2014/01 Chile trip - Seron Woods |
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Sunday January 26th
The morning was sunny, showery, and of course windy. Our view of the towers had disappeared into the clouds. Our jobs at breakfast were to make and pack our lunches and to choose what to eat for dinner.
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Seron Woods |
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Most of the guests were off early on an all-day hike to the base of the Cuernos, the “horns” that we would see on Tuesday. We’d opted for the easier hiking 
trip to Seron Woods. We were the only ones on the hike, but there are always two guides, in our case Pablo and Valentina.
The Ecocamp is on private land inside the park, and it was a short walk along the trail to the park gate. Unfortunately the trail is part of the Torres grand circuit and is shared with horse traffic so parts were badly eroded and muddy after all the rain. The guides described the trail as “Patagonia flat” which just means it has equal amounts of up and down.
There was plenty to look at. The woods are mainly gnarled varieties of Antarctic beech, locally known as lenge and nirre. There were lots of flowers, some shown in these pictures. Both guides were good at explaining the local nature and telling us the names of the plants, but of course we’ve forgotten most of it. I remember, though, the cushion plant covered in ugly spines, known locally as “mother-in-law’s pillow. This firebush with blazing red flowers is called notro; earlier in summer the plant may 
be 
covered in flowers. These berries are called calafate, quite tasty when they ripen to a dark blue. The legend is that those who eat the berries will return to Patagonia. The Ecocamp obviously believes this and adds them to most desserts.
This composite picture includes a yellow violet and a blue edelweiss. The yellow maiden’s slipper looks like an orchid but isn’t, according to the experts.
We walked for a couple of hours to where we had a view of distant Laguna Azul, the “blue lagoon”. Our views of the lake and 
surrounding hills were quite clear but the mountains behind us were still hidden by clouds.
We found a spot out of the wind and had lunch under the trees in Seron Woods.
The rain was now steady and we were tired from all the mud. We both had windburn and Sandie’s sunburn had got worse; much later she’d realize that she was having an allergic reaction to the soothing lotion she was using. We turned around and headed back down the trail, pleased to get this view of the Ecocamp. We were finished with the hike by mid-afternoon. That gave me time to decode the Spanish instructions and get the propane heater under control.
That evening we heard that the bunch going to the Cuernos had also had to turn around because of rain and poor visibility, always a risk on mountain hikes. We also heard that Nigel and Bindi had lost $2000 in US currency, somewhere, they thought, on the bus trip. Carrying cash (as we were too) makes transactions easier in remote areas, but there’s always the risk of theft.
Some Canadian doctors, from Bragg Creek, had skipped the hike to go fly fishing. The wind had been too much so they’d fished for salmon instead and landed an enormous Chinook. As he said, it was a big fish but he could have caught one of those a lot closer to home!
Despite their loss, Nigel and Bindi celebrated her birthday with champagne and it turned into a party.