Ah, Condor

Sunday 16th December.

I went to Ecuador in 1996 and in 3 weeks never saw the big bird of the Andes. Here in Chile they seem to be two a penny (see pic) - apart from when we go looking for them of course.

Sunday morning we set off to see the nests close up. Four hours, two steep hills, a few downpours and no condors later, we give up. Over lunch I hopefully suggest maybe walking will be on the level for the final afternoon? Not exactly. For some reason we wind up climbing the second hill again, I have a suspicion we might just be filling out the time a bit until Carlos meets us with the van at 4.30... (surely not!). Still, the weather brightens and with it my mood, some condors fly out to tease us and we walk south as blue skies open up over the mountains behind us. At 4.45 we are at the bridge over the River Paine, meet Carlos as planned, take obligatory end of trek photo (see attached) and that´s it, all over, we´re done.