We traveled to Patagonia in its autumn of 2017 (spring in the USA)

Here are a few of the photos we took
(in one order, but not chronological):

In Chile, on the road to the end of the world

The most sublime of all Rancho photos

A rancho is a smallish ranch or farm or dwelling, much less grand than an estancia or hacienda. 
This one was especially lovely with the early morning sunlight striking it almost horizontally.

Ordinary people live on ranchos.  One could do worse than to live on this rancho.

A gaucho and his dogs were herding sheep and stopped to chat. 

That's the Patagonian steppe, a very large cold desert with yellow grass.

Patagonia is about 1/8 the size of the 48 contiguous US states.
About 64% of Patagonia is steppe, roughly the area of Texas.

Left over from a short war between Chile and Argentina

Patagonia comprises the southern parts of both countries, and the people
there don't seem to care so much about the national borders.
They don't seem to think much of minefields, either.

Why is the warning in Spanish and English and German? one might wonder.
(Easy question.)









Magellanic Penguin (see below)

A Magellanic penguin (smack in the middle) on the coast of Chile and the entire south Pacific Ocean beyond.

To see it required putting out through the surf in a big zodiac. 
The surf was up because there's almost always a strong west wind in southern Chile. 
Sometimes it's stronger than at other times, but it's almost always strong.
(You can feel it blow in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's book, Wind, Sand, and Stars.)

Because of the west wind, the Chilean side of
the Andes is wet; the Argentinian side, dry.

Near Bariloche, Argentina--a perfect place for seaplanes (but no seaplanes there at all!)

Selfie at dinner in the lodge on Lago Grey

It may look like a double--or triple--exposure.  Nope.  The dining room wall was all glass. 
You see the mountains through it, the diners reflected in it, and me, too.  iPhone photo, back camera.

Lago Grey (Grey Lake) is grey because of the color of the ice in Glacier Grey.

Another glacier, this one on Lago Argentina

The face of the glacier is about 200 feet high. 
Lago Argentina's water level is only about 600 feet above sea level. 
It never gets very hot here (yet) so the snow line is down low, compared to in North America.
But the glacier is receding faster every year. 









At the end of the earth--the corner of Magellan and Columbus, in Punta Arenas, Chile

There we were at 53º south latitude. We live at 37º north,
so we had traveled almost exactly 90º south of home--
one quarter of the way around the planet, north to south.












Hotel bar at the end of the earth

(Marble table tops lit from below.)

The unofficial flag of Patagonia

The stars depict the Southern Cross, not visible where we live in North America.
The white zig-zag is the snowy peaks of the southern Andes.
The yellow is the color of the grass on the steppe.