The plane ride to Balmaceda is about 2 hours. We know that other tour members are on the plane so we look around to see if we can guess who they are. There is one man with a huge tripod that won’t stop talking to the people around him. That is a bad omen…
After Rex, our tour leader, gathers the eight of us up we take two cars and go to his house in Coyhaique for a lovely lunch.
His house is beautiful with nice views.
His wife, Maike, is such a nice lady; she tells us about her German ancestors that made their home in Patagonia. She grew up in a German enclave and speaks German fluently. Rex later told us that Lyle Lovett, the singer, visited their fishing lodge and he could better communicate with Maike in German (her English was not so good at that time but is near perfect now).
Lunch is a traditional dish of chicken, small pieces of corn, pumpkin, potato, and other vegetables and broth called Cazuela–much more substantial than American chicken soup. There were home-made biscuits that were incredible. Happily we find those biscuits many places later in our journey. A traditional topping for the bread is a tomato salsa of sorts called Pebre. We have a great lemon pastry with meringue for dessert. The luncheon conviviality introduces us to the eight people with whom we will spend the next 16 days.
After a wonderful lunch we head out to El Zoro Lodge.
It is a working sheep ranch. There are incredible rainbows several places along the way. We throw our suitcases into our comfortable rooms, grab the cameras and head down to the barn where they are shearing the sheep.
The dogs seem to be upset that they have a rest-break from their “job.” One keeps running around and around the corral waiting for the shorn sheep to be released to pasture.
We got some great shots of the shearing.
There are alpacas in the pasture. They must also shear the alpacas; only one looks really wooly. I can’t imagine that they are able sit them down on their backends to shear them like the sheep. There is a large pond on the property and there are flamingos! Everyone gets shots of all the water fowl taking off from the water.
We take a drive to get a taste for Andean Condor viewing but tomorrow will be the big condor viewing day. We see a buzzard eagle and several Caracaras, interesting falcons that are all over Patagonia.
At Chile’s usual dinner time of 9pm we gather in a dining hall with a huge stone fireplace with a glowing fire.
They are roasting a lamb in the method called “asado al palo.” The lamb is tied to stakes in a form and leaned on the side of the fireplace.
It’s basted with a chimichurri sauce. We have an incredible feast!
Then off to bed to rest up for our early morning departure to see the condors. But not too early because the generator is turned off at night and does not come back on until 7am