The Mirador view!

Vegetation in infrared.

Flores del Paine.

The view from the campground.

Behind us is the campground. Ahead is the Japan Campground in the valley, which was closed on this particular day. To the left is the hill we climb to get to the viewpoint.

Similar view in infrared.

Looking back. There is a small amount of snow on the trail.

Swirling clouds.

End of the trail. Some adventurous tiny people will walk down to the lake.

Torres in infrared.

The fog is getting heavier.

Due to the heavy winds, the trees grow diagonally.

We’re almost back at the campground.

After quickly packing up, we’re heading back down the hill.

Gloomy forest. A little fun with desaturation and forced perspective.

Lago Nordenskjold visible in the distance.

Time to stop and smell the flowers.

Here’s some orange ones.

And purple.

And here is spherical; which is the unbloomed variant of the first yellow flower.

Almost at the lowest point of the trail.

Just one more hill to go.

This bird agrees that it is a long hike.

And we made it!

Next up… a lot of driving.

The Bay Bridge has had lights attached to it. It’s tough to tell from here, but they actually move in patterns. Well worth seeing in person. The lights will stay for the next two years, and can only be seen from the San Francisco side.

That other bridge that San Francisco is famous for. This is the view from Marin County. Not too much traffic on the bridge around midnight.

No bridge to be seen here; this is the view north from the Marin Headlands viewpoint. Angel Island is on the right, and Tiburon and Richmond are in the background.

Typical afternoon scenery. A narrow trail that climbs gradually.

The sort of trees we’d see much of.

The flag of the Magallanes division of Chile. This example flies at the Hosteria where we parked to start our hike.

Sunny to start with.

We will curve to the right of this mountain, after reading the signs of course. Interestingly, “single file” is referred to as “Indian file” down here.

Our first river crossing.

And the river itself.

In this post, the visible-light pictures will be rectilinear, and the infrared will be fisheye. I was carrying both cameras for a good portion of the hike.

This is the lowest part of the hike. The total hike is about 6 miles, each way – of which we will do the first 5 or so today.

So far, so good.

We’re getting up there. About 2/3 of the way up the steepest slope of the day.

Almost to the top.

Here’s the local maximum – quite a ways above the river. The refugio is at the river’s level.

And we’ve reached the refugio. Apart from a needed biological break, we did not go inside – 10 dollar bottles of water didn’t much hold appeal.

The Homer Brewing Company, on the other hand, seems like a place to visit.

A small bird.

For a while, the trail is right alongside the river.

The next waypoint. It’s a large hill up to the campground.

Well above the river again.

Bright green leaves. It is springtime in Chile.

Martian forest.

Another one from that same place.

At some point it started to rain, but I don’t recall it being all that unpleasant.

Heavy winds as well.

This is the only photo I took of the campground in the evening – we were too busy setting up the tent and falling asleep! Tune in next time to see if I took any campground photos in the morning. Oh yeah, and for the hike up to the Mirador de los Torres.

The Salto Grande waterfall. Why is the photo slightly murky-looking? Because of all the mist flying around in the air. We walked down to an old bridge abutment, and climbed it to take photos directly into the wind for several minutes.

Reverse Martian look at the Cuernos in the morning.

A day of bright colors.

And here we have the Torres del Paine! This is about the clearest they got this day – usually they are shrouded in fog.

Our first photo of the morning. We had originally slept at the west end parking lot, hoping to do a brief hike down to Glaciar Grey, but it was pouring rain and generally miserable, so instead we headed east. This is about 10km down the road, and it’s the first sunlight we get.

Let’s drive to the sun!

It snowed all night on the mountains.

Lots of intermittent fog.

Dan finds a rainbow at a similar place.

The Salto Grande observation bridge.

A wider view.

The kind of picture one gets when he forgets to take the camera out of long-exposure manual settings.

We climb this hill to get a view of the mountains beyond.

And back on the road.

The next hill yields an even more impressive view.

Mountains in the mist.

A slightly different view.

One with the fisheye.

Sometimes, but not always, I convert the fisheye back to rectilinear. With this photo, I didn’t.

Layers of clouds coming off the mountains.

Side view of the eastern Cuerno.

Defecating guanaco.

We’ve actually exited the park here, after realizing we would not have enough gas to make it to the next station in Argentina unless we tanked up in Natales. Between the two mountains are the Torres, but they are not visible at this time.

Our first view of the Torres!

The smiling guanaco.

All three Torres visible. Barely.

Lots of swirling clouds.

A common occurrence.

Snow in the pass on the road to Natales.

Evidence of recent rain.

Older sign on the Bories road.

Black-necked swans in Natales Harbor. How many swans in the picture?

Surprise! English.

Traditional Natales dogpile.

The milodon statue at the Nandu store. this is a tourist-oriented shop in downtown Natales. Well recommended; we stopped in there several times – at the very least, to check email using their WiFi network.

We’re back on the Torres road.

In the foreground, two rheas – large flightless birds, also known as the nandu.

This rhea is a young’un, as evidenced by the fuzzy head.

The Torres are threatening to vanish. (I dropped the color saturation by 75% on this one.)

An older stop sign.

Will our hike be sunny, or overcast?

A small bird with a red face.

And this will be our hike. We park at the Hosteria at lower right, and get to Campamento Torres by evening. Camp out there, and next morning, out to the mirador.

here, we drive the main road to the other end, and back. mainly we’re scouting for a place to sleep, to catch optimal sunrise, and also seeing how long the road would take, as we’re planning to do a hike starting at the other end the next day.

A rainbow, in one of the few flat parts of the park.

Highly variable weather this day.

Serious guanaco is serious.

This is the sort of thing we flew to South America for.

Quarter moon over the park.

Just past the park entrance station.

The weather worsens as we take the road to Glaciar Grey. At this point, we’re contemplating a 1.2-mile long hike down to the glacier, but the weather has other ideas. We change our plan a lot.

At one point, we had thought that was one of the Torres (the other famous structure of the park) but then realized it was just Mount Middle Finger, with corresponding weather.

We turn around when the rain gets too intense, thinking we can come back to Glaciar Grey later. On the way out, a rainbow appears.

Purple flowers.

The Cuernos are temporarily hidden by clouds.

Clouds in all directions – but the sun is shining where we are.

Will the Cuernos reappear?

Same view, different camera.

Appropriate sign.

About the closest view we get of the Cuernos.

A bit of a terrain change as we pass the Cuernos.

Are the clouds clearing momentarily?

Side view of the Cuernos.

Another from the same viewpoint.

Martian settings chosen for this IR photo.

Add the guanaco to the list of creatures which are not transparent in infrared.

The sky is clearing in the distance.

I’m not sure how I managed to make this photo look like an old Kodachrome print.

Reverse Martian colors? Check.

We decide the clouds are clearest to the west. So we plan to head back that way after making sure that the starting spot for our hike does indeed exist.

Switching the fisheye to the IR camera for a moment.

And one from Dan, from generally the same place.

Back through the mountains we go.

An infrared photo with the red and blue channels unswapped.

Behold, the sun is out.

A very different scene than on the way in.

Good timing.

A silhouetted tree.

Close-up of one of the peaks.

No more light on the Cuernos. We got about a 10 minute sunset interval, and made the most of it.

The sky remains red a while longer.

A view out the sunroof. It was quite windy so we stayed in the car. This is a fisheye shot, converted approximately to cylindrical in Photoshop – thus the slightly wavy hills.

Sunset in infrared.

Same tree, just a bit later.

One last one for the night.

The Catholic Church in downtown Natales, on a Tuesday morning.

The view from Casa Roberto. The light was a bit wonky (shooting into the sun!) so I took a bunch of infrared photos.

