Author: nicrodemo

The Sunday drive continued through the Austral highway, heading away from the Magellan Straight and towards the Pacific side of the continent. As we moved up we crossed the only main town between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales. We stopped here in Villa Tehuelche to photograph two foxes that were crossing the road and to have a quick coffee at the only place that seemed to be inhabited at this time of the day. The little shop sold sandwiches to go, sweats and other snacks, liquor, and what you come to expect from roadside tienditas. One of the highlights of the drive was Morro Chico, a volcanic plug where people have found ancient paintings (pictures rupestres) and that sticks out of the flat Patagonian steep. We stopped for a quick photo and were welcomed by a couple of Llamacos, a new hybrid between Llamas and Guanacos. From there we passed Laguna Arauco, where the Austral road passes less than a kilometre from the Argentina boarder.

After a while we reached Puerto Natales. The town is located in a complex of Fjords that eventually open up to the Pacific. The town cards the entrance to the fjord of Ultima Esperanza, named by an explorer called Ladrilleros. The highest part of the mountains, including Cerro Balmaceda, were covered in cloud. After re-supplying for the camping trip ahead, we continued driving to La Cueva del Milodon. This has been a place that was at the top of my list in Patagonia for many years.

Claudia was an excellent guide to the Cueva as she has been working with archaeologists there before. The weather changed as we arrived to the Cueva and the sky opened to revealed an amazing cobalt blue. Above the Cave a condor circled us. The Cave itself was amazing, and did not disappoint. A massive entrance to a place that has been continually excavated since the first Milodon remains were found in the 1800’s . When the first explorers found Milodon skin and bones they were so well preserved that they were convinced they were from recently killed animals. First confused for mammoths, eventually the magical discovery of giant sloths in this place became known around the world. We searched the paths hoping to see a Milodon hair somewhere. The bronze sculpture of a Milodon standing in its hind legs, looked at us disapprovingly. We may not have found a Milodon skin, but being inside the cave was as exciting as I imagined!

After the Cueva, we headed back to Puerto Natales where I was going to drop off Claudia before continuing my trip to Torres de Paine. After leaving her in downtown, I took the road to Cerro Castillo. This is the northernmost limit of the Carretera Austral. For more than 200km there is no way to drive through this part of Chile until reaching O’Higgins after crossing the Campos de Hielo, a massive expanse of glaciers and wild terrain. I turned left in Cerro Castillo and entered the National Park. Somewhere at the end of this road I was going to run into the Torres del Paine. The cloud cover came back again. The daylight started to dim, but with the last rays of sun I was able to photograph a large guanaco herd that seemed mostly unconcerned of my presence a few meters from where they were eating.

I finally reached one of the guarded entrances to the Park. I checked in and eventually managed to find my campsite at the end of another road, in a strange outpost of civilisation where campsites, geodesic spheres and fancy lodges stood next to each other, right at the base of the Torres. The twilight light made for some amazing outlines of the mountains and the Torres against the dark blue sky. I set up my tent and had a dinner heated up in my camping stove. I was exhausted and excited of having reached the last and most adventurous destination of the whole trip.

On Sunday, 21 October, Claudia met me at the hostel to come with me to pick up the rental car at the airport. She needed to go to Puerto Natales to plan a trip later in the summer and joined me in the path to the North.

The day was wet and grey, but the trip was full of interesting animals. We saw Patagonian foxes with its two-spotted tails, geese, gulls, guanacos (Llama sp.), ñandus (Rhea sp.), falcons and eagles, and many more. But what I really wanted to see were penguins. I had found out that not far from Punta Arenas you could find a rare, but large colony of Magalleanic or Humboldt penguins nesting on the mainland. The Otway colony had been a tourist attraction for decades, and it was my best chance to see my favourite animal. But Claudia had broken some disturbing news about the penguin colony in Otway. “Se acabo la colonia”, she said. “Se la comieron los perros”. Gone? Eaten by dogs? I heard in disbelief. She told me how about three years ago the penguins had dropped in numbers rapidly, probably due to the dynamite explosions and pollution of a nearby mine. Or it could have been changes in food availability in those over-fished seas. Or it could be that global warming had pushed the colony further south. Or all of the above. I started imagining the poor penguins laying dead in the sand, partially eaten, a few feathers attached to their tiny skulls, and wind-blasted sand polishing their bones. One of the saddest images I can imagine, and one that I couldn’t completely shed in the rest of the trip.

