Estero Slight, Chile
We travel five miles up the fjord into the forest, cruising beneath a young rising sun, its light diffused and face obscured. There are grey clouds, but not like those at home; these are ragged and shredded, as if they had been cut to pieces by sudden, sharp mountain peaks, helpless gossamer sheets flying before a fresh breeze. This is not an angry sky, just different and a little more wild. Mountain clouds, layer over layer with the occasional crack of bright blue, are quickly gone but leave a kaleidoscopic scene of greys: lighter, darker, always in motion, dancing - right there, right above us, just beyond the black-browed albatrosses.
In the Zodiacs we are surprised by the gentle touch of the sea, a fine mist from the tops of small waves, cool against our hands and cheeks, curious alien fingers asking us who we are, where we come from. It's shallow here; we can see the bottom, mostly sand. The short wind chop pushes us towards shore, where there's a single house and a backdrop of dark forest and steep mountain. The house is a way station for lighthouse keepers, and it is, indeed, a long distance in between. At the house there is the beginning of an ‘unimproved’ road, our passage through the wild, our way to a distant shore. There are not many trails in this part of the world and it is hard to bushwhack through the thick, tangled, temperate rain forest. So, we intend to make full use of this opportunity with short, long and medium hikes, whatever you like, wherever you can.
There are southern beech of several kinds: winter’s bark famous for its vitamin C, and other, stranger trees tower above us with grey trunks and green leaves; every green is visible, but these are mostly dark. At our feet are a huge variety of ferns, wispy mosses and lichens of every shape and color, on the ground, over rocks and climbing naked trunks and branches, life oozes over everything, verdant and virile. There are pink, tubular blossoms as well, exclamations and other punctuations, fallen from above. They call this climbing plant medallita in Spanish, and it's an African violet relative. I pick up a few of the blooms each about two inches long with five fused petals, just the small round tips free, forming a protective tube around its sugary treasure, its bribe to the many hummingbirds we spot along the way, who are more heard than seen, invisible in the shadows. But this is no bank vault, it is still a flower, pretty and delicate, and most of the blooms were torn along the bottom by muscular and unimpressed bees that have looted them.
No one could be everywhere and there was too much for any one person to see: flocks of king shags, clumsy in the air, beautiful in the water; southern sea lions slumbering in the woods, behind a beach; giant Magellanic woodpeckers listening for their breakfast and sudden stands of fuchsia exploding with blossoms too red to ignore. Some of us even discovered the remains of the small railroad, metal tracks that helped give birth to the lighthouse. Others just walked, seeking nothing in particular. I could do that and be happy, but there was so much, so much new, so much old, and still the rain held back despite all the threats and posturing; held back until we reached the National Geographic Endeavour, until just after I saw the penguins, low in the water, curious and unexpected. Now I look ahead, far beyond the light rain, search and wonder, eager for tomorrow, edgy, yet pleased as I fly over the many snowy peaks on the wings of today and just smile.
We travel five miles up the fjord into the forest, cruising beneath a young rising sun, its light diffused and face obscured. There are grey clouds, but not like those at home; these are ragged and shredded, as if they had been cut to pieces by sudden, sharp mountain peaks, helpless gossamer sheets flying before a fresh breeze. This is not an angry sky, just different and a little more wild. Mountain clouds, layer over layer with the occasional crack of bright blue, are quickly gone but leave a kaleidoscopic scene of greys: lighter, darker, always in motion, dancing - right there, right above us, just beyond the black-browed albatrosses.
In the Zodiacs we are surprised by the gentle touch of the sea, a fine mist from the tops of small waves, cool against our hands and cheeks, curious alien fingers asking us who we are, where we come from. It's shallow here; we can see the bottom, mostly sand. The short wind chop pushes us towards shore, where there's a single house and a backdrop of dark forest and steep mountain. The house is a way station for lighthouse keepers, and it is, indeed, a long distance in between. At the house there is the beginning of an ‘unimproved’ road, our passage through the wild, our way to a distant shore. There are not many trails in this part of the world and it is hard to bushwhack through the thick, tangled, temperate rain forest. So, we intend to make full use of this opportunity with short, long and medium hikes, whatever you like, wherever you can.
There are southern beech of several kinds: winter’s bark famous for its vitamin C, and other, stranger trees tower above us with grey trunks and green leaves; every green is visible, but these are mostly dark. At our feet are a huge variety of ferns, wispy mosses and lichens of every shape and color, on the ground, over rocks and climbing naked trunks and branches, life oozes over everything, verdant and virile. There are pink, tubular blossoms as well, exclamations and other punctuations, fallen from above. They call this climbing plant medallita in Spanish, and it's an African violet relative. I pick up a few of the blooms each about two inches long with five fused petals, just the small round tips free, forming a protective tube around its sugary treasure, its bribe to the many hummingbirds we spot along the way, who are more heard than seen, invisible in the shadows. But this is no bank vault, it is still a flower, pretty and delicate, and most of the blooms were torn along the bottom by muscular and unimpressed bees that have looted them.
No one could be everywhere and there was too much for any one person to see: flocks of king shags, clumsy in the air, beautiful in the water; southern sea lions slumbering in the woods, behind a beach; giant Magellanic woodpeckers listening for their breakfast and sudden stands of fuchsia exploding with blossoms too red to ignore. Some of us even discovered the remains of the small railroad, metal tracks that helped give birth to the lighthouse. Others just walked, seeking nothing in particular. I could do that and be happy, but there was so much, so much new, so much old, and still the rain held back despite all the threats and posturing; held back until we reached the National Geographic Endeavour, until just after I saw the penguins, low in the water, curious and unexpected. Now I look ahead, far beyond the light rain, search and wonder, eager for tomorrow, edgy, yet pleased as I fly over the many snowy peaks on the wings of today and just smile.