Southern caracara, in front of the famous Cuernos of the Torres del Paine area. We will see much more of these mountains in the next several days!

Lago Grey, with the Cuernos behind it.

After driving well past midnight, we woke up not long after sunrise. Here, there was just a bit of purple left in the sky.

The view in infrared.

A bit of old alignment, showing that several years ago, the road was one primary lane, and a shoulder to pull onto to let traffic go the other way.

Obligatory route marker photo.

Our first mountains since the road to Ushuaia.

A blurry kaiken.

Dorotea is, among other things, a crossing to Argentina. Chile is narrow, and south Chile especially so, given that half of the land is taken up by glaciers. Route 9, along the eastern edge of the country, is the only road through here.

Entering the outskirts of Natales. The orange signs refer to a construction detour, which closed a section of route 9. We would become quite familiar with this detour in the upcoming days, as Natales would be our home base several times.

The milodon is the mascot of Natales. First we thought it was a giant bear, but then we were later corrected: it is an extinct giant sloth.

It’s tough to get a good photo of the milodon statue at the entrance to town. There’s just a lot going on. The road heading off into the distance will take us to downtown.

Mountains on the far side of the bay.

Across the bay is Puerto Bories, which is the harbor, as well as the sight of an old cold-storage plant.

Graffiti: the universal way of expressing one’s feelings.

Semi-stray dogs are a thing in Natales. They’re all over the streets of downtown, and they’re all friendly.

Another view of the church.

A halo appears briefly.

No es oso. Es milodon.

An old pier at the edge of town.

I took all these photos from the gas station which we used to fill up several times. Not much gas in the park itself.

Roberto’s neighbor. We’re hanging out at his house, looking at maps as we figure out how we will approach the rest of our journey.

Meet the neighbors.

Sheep are not transparent in infrared.

Dogs are kinda invisible, though.

Roberto says that Lago General Carrera is the Switzerland of Chile, but I am thinking Natales is more like it.

This horse was born the day before we got there.

Lunch time!

And we’re on the road.

Today’s theme ingredient is huge clouds.

A straight spot on the road.

Soon we see the Cuernos.

There are two ways into the park – the main paved road, and this very good quality dirt road which runs parallel to the west.

The caracara in better light.

It moves over to a tree.

One final avian photo.

Dan’s photo of Lago Grey is in infrared.

And we’ve arrived at the park boundary. As logical a place as any to cut off for now.

An old bridge at sunrise. The deck is entirely missing; a helpful sign points out that the bridge is, indeed, deteriorated.

Fog in Garibaldi Pass, between Tolhuin and Ushuaia.

The kaiken, or upland goose. They are almost always seen in pairs. I took this photo in infrared, because that is the camera I happened to have in my hands at the time.

This is a guanaco. We will see much more over the course of our trip. They are most plentiful on Tierra del Fuego, due to the absence of their only predator: the puma. (aka mountain lion, aka cougar; they’re the same animal all over North and South America)

Between the plains and the mountains of Tierra del Fuego is this forest.

Rio Grande is the first large town in Argentina.

Heading southeast into Rio Grande. During the southern hemisphere summer, the sun rises in the southeast, tracks across the north, and sets in the southwest.

Lapataia is the actual end of the road. It’s a national park, just past Ushuaia.

This footbridge is near the deteriorating one. We were able to drive up next to it, over a parallel culvert, but I am thinking the reason this was built was because if the water level rises, the path we took would become impossible.

Tierra del Fuego seems to be unique among all of Argentina’s provinces for having these lettered routes. Here, we see the blank space on top of the shield being used for an arrow.

This single guide sign has been cut into three pieces, for unknown reasons.

A sunny view.

Standard route 3 shield. The signposts in Argentina are all marked “DNV”, which is the Dirección Nacional de Vialidad.

Getting into some forests.

An assy guanaco photo.

Past the forest is a mountain range – the last of the Andes.

Lago Fagnano, and the mountains behind it.

Here comes the mountain pass.

