Here's a link to what the trip will be about. It is worth checking out. I have met the expedition's science leads already. Richard Alley has a "Professor" button that you push and he starts talking about geology and natural history. Quite amazing.
Antarctica Expedition Link
It does not list the pre- and post-trip journeys I am taking but it does give the flavor of the things that we will see (hopefully).
Friday, December 28, 2012
This morning began fairly warm and sunny in Santiago, Chile. The hotel (Hilton Garden Inn) is somewhat isolated from the city proper and there's really nothing to see in the immediate area as it is mostly industrial. I look out my 6th floor window and see smoggy Santiago several miles away, the Andes are barely visible through the haze. In the foreground I see a freeway and several multi-story offices and concrete tilt-up structures (the nearest one is labeled Bicimoto). Rather unexciting. Santiago sits in a wide alluvial valley. The geology, too, is fairly unexciting.
A group of about 20 of us boarded a bus for the nearly two hour ride to the mountains shortly before 8am. Once there we went on some short hikes with a naturalist. He specialized in birds and we saw many small undistinguished looking birds (flycatchers, tyrants, etc.). Interesting name for a small, brown bird...tyrant. So-called because they are bossy to other birds. We did see a Chilean fox hanging out by the side of the road. The highlight, however, was the Andean condor. Their wings span up to 12 feet from wingtip to wingtip. I got a couple of photos but others got better ones. Will try to get those. I took photos of several native flowers, the landscape (treeless), and a few of the larger birds. The geology is all volcanic or volcanic-derived. We saw tuffs, welded tuffs, flow deposits, and some lahars.
Tomorrow is a very early start for us. We need to be boarding a bus to the airport at 5:30!
Here's a photo of the fox.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
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