South America and Antarctica

Today we were up early for breakfast before heading out at about 8:30am for a walk to Laguna Azul (Blue Lagoon). Our guide, Patrick, was very knowledgeable about Patagonia and was also a keen photographer so we paused often a lot to take photos, which was great. On the way back we stopped for a nice picnic morning tea before heading back to the hotel.

We had a lovely lunch at the hotel and rested a little before heading out again on another walk with Patrick, this time to Lago Nordenskjold to get a more close-up view of the Three Towers.

We were fortunate to have spectacular weather for our walk, which not all visitors to Patagonia get to experience! The weather is wild here and very changeable. While admiring the view out to the towers we heard a huge rumble, which preceded a spectacular avalanche.

After a lovely walk, we head back to the hotel, stopping to look at wildlife along the way.

Throughout the day we had spotted guanocos (a relative of the llama), condors, nandus (Darwin’s rhea, a relative of the ostrich and emu), and more.

We have not, however, yet seen any of the pumas or grey foxes that inhabit the national park area but we are hoping to find these over the next couple of days.

After a delicious dinner in the hotel we headed for bed, pretty tired after a big day out in the fresh air.

Tomorrow we are planning to go horse-riding in the morning and then we’ll think about what to do in the afternoon.