And one in infrared.

Another. Usually I reverse the red and blue channels (as the actual colors don’t matter – it’s just how the CCD of the camera perceives infrared light) but this time I liked the orange sky, so I kept it that way and bumped up the saturation some.

Cows are not transparent in infrared. This one seems especially displeased to have been made the subject of an experiment.

Getting more overcast as we approach the mountains.

I hope the Argentine highway department doesn’t find Andre and have a word with him. Full text of the graffiti:

This is nearly the end my friend!! The end of the world and the end of a big cycling-adventure. From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego!! Amazing!!

Suerte
Andre
9/10/12 and 24.500km

And here’s Dan’s photo of the same sign, in visible light.

A fancy route marker, about four times the size of a standard one. These appear sporadically, without much rhyme or reason. Here, it replaces the kilometer 3000 marker for route 3.

A look through a green valley.

Fog rolls off the tops of the mountains.

The view to the north.

Around the curves we go. [Dan photo.]

Only in the Garibaldi Pass area did we see these European-style curve markers. Everywhere else was yellow diamonds.

Just about the top of the pass.

There’s an eagle in there somewhere. Trust me. [Dan photo.]

Bienvenido.

This is considered, in Argentina, to be a Very Important Matter.

The Beagle Channel – allowing access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific – makes Ushuaia an important shipping port.

Rabbits are also not transparent in infrared.

More kaikenes.

Almost to Lapataia.

End of the line. 12000 miles to Deadhorse.

Several footpaths allow for a bit more access to the park.

And that’s as far as we can get down this path. A little bit of swimming would actually get us to Chile.

Close-up of the water.

Back up the footpath.

The highest-numbered kilometer post.

A goose in flight. The male kaiken is white.

And one on the ground. The female kaiken is brown.

I believe this is the first 3 shield, heading back north.

And one on the old alignment, which has the flag. Has nothing to do with it being old – I think they added it for the special milepost.

Police checkpoints are generally found at the edges of major towns. This was our first one – leaving Ushuaia.

Time to head back over the pass.

Outline shields show up on occasion.

Fairly standard route 3 scenery.

Gunning for time, we didn’t take many pictures in Tolhuin, Rio Grande, or San Sebastian. There was gas in San Sebastian (open during daylight hours only), so we tanked up. Then we got on route 1, which is the road back to Chile.

And there we are. The use of lowercase Series EM and uppercase Series D is a Chile convention. They must have borrowed it from California, circa 1950-54; except that California increased the size of the capital letters so that the stroke widths were much more similar.

Older Chile signs are on a non-reflective drab green background.

Chile uses a cutout to mark locations of the Carabineros, who are the federal police. One of their duties is border patrol – and that is our task here: to check in to Chile and get our passports stamped.

In 2007, Chile sometimes still used some pretty archaic fonts.

There are two major routes back to the ferry at Primera Angostura; we will now head back on the one we did not take on the way down. One is Y-79, and the other is CH-257, and we’re really not quite sure which is which because the maps, and the signage, are all inconsistent. Google Maps, for example, shows the two switched.

I also don’t think we ever quite figured out where Cerro Sombrero was. It’s not on the main road, but isn’t too far from it. Astonishingly, given the navigational difficulties just described, we didn’t get lost once, despite relying on a 10 year old map. Not too shabby.

This is … one of the routes.

Older guide sign, with the distance to Cameron patched.

Roadbuilding is ongoing. The main road down to Argentina is going to be paved.

Leaping guanaco.

Glowing hills as we approach sunset.

A curve in the road.

English as a second language.

An older shields marks a road to Porvenir. Porvenir is directly opposite of Punta Arenas, and there is a ferry there too. We had been debating to take it or not, but decided against it since it is 3 hours long and runs on a limited schedule.

Back on the pavement.

This end-of-road sign at the ferry terminal has been repurposed from something else, but it’s tough to tell exactly what. Something about Sarna and the XII Region.

