So, after a good night\u00b4s sleep we had breakfast at the Cabana where the owner gave Mum a keyring with a horse brass and a plastic Chilean flag.\u00a0 After, somewhat cleverly, admiring the flag I was given one too.\u00a0 We carried on North towards the Parque Nationale de Chinchillas along a road with yet more outstanding views.\u00a0 We drove through mountains with cowboy-like landscape, dry and filled with the most amazing cacti.\u00a0 Mum and Dad had discovered the park when they were reading up on Chile in England and, as I bred and loved Chinchillas at school, it was a must see destination.<\/p>\n
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When we arrived at the park we were greeted by a friendly ranger.\u00a0 He showed us around the centre where there was a range of nocturnal Chilean small mammals on show including a native Chilean marsupial, aswell as the legendary Chinchillas.\u00a0 Chinchillas were hunted for their pelts but are now protected.\u00a0 They have seventy hairs per follicle where humans have only\u00a0one.\u00a0 If you haven\u00b4t ever touched one you really should, there is no fur like it.\u00a0 It\u00b4s best on the Chinchilla though.\u00a0 They also, somewhat surprisingly for a small rodent, have a gestation period of one hundred and eleven days and give birth to young which are not only fully formed but are born with fur and with their eyes open.\u00a0 Okay, so enough Chinchilla facts now me finks.\u00a0 After the centre we were taken on a walk around part of the park by the ranger who told us about the flora and fauna.\u00a0 He showed us a parasite which attacked the cacti which was transmitted by birds, amongst other things.<\/p>\n
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After the National Park we continued North and headed to the Valle del Encanto, a site with Inca stone paintings and bore holes in the rocks.\u00a0 When we drove up to the entrance we saw a herd of goats which was being herded by proper cowboys on horseback!\u00a0 We arrived at the gates and met two guides who described what there was to see and gave us a leaflet.\u00a0 One of them told us that there were, “Maaaace”, and as we couldn\u00b4t figure out what he meant I took it upon myself to squeak like a mouse.\u00a0 He agreed and his friend made cat noises.\u00a0 We later discovered, much to our amusement, that what he was talking about were indentations in the rock where Incans had ground Maize!\u00a0 The petroglifos were fascinating and the walk around them was lovely, even if I did nearly walk into a large area of stagnant water cleverly disguised as ground by abundant pond weed!<\/p>\n
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After the stones, we headed to Termos de Socos and en route saw a sign for canaries.\u00a0 Mum and I decided that we would rather like to see the exotic birds but Dad was less convinced.\u00a0 It transpired that he had the right inkling as, when we arrived, it was not some magnificent aviary but a pet breeding centre.\u00a0 We drove around the car park and headed on.<\/p>\n
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When we got to the entrance for Termos de Socos we were pleased we had a four wheel drive, although in hindsight it was not difficult terrain!\u00a0 We arrived at the place and decided to spend the night in the hotel.\u00a0 Mum and I had a lovely thermal bath and we had the most amazing meal in the hotel restaurant.\u00a0 The pebre (sauce which is served with bread) was great and we had awesome Chilean wine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, after a good night\u00b4s sleep we had breakfast at the Cabana where the owner gave Mum a keyring with a horse brass and a plastic Chilean flag.\u00a0 After, somewhat cleverly, admiring the flag I was given one too.\u00a0 We carried on North towards the Parque Nationale de Chinchillas along a road with yet more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}