Fijords and greenness and a ton of great people... oh my!

After chilling out in the wee hamlet of Rio Tranquilo for an extra day or so (which allowed some time to do laundry in the kitchen sink, buy lettuce and chard that we picked right then from an older woman who had a lovely garden down the street-- most folks have their own hoop houses for veg production since centers of distribution are so far away...)

make several unsuccessful passes by the only place in town that serves cafe de maquina (espresso), and see an amazing sunset over the lake 

I was then bound for Laguna San Rafael via an overland route that has recently become possible with the construction of a road through Exploradores Valley... an amazing route to travel in and of itself... I was wishing I was hiking or on a mtn bike during the two hour or so truck ride. 

Pics are on my other photo device aka camera so just take my word on that.  But the following part of the trip, a boat trip down Exploradores Bay into the Laguna I do have...

This was the view of the San Rafael glacier as we entered the lagoon. Doesn't look like too much maybe from afar but one of the reasons that folks want to come to this place is to see the icebergs that calve from this glacier...

I haven't been too hyped to see all the glaciers in Chile that are on the tourist circuit... not entirely blasé about them but I have seen a few during my time further south... but this glacier is squeezed through a narrow spot right before it's exit into the lagoon, and in the process, as I understand it, most of the air bubbleds are compressed out of the ice-- leaving less air to diffract the light and more pure ice which reflects the blue wavelength... thus the intense blue color of the icebergs.  Little did I know this was just a wee crumble off the cake that would prove to be my trip with the company Destino Patagonia which I highly recommend.

So that was a neat introduction. Next up was encountering a whole host of folks from two other expeditions that were all using the same transport to the lagoon and accommodation at the national park 'service area'.  I was a sort of tag along on existing trips (couldn't pay for a trip just on my own... takes a lot of gas and logistics to get to these out of the way places...), one with a journalist who was being shown a new route the company is wanting to de pop for tourism... continuing on the other side of the lagoon by trek/kayak across and through the Isthmus of Ofski, where back in the 30s I think some business interests wanted to open a 2km stretch to enable a more interior navigation route rather than have to detour to the open ocean coast via the gulf of Penas... but the logistics were too difficult and the plan abandoned... but by foot to the navigable stream to the coast is possible... so there's interesting cultural history in addition to the amazingness of there trip that ends on a miles long white sand beach and the possibility of continuing along to to view and/or kayak to another glacier, I think maybe the largest to come off of the souther ice sheet or something like that... Anyway, cool stuff.  The second expedition group was larger and with kayaks also, and planning to do the whole route, kayak to the other glacier after crossing the isthmus, taking 12 days in total rather than just a day trip for the journalist party.  Fantastic people all around... I have to say that my trip has been punctuated so far by amazing things to see but just as much or more by the people I'm meeting and sharing a slice of life with... even though I feel like I'm half in a underwater world of understanding conversations I'm having ( I speak better than I comprehend and am really bad about asking for clarification so as not to break the flow of an experience so I spend a lot of time trying desperately to follow a conversation or just sort of floating on top of it, catching a familiar word or concept here and there...) I'm just caught up in the energy of a place that's ripe for discovery, with a lot of young energy developing plans to do cool things in an amazing place with great people... and me too, wondering how I could come back to do plant work on the amazing stuff in these forests...

Anyway, back to San Rafael, at the beginning. So we arrived with the boat ditched our gear at the cabin and then I got to accompany the journalist and one other of the kayak group on a special trip to the far side of the glacier via a small zodiac they had along to assist with one of the expeditions.  And hol.e.moley was this an amazing chance/experience!!!

started at a tidal inlet

zodiac across the lagoon

To the right side of the glacier

Where we found almost jungle like vegetation, super lush, mosses, streams, reminded me of the coast of Maui in some ways...

and then there was bare rock that only last year had been under the glacier's ice... it's retreating several meters per year.  It was a bit mind blowing thinking that we were standing on 'new land' that hadn't seen fresh air for thousands of years.  That we could touch scratches in the bedrock that the glacier had caused scraping along rocks and boulders as it had advanced in earlier times

and of course, all the BLUEness of the glacier...

and then the sun came out of the clouds just before it set and all of a sudden the glacier was orange and green and yellow and an iceberg was revealed to be an errant piece of kryptonite glowing green for all the four of us to see...

Don't know that these photos really do the experience much justice... but just trust me on this. Wow.

Hokes in the air rounding forests and the boat ride back the next day had me standing up on the motor box just soaking in all the lushness of the fijords and musing about how I could come back to do some botanical work...

Next stop, Caleta Tortel, the village on stilts and connected by boardwalks, developed at a time when the 'road' was the rio baker, which has the largest volume of any river in chile. There's a dirt road to get there now but if you spend some time there you can still feel a different essence of life happening...

:)