Nothing beats happening upon wildness in the form of a less familiar plant or animal and Patagonia offers plenty of opportunities, whether in the Tiera del Fuego or further north, especially into the mountains where we spent time in the Torres del Paine National Park. These are upland geese, female on the left, which we encountered often across the region.The glacial geology, especially in the Tiera del Fuego, means the soil build-up is quite thin, illustrated here by a shallow island of vegetation that is very much like a bonsai planting, laying there like a pancake on top of solid rock.
These flightless birds that look like scaled down ostriches are Lesser Rhea or Darwin’s Rhea, endemic only to the arid steppes and grasslands of South America. They evade predators with sheer speed, clocked at 37 mph, sharp maneuvering, nasty talons, an ability to flatten themselves into the landscape to avoid detection and their habit of grazing with other animals like the guanaco to take advantage of the spidey sense that herds achieve. The guanaco is one of the signature animals of Patagonia, seen here against the background of the three “torres” or “towers” from which Torres del Paine National Park takes its name. It is a type of llama which could be seen in the eastern part of the park, but not in the western part because cattle grazing persists there, depriving wildlife of the extent of grasses needed to survive in that environment.
It’s the puma that keeps the guanaco from becoming too plentiful, now that there are no longer natives successfully relying on them for their primary food source. The caracara and the buzzard eagle are the main scavengers.
Meanwhile, back in Tiera del Fuego, there was an abundance of this fungus known by the European settlers as Indian Bread because the groups of native peoples who spent their lives in canoes kept masses of the fungus with them not only as food, but because it is a great source of water. We popped some and found they’re not bad. The canoe dwellers also kept a fire going in their canoes and, like their forest dwelling neighbors, almost always went naked, smearing themselves with fat for some bit of protection from the elements (the climate being more temperate than we supposed). As with the experience of native people almost everywhere, efforts to exterminate them were largely successful.
The vegetation was lush even in what seemed like the most inhospitable locations, what with the thin soil and ferocious winds, even on a gravel plain aside a glacial stream. Venturing into the forest was to be struck by the overwhelming richness of it all. There were numerous species of orchid and, most familiar to us, plentiful lichen thriving only in this abundance of clean fresh air. The one non-native plant shown here is the red sorrel, introduced for who knows what reason, as there’s nothing chooses to eat it, so if it must have a purpose, it’s to add its own touch of beauty.
