Worrall Travel R's

Worrall Travel R's
Roz and Russ

Worrall Travel R's - Kicking the Bucket List

Friday, February 05, 2016

The Bad Lands - Bosque Petrificado La Leona, Argentina

Thursday, February 4, 2016, "Bad Lands" near the Rio Leona, WTRD 26

Yesterday, was partly cloudy and windy as rain clouds passed over the desert.  Today, we awoke to beautiful clear skies.  Unlike the summer desert in Las Vegas, today was cool and windy, in the high 60's.  It is a perfect day for hiking in the Bad Lands.   And that is where we are headed.

Russ and I were picked up at our BnB around 9:30 and driven about 130 kilometers out of El Calafate, to an interesting geological valley where we hiked for three hours in the Bosque Petrificado La Leona.  Before we turned off the main road, we stopped at the La Leona Hotel where Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and Edith Place hid out for a month before leaving for Bolivia where they were ultimately killed in a shootout with the police.



Our guide explained that this was not a Shakespeare moment of 
To Pee or not to Pee, it was a must pee because the area we are in which we will be hiking has no facilities.  Cute!  So our little group of about 15 people all did our thing, and had some snacks as well before heading into the Bad Lands in our four wheel drive.  

We climbed up a mountain and came to a stop high atop a plateau.  The sight that met us as we peered over the plateau was vastly different than the area we were standing on and had driven through to get here.  In many ways it has the erosive qualities of South Dakota's Bad Lands or Bryce Canyon, but without the immensity and color.



Approximately 75 MILLION years ago, The west coast of South America, Chile and Argentina were flat river valleys, receiving 300 centimeters of rain a year and was lush, wet, and jungly and the home to dinosaurs.  When the Pacific tectonic plate collided with the South American Plate, the the Pacific plate pushed under, the South American plate pushed over on top and curled forward creating the Andes mountain range.  With the collision and pushing, magma oozed up from the depths pushed down by the Pacific plate and covered the region in iron rich basalt approximately 15-20 feet thick.  



This dense metallic like covering provided a protective covering over the rich valley plains before the ice age began. The Andes as they rose, began to capture the rain fall as snow at the higher elevations.  This snow built up to make the beautiful glaciers that can be seen today.  The eastern slope of the Andes is dryer, and the flat areas east became dry windswept deserts, subject to freezing cold temperatures. 

As the snow and glaciers were laid down and eventually started to crush their way downward, those areas not protected by the basalt eroded away more quickly, creating deep canyons and new valleys.  The original river valley that was  protected by the basalt did not erode as quickly and eventually became mountains and flat high plateaus as the unprotected areas washed away around them.

The area was eroded first by glaciers, eventually crushing  through the basalt towards the end of the ice age.  Subsequent erosion, began too expose the underlying treasures of trees and dinosaur bones captured under the protective basalt layer.  Today, what is visible is this fragile mud and sand stone sculpted mountains, valleys, and caves with fossil finds making their way to the surface.  We were reminded of Cappadocia and the Fairy Chimneys in Turkey.  However these mountains are more fragile and mud like rather than sandstone. The caves were never inhabited by indigenous people.  Pumas are usually the only inhabitants when birthing cubs.  This puma had a lama for supper near the caves.




On our hike today, we saw broken, rounded, jagged basalt moraine,
















unusual eroded formations, 




Looking down on Mountains, not Mole Hills
biodiverse plant life that has grown in this inhospitable environment, 

Looks like moss covered rocks, but it is all plant that is hard like brain coral
petrified dinosaur bones and trees. 
Cow femur on left, petrified dinosaur femur on right


Petrified Wood
 We learned today as we examined fossils, rocks,




and petrified wood that you can quickly differentiate between dinosaur bones and rocks, because the dinosaur bones are hydrophilic (attracted to water).  If it is a dinosaur bone, it will stick to the inside of your inner lip.  I think I found one!

Another first...kissing a dinosaur fossil.

Too bad, all finds had to be left behind, no souvenirs.  It's been a very interesting day..  We loved it.

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's in the Boscque Petrificado La Leona

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Birds, Lamas, Cattle, Horses, El Calafate, Argentina



Tuesday, February 2, 2016, Laguna Nimez, WRTD 25

Our first full day in El Calafate was laid back.  We slept late, ate breakfast in the South BNB resto downstairs from our room, tied up our hiking boots and set out for the downtown area to explore and then towards Lake Argentino and the Laguna Nimez a bird preserve where numerous species of birds nest and summer here, including flocks of pink flamingos.






Ibis


We have been to numerous bird preserves, and this was by far the most beautiful and active. El Calafate is the recipient of federal funds from oil drilling and love by one of Argentinas presidents to build a beautiful infrastructure for tourists, broad streets, underground utilities, parks, malacon (waterfront walk way), and investment in environmental protection and an encouragement for international investors. Tourism here has increased from 35,000 to over 400,000 people per year.  Glacier viewing and exploration is of course the primary reason people come here.


