Proposed new park: Parque National Patagonia

H and I took the road through the Chacabuco Valley where there is action underway to make the area a National Park. It was very nice scenery, although not as super stunning as the parts of the Carretera Austral we had been travelling on or the road from Paso Roballo to Los Antiguos that we were headed for.

We camped for the evening in a place which seemed to be an abandoned house site, it was quite leveled, cleared with grass and there were old fruit trees. It overlooked a place they called Valle Guanaco, Guanaco Valley, and it was a valley teeming with Guanacos (look closely at my photos).

In the early evening I wandered around the site and discovered the fruit trees and that the cherry tree had fruit. These were sour cherries, new to me but not to H, but I liked them. We picked what we could and made a basic jam that evening. We have enjoyed this jam much better than the jams we have bought.

The next morning I went for an early walk. Not much gets up early in these parts. The guanacos were heading back to the valley and I seemed to have alarmed them, but they are funny creatures, they just stood there watching me, and me watching them back. I also think I saw Puma poo, but still no Puma (lucky really, I am no match).

After a cup of tea and a bite to eat I went for another walk while I waited for H to get ready. I was very distracted taking photos of a woodpecker (damn thing kept hiding on the other side of the tree) when H started the engine, my cue that it was time to go. I turned a found a big fox between me and the car.... and H, possibly not knowing which direction I'd wandered,  wasn't even looking!
Wow! I wondered if it was a threat to me..., it was a big fox, Dingo like in size. I wondered how I could get to the car, and decided that first I should get photos. Then I yelled out, to startle the fox and alert H... but neither paid me any attention! When the fox did look at me it seemed totally to lack care, so I moved forward.  The Fox, it seemed, had two greater concerns: there are these birds that lay eggs and then bury them and guard the spot, I think the fox wanted to find the eggs, or get the bird, but it had to keep stopping to scratch itself.... whether it had fleas or something else I won't know, but the poor thing was really itchy. So, it seemed that I was just a minor distraction, maybe it had seen camera weilding tourists before!

Obviously I made it back to the car... and told H to look at the Fox, still scratching itself repeatedly, and get some better photos.