A fisheye shot, while we wait for the ferry.

Our ferry, the Pionero.

And we’re on the water.

A ship about to exit the straits.

Eventually, it did get dark. We had about 16 hours of light every day.

A truck goes by, resulting in the lost Judas Priest album cover.

And we close with … some guy’s ranch gate. That’s it – next up, we head to Natales and the Torres del Paine national park!

A brand-new section of road striping – and a cutout route marker. Chile uses cutouts everywhere.

Plenty of ships pass through the Straits of Magellan. Some don’t. This is the Amadeo, wrecked in 1932. Behind it is the Ambassador, which has been sitting there since 1899.

The eastern end of the Straits of Magellan. Here, a ferry crosses to Tierra del Fuego island.

Some iridescent clouds at sunset.

our first traffic signs. we’re actually in a taxi from the airport to downtown, as that is where our rental car is.

Chile uses yellow lane stripes only in snowy climates. Closer to Santiago, the stripes are white.

The prevailing highway sign font is basically the same as the one used in the US. However, there is plenty of Arial as well.

This older route marker has the country name, as well as a slightly different layout.

Primera Angostura is the first narrows of the Straits of Magellan. The ferry to Tierra del Fuego crosses there, and so will we.

Older all-caps green guide signs are plentiful, but we did not see any that were white with black text.

We broke out the IR camera on occasion. Due to dashboard reflections, the in-car photos were of inconsistent quality.

This narrower style of shield is quite plentiful.

The Y roads are secondary, but I do not know why that letter was chosen as a prefix.

Estancia San Gregorio (thank you Roberto for identifying it!). Google Maps shows it as “Campo Harry”, but Google Maps shows a lot of things.

Another look at the town. [Dan photo.]

Approaching the Amadeo and the Ambassador. A trail leads down from the highway, so the two ships are easily photographed.

The Amadeo and the Ambassador. The Amadeo is a few major holes away from seaworthy, and the Ambassador is little more than the keel.

The pilot-house of the Amadeo.

Here is the Ambassador.

The Ambassador is in fine shape. [Dan photo.]

An even closer view. [Dan photo.]

One of them (I forget which), in extreme close-up.

The waves wash over a piece of metal.

The water is filled with vegetation. [Dan photo.]

The last view of the settlement before we head east to the ferry.

A sheep. Behind it, trucks are lined up to get on the ferry.

A bit of a rainbow over Tierra del Fuego.

The water tower at the ferry station.

And we are in the water.

Plenty of European RVs in Chile and Argentina.

One last shot of iridescent clouds.

This motorcyclist is one of two who were riding back to Rio Grande, which is the first major town in Argentina on our way. The other motorcycle died, so the two were riding on one – except the dirt road from the ferry to the San Sebastian border crossing was so bad, that the other rider decided to hitchhike. He rode with us for about 90 kilometers, as we followed his companion. Thank you, Sebastian, for letting us practice our Spanish!

Our first guanaco sighting. There will be plenty more – especially on Tierra del Fuego, where there are no mountain lions.

Sebastian’s friend has zoomed way ahead of us, and we have not even started the dirt road section. We would catch up with him at the Chilean border station, as they had agreed.

That’s a truck on its side. Dan got a photo. Kinda.

The actual Chile-Argentina border. The border stations are located a fair way away from the actual line. First, we exit Chile, getting our passports stamped and surrendering our tourist cards. Then, we enter Argentina where new entry stamps and tourist cards are issued. All of our border crossings were extremely uneventful.

And our first Argentine route marker. This simple style appears the most frequently. In the next post we will see some other styles as well.

next up: to Ushuaia, and back.

The volcano Ixtlazihuatl. Or Iztaccihuatl? Wikipedia gives one spelling; the highway signs another. In any case, it is the third-highest peak in Mexico, at 17160 feet. The peak appeared for a total of maybe 45 seconds and I was quite fortunate to get this shot. It’s the only mountain I saw in the Mexico City area – Popocatepetl, several miles to the south, remained hidden by clouds the whole time.