Night Falls on El Calafate

Wednesday, February 3, 2016, Gauchos We are Not, WRTD 26


We decided to exercise the rental car today and headed  toward the Pietro Moreno Glacier, not to go all the way today, but to visit a cattle/sheep ranch and to go horseback riding on the Pampas.  Gauchos we are not, but we had  a spectacular morning riding along the Moreno Glacier melt lake.

Along the way to the Rio Mitre Ranch, we found a geocache at Elephant Rocks, a large formation that looked like a stand of facing elephants. 


The turn off from the main road was washboard gravel for a couple of miles until we reached the ranch. 



We were greeted by the owner Estephan and the many pet animals. Estephan's family have lived here for 150 years and hold 2000 hectares of land.  Lamas, a blind calf, and lots of long horned shaggy goats introduced themselves to us by rubbing noses, nibbling on our clothing, and untying and chewing on our boot laces.



Today, Estephan's brother operates the cattle ranch.  Estephan operates the restaurant and horseback riding. Martin and Tally were our guides. They are students working at the ranch for the summer.  







We were introduced to our horses, both old and slow by our request.  


Tally helps me mount
The saddles were not western with saddle horns and were covered with thick lambs wool.  It seemed to me they had very short stirups that were chest height for me. Even when lowered, the stirups were above my belly button and while my foot may have reached that high, without the saddle horn to hang on and pull my self up and over, I needed some assistance!  Fortunately, a large flat boulder was a great platform.

Once we were mounted, we were on our way for an hour ride.  The cattle  stood up, and moved out the way often running ahead of us as we followed in their dust and their mooing.



It was challenging to take photos while riding, but we did our best to capture the ride. The air was cool and fresh. We enjoyed the birds, 








ranch horses, 












and meandering around the edges of the glacier melt. 

Wonderful.

When we returned from our ride, the Patagonia lamb was on the grill,

and we feasted our stomachs and our eyes on the lunch and view.  


After lunch, we tried the Argentine drink of matea, like tea, but quite bitter.  It looks like pond scum floating in the water (tastes like it too), and one must drink it through a filtered straw. We are not fans of this drink.

While we visited with Estephan, he shared with us his family history, and the artifacts his family had collected from their land over the years, including a fossilized dinosaur egg, 



and a dinosaur bone fashioned as a bola by early indigenous people.  We couldn't have had a better morning!

On our return to El Calafate, we spent a couple of interesting hours at the Glaciarium, a museum dedicated to glaciology, and once again walked along the lake ponds fronting the lake enjoying the bird life.  



Tomorrow, we are taking a desert tour to the "Bad Lands" by the Rio Leona.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel Rs in El Calafate, Argentina

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Goodbye Ushuaia, Hello El Calafate WTRD 24

Monday, February 1, 2016, Worrall Travel R Day (WTRD) 24 

Checkout time at our AirBnB is 10:00 a.m.  We are also to meet the Rental Car Agent at the airport at 10:00 a.m. and return the car.  Russ and I pack up the car, leave the key on the table and the door unlocked of the apartment we have been renting, and are on the way to the airport which is 15 minutes away by 9:40.  It has been drizzling overnight.  The roads are wet.

The airport is small, like Sacramento was in the 1980's.  We are to meet Herman at Departures.  We pull up right in front the airport and park.  There are no guards or police making you move along.  Russ runs into the the airport building, finds Herman at the cafeteria; he comes outside, looks over the car; we unload, say goodbye, and walk into the terminal.  So easy and convenient!  Security is easy too.  No separation of liquids and gels.  Shoes on, belts on, laptop out only.

The good news, no rush.  The bad news, our plane is delayed until 3:00 pm.  No worries.  We read, play cards, watch people, have lunch, and finally board the plane.  

I don't know what I expected about El Calafate (named after a desert bush with yellow flowers and blue berries), other than it is a town on the lake at the base of a glacial lake in Patagonia.  I may have been expecting something more like Lake Louise.  As we clear through the light layer of clouds, we fly low over a vast high desert.  It looks like Nevada.  There is a lake flanked by desert on one side, foothills, and Andes on the other.  The ground is brown.  The temperature is warm and we are very warm in our End of the World clothing.

We arrive around 4:30 and collect our bags.  Again, a sigh of relief to be reunited with our stuff.  The Avis agent meets us at the gate with a sign; we find a place to sit down and complete the paperwork, he takes us out to the car, a very basic chevy (manual locks and roll up windows) that has been around for awhile with multiple windshield dings and cracks.  We crank up the engine and we're gone.

Our AirBnB sits on hill above the touristy little town, a 10 minute walk, overlooking the lake. We check in with the very friendly owners, brother and sister team Javiar and Andrea, unpack, and head out for dinner.  

Upon recommendation of Andrea, we eat at La Cocina.  Wow!  We shared a warm broccoli salad with a whipped garlic cheese (marscapone and cream).  I had baked eggplant ravioli with cheese, and Russ had lamb filled ravioli in an almond cream.  Incredibly delicious and fattening!  Good thing we will be hiking here.

We will be staying in El Calafate for 5 nights before meeting up with our Australian World Adventure group to do some light trekking through Patagoina for 10 days.

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Cheers!

All is Well With the Worrall Travel Rs in Patagonia