Last night was horrific. The wind didn't stop all night. I have never heard a well made brick building groan in the wind before, and the sensation is quite off-putting.
The day dawned wet and windy and that was just fine by me. I really didn't feel ready to go tramping up into the mountains so was quite happy to go to the local internet cafe and try to sort through some of the photos and catch up on emails etc. Dave eventually found me mid afternoon and the weather looked to be clearing so we decided to go for a bit of a walk up to a local vantage point.
Los Condors (The Condors) was about an hours stroll and well worth the walk. As we approached the top of the vantage point the skies cleared and the sun came out, the wind dropped, and the clouds lifted giving us our first look at the famed Fitz Roy. It is a rather impressive set of jagged tors rising out of the snowy mountain range across the valley.
Sadly we didn't see any condors up close but we did see them circling above us in the thermals. What an amazing bird. Even at a vast distance they still give a serious impression of size and strength. They are huge birds - wingspan of 2.8-3.2m and a soaring capacity that has to be seen to be believed. One second he was above us then in the next instant he'd caught a thermal and away off in the distance many kms away. Awesome.
We hung out on the mirador (view point) for about an hour then headed back down to the town. As we were going down a whole stream of people were making their way up. Seems that Dave had timed our walk just right to miss the throngs. The improvement of the weather had brought people out of hiding.
It was decided to return to the restaurant of the previous night as the food was so good and after another hearty meal we hit the sack in preparation for a day of hiking tomorrow - weather permitting.
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