Taking off for a hike

One of the last adventures we had in South America was a 9 day trek around the circuit at Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile. We crossed the boarder by bus (never doing that again...and you thought airport immigration took forever...) and headed straight for the park.

Hiking details were this: seven days of trekking, 140km, one mountain pass at 1200m altitude (through snow), mud and steep hills are common. The views were spectacular.

Day one was an intense slog of 30km to our first campsite. 30km in one day is a good effort. There were seven of us on our tour. At our lunch spot we were met with an interesting bird that looked like a cross between a turkey and a falcon. It is actually a Crested Caracara (I looked it up). This guy was really friendly, and I took some great photos of him except for one thing - he had a great lump of cheese in his beak. Who wants a photo of a native bird of Chile, stuffing his face with cheese? At least I got this shot below, that made me feel a little better. Quite a lot better actually.

Canon EOS 50D, f/8, 1/800, ISO 200, 140mm

I love this photo. I nearly cried when I saw it. I didn't see it until after the hike because I was preserving battery and not looking back over my photos except for a quick glance after shooting. Even though he is a really ugly bird, I love this photo, I love his wings, and his feet coming into land. I have one disappointment though - his left wing. I just missed the tip of his feathers! So frustrating! But otherwise I love it when I fluke it like this! (remember, birds and animals don't like posing for me!)

To give you a sense of the country side we were hiking in, see the picture below also taken on the first day. We walked up that valley, through some incredible wind. This wind made you feel like you were skydiving. Cold, windy, stunning hard slog pretty much sums up the trek!

Canon EOS 50D f/11, 1/800, ISO 200, 32mm