Crossing back into Chile — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

As we left Parque Patagonia and the colored hills, we were driving over the arid steppes again, and I was enjoying the neat cloud formations -

We rounded a bend and were blown away by the colors -

The lake really was that blue!

As we continued driving on the gravel highway that provided the best route between Argentina’s main north/south national road (Ruta 40) and Chile’s great southern road (the Carretera Austral, aka Ruta 7), we came upon this large area of water across the road, with no idea how deep it was…

… and I convinced Steve to drive around it, rather than through it -

We stopped for lunch near this lake, and I enjoyed seeing all the different water birds - Chilean Flamingoes, Black-necked Swans, and a couple of Coscoroba swans

We saw these Black-faced Ibises come in for a landing…

… near these Ashy-headed Geese -

Sorry, the birder came out for a minute - I’ll shove her back away. :)

The colors in this bluff were amazing, and we liked the different colored boulders that had fallen off -

(you may need to enlarge this to appreciate the pastel colors)

Another welcoming committee -

As we neared the Chilean border, the mountains really started rising…

… and there was more green and water around -

As we passed through Paso Roballos, through a very sleepy border crossing (Steve will have more on this in a later post), we started into Chile through the Chacabuco Valley…

… which was jaw-dropping in its immensity and beauty -

It was here that I was finally able to capture one of the large rabbits we’d see dashing across the road. These things are huge! They are the size of a Spaniel, I swear.

These may be the last Guanacos we saw, as we arrived into a much greener and rainy environment…

… and we started seeing primroses everywhere, along roadsides and on many hikes -

We were really glad to smell moisture in the air, after almost a week in very arid and dusty conditions. However, I’ll close with a parting shot from the desert -