In the morning we had student presentations and then we parted ways. John went back to Arizona, Daniele to Switzerland, Gaston to Valparaiso, Darko to Santiago, and Christian and Pablo to Concepcion. On the way to the airport we stopped in Angelmo, a small harbour in Puerto Montt. Angelmo’s fish market is full with unusual sea food for sale: loco’s mollusks, barnacles, and tunicates. A red shark hung in a hook in one of the fish stands. On the waters edge, a group of five seals snoozed. They were just a couple of meters away on a sandy beach. Fishermen throw their scraps to them and these seals had become habituated to people. The alpha male seemed to be only interested in scratching behind his tiny ear. A dog tried to sneaked among the seals to steal a piece of fish, but from the water another seal bounced upon h8m and gave him a good fright.

Now I’m on board of an A321 on my way to Punta Arenas. I should be arriving there at 7 or 8pm. Below us, a gap in the clouds reveals the Pacific. We are heading to southern Patagonia.

On Friday we had the last full day of the course and to celebrate we had a traditional Asado al Palo. A lamb cut in pieces is strung on a wooden spear and slowly cooked over a coal bed. We had kelp salad and salsa, choripan, and Chilean wine and beer. We said our farewell to our great hosts Luís and Anita.

17-19 October

The rain has been falling in Katalapi for a few days. We get the occasional ray of sun. On Thursday morning, the sun came out creating a vapour blanket in the fields around us. Between classes we have been able to see some more of Katalapi. A walk in the forest was a great way to get up close with the native vegetation. On a wet walk, we saw Proteaceae trees, Nothofagus, bamboos, and some nearly-arborescent ferns with think leaves resembling cycads. Lifting logs near the wet path revealed several species of frogs that looked up at us surprised. Matías, managed to fool a male frog calling to defend its territory by calling and walking closer to it. The frog was hidden deep in the roots of a tree.

A highlight of the days here was to catch and photograph some beautiful and orange bees. The most abundant is a bright orange species of Colletidae with a body completely covered by orange hairs including its legs and face. But the best was Bombus dahlbomii, a Chilean bee that is among the largest of the world and currently highly endangered. It was gorgeous in all its orange splendour!

On Thursday evening we escape and went to explore a bit of the area. We passed through Puerto Montt and saw Chiloe in the horizon. Along the road we caught three Tricahue parrots with their green bodies and flashes of blue. Then we drove towards a large lake, past Puerto Varas and towards the volcanoes of Calbuco, Yates, Puntiagudo and Osorno. The snowy peaks were covered by cloud at its highest, but we could see their snowy skirts. We reached the rapids and waterfalls of Saltos the Petrohue. The road there is flanked by a thick layer of black volcanic ash proof of the volcanic eruption of Calbuco two years ago. The view of the rapids cutting through the magma at the foot of the volcanoes was spectacular. On the way back we stopped in Puerto Varas at the shore of the lake. On our return to Katalapi we caught the tail of a thunderstorm. The lightning rumbled far away and when we reached the station the rain had stopped again.

On Saturday we left Viña del Mar and started making our way to Katalapi park, where the course would take place. We flew from Santiago to Puerto Montt, a trip of about one and a half hours by plane. We headed straight south, blanking the Andes. As you travel south, the Andes get shorter, but you could not really tell. I felt asleep on the plane and when I woke up we had started descending to Puerto Montt’s airport. There were a few scattered white clouds below us… or so I thought. Among the real clouds, there were snowy volcanos, some standing alone, others in small chains. We passed several large lakes, until we flew over a large lake with a beautiful volcanic cone, Volcán Osorno., covered in snow to about half. The lake side towns of Puerto Varas and Frutillas hung to the shore. After landing, we picked up a rental van and drove through Puerto Montt. The Pacific Ocean reaches Puerto Montt through a series of bays and fjords. Closing the lid of the large bay is Chiloé Island, a large island that was the last enclave where Spaniards remained long after the Chilean Independence. Chiloé was only a sliver of green in the horizon but it was exciting to see it. We drove through town and quickly moved to Katalapi Park. A short distance from the main road we reached Katalapi. A few wooden houses serve as accommodation, kitchen, classrooms and so on. The surrounding is a beautiful and wet forest . It has rained almost non stop from Saturday night to Tuesday. In the short opportunities we have had to explore the area we have seen wild strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis), Fitzroyia cupressoides (alerce; the oldest alerce on record was >3,600 years old!).

