Tierra del Fuego

After Chiloé and the lake district, we flew south to Punta Arenas, in southern Patagonia. First stop, Tierra del Fuego. My husband, who did not come on this trip, was impressed more than anything else by the fact that we crossed the Straits of Magellan to get there. Here is a map, showing where we crossed, at the narrowest point of the straits, 1.2 miles wide:

This 350 mile long passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific was discovered by Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, and, hinting at its fearsome reputation, it was pretty rough; we were ordered off the top deck!

The part of Tierra del Fuego we were in is a treeless and fairly flat area, though it does have guanaco!

The vegetation looked mostly unpromising, except for patches of color:

But once you got close, it was fascinating. Many were cushion plants, thriving below the fury of the relentless winds, mounds of tiny Alpine-like succulentish things, with other plants pushing up through the middle:

Here are a few of my favorites:

Some plants were a little larger:

We didn’t see many birds, but this flamboyant guy and his much subtler mate made up for it:

And nestled by the side of a road, very well camouflaged, a couple of Lesser Horned Owls.

Our end goal was the King Penguin colony, of which more in my next post.