Returning to El Calafate, Argentina 12 Years Later, Part 1 of 2

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We left Torres del Paine National Park, Chile to drive to El Calafate, Argentina, but first I must share a photo of the view we saw when leaving the park!

Waving goodbye to park and rainbow!

It was a beautiful end to our park visit! We had quick border crossings at Chile and then Argentina and arrived along the bank of Argentina Lake at the town of Calafate. So, 12 years ago there was a population of about 5 thousand people. Now, 30 thousand! The town thrives on tourism! It looked so different to me since my last visit!

Our group visited a local estancia/Patagonian ranch to learn about the gaucho lifestyle. Our host talked of his family’s history on this ranch where he grew up, demonstrated the sheep herding routine with his dog and hand-shearing of sheep. While this happened, the BBQ fire was cooking the lamb we would eat a couple of hours later. 

As he talked, he drank mate, from a gourd with a filtered, metal straw. Mate contains antioxidants and is a social ritual in this country.
Lamb BBQ cooking
Lamb with vegetables served at our lunch at the ranch.
We learned and tried to throw the bola. It is a weapon to entangle the legs of the animal you need to get. Quite a challenge throwing the bola with any accuracy and distance.
At the ranch sheep area.

Back at Calafate, a couple of my fellow travelers joined me on a birding hike. The wind was constantly blowing so it was impossible to use Merlin ID for sound recordings. Fortunately I had my camera to photograph many. Of the 22 birds species we saw at Laguna Nimez Reserve, 11 were new birds for my life list. I’ll have a blog posts simply on birds another time.

Entrance to trail. A NGO has helped protect this lake frontage from wild dogs for the last 12 years. As we looked beyond the fencing, 2 dogs were wanting to get at the birds within.
Important protecting this area for birds!

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