We have just arrived into Valle Chacabuco, the area of Patagonia we are raising money for, through our charity Conservacion Patagonica. Our first glimpse of this astounding mountainous landscape tells us just how much help folk here trying to restore this place are going to need – this is phenomenal! We were collected by pick-up off our route 11km away, and brought to the park HQ. The area we have driven through is recovering from a century of intensive overgrazing, which we’ll learn more about later, but the effects are devastating. Its hard to imagine that sheep and cows alone could destroy such a huge amount of land, 90km wide, but they have! For this big chunk of Chile at least thought there is hope thanks to the work of Conservacion Patagonica (please click here to donate and be part of this historic restoration)– we’ll find out how on earth they are planning to recover this treasure in the next 48 hrs but for now the park manager, Dago, has given us immeasurable hospitality and basically said we can explore as we please to get to know the place, so thats exactly what we are off to do……!!
Just one first impression I must share before we go – the guanacos are not scared of us, unlike the ones we have seen up to now which are being severly hunted, which is really touching. Beautiful creatures, this is their home. But they need to keep their wits about them – because guess whos around the corner, their natural predator . . . there are puma here too, waaaahhhhhhh!!!!