Patagonian flora and fauna

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We have had a lot of time on buses in Argentina and Chile, and I have had some time hiking around with a camera by myself. Here is a sampling. We never did get to Tierra del Fuego, and it is a tease to be so very close to the end of the world but not actually there. Still, the steppes of Patagonia, which I still maintain look like Montana, and the beech woodlans, which I think look like glaciated New England, the sharp steep mountains, the sheet glaciers and those hanging on the mountains, it is all so amazing! And the weather as well. We were incredibly lucky up till now, though one night the wind blew all our cups, forks, spoons, pot and laundry into the dry riverbed, and moved even my half empty pack a few feet. But the weather changed yesterday, it being fall here, and last night it rained and blew so hard the ferry boat from Puerto Montt could not get in the harbor, in the continuing wind this morning it could not dock. So we are a day late in boarding, and we are told there is nothing certain about the weather here except that it will change!

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Photos

river bend
a river on the steppes just below the glaciated Torres del Paine

fall berries
looks like a vaiation on cranberry to me

guanaco
Chile{s answer to the llama

not a robin
longtail meadowlarks in a glacial riverbed