gusty day - this time on bikes to further explore the forest near our cabin. We had thought we would go fishing but the tour folks didn't have their act together and kept adding on costs, so we'll keep that $400 in our pocket for now. Our other major task today is to pack up for the return trip to Punta Arenas in the morning. That will be a chore.

Until later, dear.

Daddio.