After an evening spent at a really cool bar with a gal from San Francisco and a great group of Australians I was somehow still able to get out of bed this morning at 7:00 and catch a bus out to the national park. The weather was perfect for a stroll along the shores of Lago Roca, and due to the early arrival I got the trail all to myself. This entry is being written at the end of the trail near the Chilean border (which is carefully guarded by a “No Trespassing” sign) while perched on some driftwood and with a view that includes the lake and Andes stretching off for miles. While hiking out here a group of three magellanic woodpeckers was investigating the trees about ten feet from the trail, an event that would have sent the bird watchers from the Antarctica trip into an absolute frenzy — this woodpecker is the park’s “must-see” bird due to its large size and crazy red crest, but when we came here in December we saw only one from quite far away. If only I was a birder…
"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell