Showing posts with label Andes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andes. Show all posts

Monday, 15 April 2013

Biodiversity of Andean fauna and flora


Como se llama llama?


Llamas (as they are more generally known as a group), consist of the vicuña, guanaco, alpaca, and the domestic llama. Guanacos and vicuñas live in the wild, while alpacas – as well as llamas – exist only as domesticated animals.

This one has to go to hairdresser...




Llamas have a fine undercoat which can be used for handicrafts and garments







Cria - "baby llama"



Unlike llama or alpaca - vicuna has never been domesticated. These shy fellows just don't seem to want to mate in captivity. They are viable trade for their valuable meat and fur. Vicuna wool is the most expensive in the world.



Solor means Flamingo (in atacameno dialect)


Flamingos often stand on one leg, the other tucked beneath the body. The reason for this behavior is not fully understood. Recent research indicates that standing on one leg may allow the birds to conserve more body heat, given that they spend a significant amount of time wading in cold water. 

Young flamingos hatch with greyish reddish plumage, but adults range from light pink to bright red due to aqueous bacteria and beta carotene obtained from their food supply. This would mean - eat carrot and you are gonna be orange!



The scenery of the salty lagoon was beautiful.



On our way back we stopped by a tiny cactoo. Apparently, the wood from the cactoo was widely used during colonial times. This one is about 1000 years old.



The Putana river is a house of many birds and species. The Reserve is protected by Unesco.




 Zorro:




I have met one more mammal that tried to fly. With no results, though...






Saturday, 6 April 2013

Biking our way through the Road of 365 curves

Incredible scenery

We started quite early in Mendoza. We drove towards Uspallata, tte village in a scenic location on the road which crosses the Andes between Mendoza and Santiago in Chile. The road to the Chilean border incorporates some of the most amazing scenery in the region, the Andean mountains in this part being part of the backdrop of the highest peak out of the ANDES, Aconcagua at almost 7,000 metres above sea level.
Few years ago, "7 years in Tibet" was shoot here, as there were too many limitations to make it in Tibet.
Just take a look:


Our guide - Louis picked us up with his cool Lada car. (Yes, indeed it was LADA!!!!).  We started naturally with yerba mate.
 
...for the good start of the day...
 

We were about to do a Road of 365 curves, former, the only road between Argentina and Chile.  Of course by bike.... hell yeah!



  We started at a view point towards Aconcagua.


The road RP 52, also called ruta de un año, is unpaved once you get past Villavicenzio, but it is wide enough to feel safe and does not need a 4 wheel drive car to do it. There were a few rocks across the at various places which made it look dramatic, but it's no real problem, even for a city people like us:) !
Ready to go.

However, we didn't expect clouds on the other side.
 

Later on it got little foggy...


But finally we made it to the picknick place!!!



 Although the weather at the other side was not perfect, we enjoyed the day a lot with the good company.