Today we drove to the coast. From Valparaiso we headed north on the Panamericana, and headed to Los Molles and a nice reserve on the coast called Puquen. The reserve is privately owned and home to a great collection of local plants. The highlights were two species of cacti that meet in the region and produce some beautiful intermediate hybrids. One species has yellow to cream-coloured flowers and the other species has bright pink flowers with a more or less narrower calyx. The hybrid has pink flowers with variable tonality and open calyces. The hybrid cacti grow on rocky substrate near the sea. The reserve was so full of cacti that in some places you had to be very careful not to step in one of the hundred of spins recruits that covered the ground. The coastline was amazing; a rocky shore with abrupt cliffs and facing straight to the see that broke agains the rocks in big splashes of blue and white.

The reserve is named after the native word for devil. We hiked to the top of a sea cliff to find out why. On the way we stopped to listen to the sounds of a large group of sea lions perched on a sea rock. The rock had a snowy cap of guano, and the sea lions had somehow climbed almost to the top of the 20-30m tall rock island. The males called with deep and raspy voices. I recorded the sound of the sea and the sea lions in my phone. Closing your eyes while listening to this guttural and primitive sound was the perfect way to approach the devil’s lair. The sky was grey and the wind blew inland. We then reached the devil’s house. First, it just looked like another crevice in the volcanic rock that makes the coast. But then it arrived. With a deafening roar, a column of water was vaporised a few meters in the air. But what was most sobering, almost scary, was the sound that this oceanic blowhole produced. Not every wave produced the animalistic roar. It appeared as if the cave needed to rest and recharge between calls in order to produce the vaporised scream. Gaston told me that the coast used to be full of these blowholes, but that most have been dynamited. The towns people are sure that deep in the black rock of these bottomless wells, lives a devil or Puquen. The sound they produce is a bad omen that forecasts storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters. The sea this day was relatively calm, but they say that when the sea swell grows the blow hole can be heard, and be seen, from a long distance. After a while of listening to the ominous Puquen, we headed back to the reserve’s entrance. The place was deserted and the exit door locked. We had to climb the wall to exit the reserve. As I prepared to jump from the wall and land near the car that would take us back to civilisation, I couldn’t resist a last look back to the place where the Puquen hid. I was slightly glad to leave that devil behind.

Today we left early to try to reach the Andes. The mission was to travel to El Juncal, a valley deep in the Andes. The road there heads towards the mountain pass of Libertadores, a dip in the ridge made of the giant Andes and which connects to neighbouring Argentina. The weather was wet and cold, and as we climbed up the mountain the rain turned to snow. High in the peaks the snow was falling heavily and the mountain pass was closed to road traffic. We got close but could not reach Juncal and thus the population of Mimulus luteus that we were looking. Along the way we saw many cool things though, and driving on the mountain road was exciting on its own. From the lower lands where the avocado (here called palta) farms have broke havoc on the hills, to higher and higher mountains covered in columnar cacti and fantastic plants. We twice tried to cross the mountain pass but were turned back by police. We explored a bit of the area there, walking along some streams and checking out the local flora. Eventually we decided to venture on another side road. After some driving on a gravel road we reached the gate erected by a mining company and continued by foot. A farmer passed us in his horse, and goats munched on columnar cacti oblivious of the sharp spines. We found a beautiful river that snaked towards the Andes. The gorge was rich in cacti and xerophytes and at the end of the valley, mountains with snowy peaks looked down to us. We have given up most hope of finding M. luteus, but then we found a single plant growing along the gravel . One yellow flower with a beautiful red spot seemed to look at us hoping to pass invisible. Gaston and I were excited to finally have found it, and I was delighted of seeing for the first time this plant in the wild. We searched hard and eventually found a few scattered rosettes, with no flowers, along the river bed over a couple of kilometres. This is a red plant, but having seen it against the backdrop of the Andes has made the expedition well worth it!

