Today, I went to parque de Alerces just southwest in the province of Esquel in the Chubut Province. This park is known for preserving some of the oldest trees in the world. Alerces (lahuen to the Mapuche Indians) are similar and are related to the Redwoods and the Sequoias of California. Alerces is the second largest lived tree in the world after teh California Bristlecone Pine. Carbon-14 readings of an lerce stump of over 4 meters in diameter gave an age of 3621 years at the time the tree was felled. The oldest tree in the park is over 2,400 years old. There are also stands of bamboos (which I did not think were in Argentina), Madrone trees and Chilean Cypress (Cipres de la Cordillera). Most of the trees are deciduous with small, round leaves. Trees line the edges of the many lakes climbing way up high to tree-line before they hit glaciated rock. Dark granitic horns peak out of the mountain tops like tufts of feather on Great Horned Owls. Thick deep gray and blue glaciers are nestled high on the mountain peaks hundreds of feet deep in places. Waterfalls cascade and stream down forming rivulets carving out drainages through the folding rippling muscles of the mountains leading down towards tuquoise and emerald blue gems; jade-colored lakes chained together by pristine rivers with giant trout fishing the edges and resting in its deep blue, cold waters.
It reminds me so much of Montana and specifically Glacier National Park except the fact that the predominant trees are decidous and not conifers like the Rocky Mountain West. River Otters ( Huillin) hunt the waters along with King Fishers. Pumas prowl the dark forest stalking huemuls, pudus (smallest deer in the world, 10 cm at the shoulder), and birds. Giant yellowish, sandy-brown and gray Ibis (Buff-necket Ibis Bandurria) peck at worms and bugs with their long beaks foraging through grasses before they fly off to safety in the treetopos mocking us humans with their laughter as if we are unimportant, which we are, but it is hard to take it from a damn bird.
Monkey-like rodent marsupials Llaca often called monito for little monkey, having little hands and feet resembling monkeys, doze in dark holes under and inside of trees hiding and hunkering down from the tormenting mid-day sun. Out of the cover of shade the temperatures rise in the mid-eighties. Wild rose bushes prosper in bunches in the open spaces.
Cirrus clouds of horse-hair whisps the sky in brush strokes painting and fore-telling the change in atmospheric conditions as storm clouds build over the Andes threatening with rain, which could be a nice relief. Droughts are already threateing one week after the genesis of summer as cherries and strawberries bloom early in little red clusters of sweet nectar. Horseflies and other gnats pester any exposed skin leaving behind welts.
Birds songs circulate throughout the trees calling forth the verdant green and growth of summer like Pan´s flute (the god of fertility and growth).
Debris and driftwood line the shorelines of lakes and rivers admist the cobblestones revealing the high water marks of the early spring run-off.
Today I sit reminiscing along the glacier waters about Christmas dinner and the festivities. Lamb barbecued and roasted on a metal cross over hot burning embers. Lambchops dripping mutton juice on top of coals, sizzling. Sourcream mashed potatoes, salad, hors-doerves with plenty of wine and champagne to toast yet another year of living, followed by vanilla ice cream with freshly sliced Kiwis and Peaches with sprinkled chocolate flakes dazzled on top.
The feast fed thirteen of us and delivered leftovers the day after making lambwiches for several meals. Cheers and Happy New Years; a toast to life and its plentiful banquet. There is enough for all if noone gets greedy.
Volacano Puyehue is the volcano erupting white glassy ash into the air not Volcano Lanin. It has killed off over half a million sheep in Patagonia and covered the sky in ash today blotting out a huge moutain with its glacier by mid afternoon. The volcano is northwest of here, hundreds of miles away and miles from Bariloche.
The cows in Argentina seem to be fat and happy cows who free range through lustrous grasses combing the Pampas Steppes (foothills of the Andes) for good grass. I understand their desire. They roam following their many stomachs over hillock and valley in pristine country with majestic mountains, streams and lakes to wallow in when the sun gets unbearable. Cows have it pretty good here.
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