Monte Fitzroy, Argentina. I took the color out of this photo when I realized that the best way to cut through all the haze was to just start with only the green channel of the original photo. We will see this mountain from somewhat closer as one of our primary destinations on our trip.

Tijuana airport. I actually took off from here, instead of San Diego, because it was $300 cheaper for a similar itinerary – via Aeromexico instead of something like Delta. I got dropped off at the Otay crossing, walked across the border, and hopped a cab for two miles to the airport. Easy.

A Volaris jet is serviced in preparation for departure.

Taking off into the sunset.

One last airplane shot, because it’s our turn to go.

Next morning – my view from the hotel in Mexico City. They said it was close to the airport – they weren’t lying! the hotel was originally unplanned, but Aeromexico had changed their itinerary and had to completely rebook me. I could not have made my connection to Santiago that night, so I slipped about 18 hours. It must be noted that Aeromexico paid for everything – including a hotel and two meals, and I would highly recommend them as a travel option, especially to those living in a border city like San Diego!

Encountering the notorious traffic of Mexico City? (We’ll get to it soon.)

There is a state called Mexico. It’s inside the country called Mexico, and just outside the city called Mexico.

Older license plate. Probably not valid anymore. Probably nobody cares!

Traffic problems are exacerbated by the absence of lane striping.

That might mean something.

Oddly, the expressway to Puebla was signed 150D everywhere else.

A dead-straight road east, filled with vehicles and smog. Driving in Mexico City is a bear.

a State of Mexico shield sneaks in. As do block fonts.

Traffic becomes lighter as we head toward the mountains.

The Mexican standard of signing both a main road, and a loop off of it into a town, with the same number.

Two major volcanoes. At this time, neither is visible.

This older steel sign has seen days of more stable mounting.

We’ve turned around – need to get back to the airport!

State highway 5D is a new ring road around Mexico City.

That’s federal route 57D, for those wondering, not a hasty attempt at making a 5D state shield.

We get on the new ring road, just for variety’s sake. It actually takes me several attempts, and at least one extra toll payment, because everything is signed pretty poorly.

Extra-large bridge inventory marker.

This variable message sign may be powered by either sunlight or wind.

Sometimes it is sufficient to identify a toll road with just a letter “D” and no number.

And we’re back at the Mexico City airport.

I slept through most of the flight to Santiago. Here, it is dawn, and we are about to land.

As can be seen from the airport, Santiago has a bit of a smog problem.

Another plane, ready to take off.

Time to head south.

Volcanoes are all over Chile.

Looking down at some sharp mountains.

Mountains and halo.

High clouds, and even higher mountains.

Osorno Volcano. We’re getting close to landing in Puerto Montt. After that, our next stop is Punta Arenas.

Coming in for a landing.

a DC-3 parked at Puerto Montt.

Looking out the west side of the plane now. This is Lake General Carrera or Lake Buenos Aires, depending on whom you’re talking to. Chile and Argentina cannot agree on much. We will see this lake from the ground in several days.

A look at Viedma Glacier. We will be seeing this from the ground as well, albeit not particularly closely.

Approaching Punta Arenas – we’re just about to land.

And we have landed.

In a precursor of circumstances to come – it is windy.

The main flyovers at the north end join Interstate 4 east from the left-hand side with the Connector southbound and the Connector northbound with the left-hand side of Interstate 4 west.

The toll gantry appears above the future Connector mainline viaduct in this southward scene from Interstate 4 east. All tolls will be collected electronically using the Sunpass or toll by plate tolling.

Stubs exist at the north ends of the Crosstown Connector mainline.

A left-hand ramp will depart from Interstate 4 in this westbound scene for the Crosstown Connector southbound.

Traffic from the Connector northbound will join Interstate 4 west after the CSX Railroad under crossing.