In the evening we returned to Valparaiso, that quirky old town is squeezed between the Coastal Cordillera and the Andes. Along the same valley that holds together the urban sprawl of Santiago, Valparaiso is a port that hangs from the high cliffs of the surrounding hills and spills to the edge of the Pacific. The houses are clustered on the hills and painted full of colour. Legend says that the houses are so colourful as they were pained with the leftover pain of passing commercial ships. Beggars not choosers, and now the bright colours contrast with the melancholic grey of the clouded sky. Ah, and this is a town of graffiti, which cover almost any surface with their designs and stories like tattoos.

10 October

Today I spent the whole day at the Universidad Católica de Valparaiso. It is a very nice, newly renovated campus and my hosts were amazing. I met Gaston and his group and had a wonderful discussion about their projects. I learned tons about cacti, bird’s nests and the microbiome, hummingbird olfaction and many other things. I also spoke to Francisco who I had met in 2016 in Brazil and now has a permanent post here, and he told me about his many cool exciting and original projects on ecological interactions in the Valdivian forest. my favourite was his story of cave dwelling catfish in Bolivia and how we thought we could use them as models of adaptation and gene flow.  In the morning I gave a buzz pollination seminar and had tons of keen and brilliant questions.

This evening I walked to the seafront and saw Valparaiso and Viña del Mar shine their lights into the Pacific. Then dinner at Hops, a rocky bar with what probably qualifies as ancient music including Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Metallica. Not a bad way to end the day. Tomorrow we will have our first expedition to the Andes.

9 October. PM

Straight from the airport we headed out to the field. We drove west and quickly left Santiago behind. Soon we drove off the highway into a smaller road that curved into the hills. The traffic and people disappeared quickly and we started to drive on small roads. After a quick coffee and empanada we ventured into s side road, kind of a long loop in our way to Valparaiso. The hills wore a dry vegetation cover and soon I started spotting columnar cacti, which are one of my favourite types of plants. The physiognomy of the landscape reminded me of some arid zones in Mexico, although here the vegetation was more dense and some hills seems to be much greener. At the side of the road, there amazing blooms of yellow and orange flowers. “They are exotics, from California”, said Garzón when I asked what was this common flower we kept seeing in every road and open field, “But they are not really invasive and usually stay close to the road and agricultural fields”. This was hard to believe as the fields of orange extended in some places for hundred of meter. It was beautiful to see the explosion of yellow/orange of a plant that had made Chile its home since the mid 1800s. This part of the country seemd to be full of exotic plants from around the world: Eucalyptus from Australia, Opuntia from Mexico, Gorse from Europe, Eschcholzia from California and the list went on. Gasto; later confirmed that about 15% of the Chilean flora has a foreign origin.

The goal of the day was to find Mimulus luteus. The plant I studied in Scotland but that traced its origins to high parts of the Chilean Andes. A friend of Gaston had run into a population that seemed to be oddly placed, on the east side of the Santiago valley. Most populations occur in the east side of the valley at higher elevations on the Andean slopes. This was a population that had been spotted in flower a couple of weeks ago by a friend of Gaston. The problem was that the friend could not take a good GPS record as when he was trying to sample it, he had fallen off and broken his elbow! So we were driving looking for a patch of yellow flowers somewhere along a ravine surrounded by slippery rocks. Exciting!

We drove for a few hours exploring the country side and seeing many cool things along the way. Raptors, unusual birds, pencil-tailed mice, and a Mirian of flowers including two awesome species of Calceolaria that were being visited by oil collecting Centris bees. But no Mimulus luteus.

After a while we decided to stop on a recently build bridge and try our luck in the dwindling stream that managed to stay wet despite the driest year in the last 80 in this part of Chile. We parked the SUV on the roadside and asked permission from a farmer to pass through his field and onto the river. He kindly agreed, and we walked closely guarded by three dogs that stared and growled from the other side of the fence, held back by tenuously attached metal chains. I was terribly excited when among the gravel of the river bed we spotted the typical leaves of what could only bee a monkey flower! But the surprise came when we found plants flowering. They were monkeyflowers alright, the typical yellow flower with small red spots at its center. Except that these were tiny flowers! I was even more excited when I realised that this species was not Mimulus luteus, the species we set to find, but instead a related species that I had some hope we were going to find further south, the diminutive Mimulus glabratus. This is a monkeyflower that occurs from Michigan to southern Chile, in an amazing feat of transcontinental distribution. But the Chilean populations here are special, as they have multiplied their genome and instead of having two copies like you and me, they had six copies of each chromosome! A miniature monkeyflower but a DNA giant!