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Published: January 21st 2008
Sam was in for a right treat on his 22nd birthday, a 5am rise to get a coach to Chile to see the Torres Del Paine National Park. After wishing him happy birthday and exchanging poor Chile/Chilly/Chilli jokes, we arrived in the country famous for an excellent glass of red and Marcelo Salas. After a long time at the stamp-happy border we arrived in the National Park.
Much like a bag of Revels this seemed to have the lot, snow-covered mountains, pale blue and green lagoons, strange looking wildlife, glaciers, waterfalls and generally hectares upon hectares of unspoiled landscape...Unspoiled that is, until a Czech Backpacker decided to use his gas lantern and set fire to 160 km squared of land back in 2005. The park itself is 2,400 km squared and so the remains of that are still fairly noticeable, and I´m sure he will think twice about heating his delicious Goulash again.
The animals native to the park are called Guanacos, and what a birthday treat they were for Sparrow, they look a little like llamas and we were told they can live in extreme conditions and run pretty quick, I´ll put a photo up of Sam harrassing
one if possible. He also managed to get in there with an Argentinian Fox....
The park gave us a small taster of how iguazu falls will be as there was a small but fairly violent waterfall which was pleasant viewing.
The park was so inviting that if we had known a little more about it we may have attempted the 5 day trek which is what the younger and well equipped people seemed to be doing, however I myself only had a fleece and a hat which can be described as warmth of any kind so wasn´t really an option.
In all the day was ´great success´and though Sam didn´t get to booze on his birthday as we didnt arrive back at the hostel until the early hours I´m sure he will make up for it in due course.
Today we flew back to Buenos Aires and are planning making our way up through Uruguay to Brazil, so for the time being this is a short piece but hope you enjoy the photos!
Az
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Mum
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Great pictures Aaron, keep up the blogging! belated birthday wishes to Sam.. take care, lots of love mum xx