Читать книгу Torres del Paine. Chile's Premier National Park and Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park онлайн

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WHERE TO WATCH WILDLIFE

For birdwatchers, some of the best areas in the Torres del Paine national park are Lago Toro and the smaller lakes and pools between Pudeto and Laguna Amarga (such as Laguna Los Cisnes and Laguna Los Juncos); the area surrounding the latter is also a good area for spotting Guanaco. Laguna Amarga is one of the best areas in the park for seeing Chilean Flamingos. On the Torres del Paine Circuit, Torrent Ducks may be spotted in the upper reaches of the Río Ascencio. Some of the less-visited areas of the national park such as Río Pingo offer a good chance of seeing wildlife and birdlife, including some of the less common species – if you’re really lucky, you may spot a Huemúl. The best place to see Magellanic Penguins is on Isla Magdalena, about 2hrs by boat from Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan.

History and culture

Early settlers

By around 12,000BC the great migration of peoples over the land bridge that once existed between what is now Siberia and Alaska, and down through North and South America, had reached what is now Chile – including its far south. Initially nomadic hunter-gatherers, these peoples nevertheless left a legacy of handicrafts and pottery (see exhibits in the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino in Santiago), and the tribes in northern Chile are thought to have had cultural links with local Pre-Incan cultures. The tribes of central Chile appear to have become increasingly settled, with the development of agriculture and irrigation, while those further south in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, conditioned by the harsher lanscape and climate, maintained a more nomadic existence.