Sunday, November 26, 2023

A Delightful Hike in the Andes

Our favorite hike of our trip, well, other than Machu Piccu, was Parque Natural Aguas de Ramon. There are two mountains with a valley between. We hiked along one ridge, dropped down to a waterfall, crossed a hanging bridge and returned along the other ridge with the snow-capped Andes mountains towering in the distance and beautiful flowers in bloom.



It's spring here, and so beautiful with all the flowers and trees in bloom!






Journey spotted a pair of California Quails just off the trail, and I spotted a lifer, Diuca Finch.




















Austral Blackbird (above)  Mourning Sierra Finches (below)





Back at the apartment, we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset from our rooftop patio.

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Hiking Cerro Calán

Cerro Calán is the hill right behind our apartment in Santiago, Chile. Here's a cropped view from our rooftop patio. When I zoomed in and could see a wooden walkway with people on it, I knew we had to go hike it! We walked from our place and I spotted a lifer along the way, this Plain-mantled Tit-Spinetail. It does have quite a unique tail.






Here's a very steep bike trail that drops from the walking trail.



The trail circles the cerro. Here I found more Long-tailed Meadowlarks and Rufous-tailed Plantcutters.











How nice to have picnic tables and a playground up here.




From here we were able to spot our apartment. This was a really enjoyable easy hike. Would have loved to hike more of these or even this one again.