While driving along the Straits of Magellan today … boy, I sure dropped that in real casual, didn’t I? I gotta write it again: WE DROVE ALONG THE FRIGGIN’ STRAITS OF MAGELLAN TODAY! We could see Terra del Fuego! Places I studied in grade school, but never dreamed I’d see! I stuck my hands in the freezing-ass cold waters of the Straits!!
OK, anyway, while driving along the straits we stopped at a huge, virtually abandoned sheep estancia (San Gregorio) that was right on the straits, and that at one time must have been the biggest, richest operation in the Magellan area. One empty creepy building after another; glass broken, paint peeling, Spanish graffiti on the walls, ancient litter on the floor. Except … it wasn’t quite dead. Nobody else around, but there were fairly recent sheep skins hanging on the fences, a few sheep in the pastures, and some of the sheep skulls lying around weren’t quite clean, if you get my drift.
Estancia San Gregorio (More pictures here)
We went to the ferry crossing for Terra del Fuego, with the far shore only 2 miles away. We thought about taking the ferry over, but it would have been for bragging rights only: “We drove to the end of the world”; and so we turned and headed north, towards Argentina. With that turn, we are psychologically homeward bound, headed back towards Buenos Aires and the United States. We are now camped at Chile’s Pali-Aike National Park, which is located near the border with Argentina and is all about the small volcano peaks in the area. The campground is in a circular area surrounded by high walls of volcano debris, to protect the campers from the strong winds here on the high Patagonian steppe. We think it will be a very cold night. Tomorrow we will hike on short trails to see the insides of the inactive cones. It was not easy to get here – middle of nowhere feeling again -- and we are the only visitors to the park today. We are in the bottom circle on the map on the blog site.
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