Puerto King – 18 March 2018

Posted on 18. March 2018 by Andrea Sievers

Sun
18 Mar
2018

We reached Puerto King yesterday after many wet an windy miles. The name seemed to suggest a harbour of royal qualities, at least a fishing village, maybe with a cosy pub at the harbour … but no, it is much better: a lovely natural harbour, exactly our size. Parking kind of in the middle of the rain forest, we fix shore lines on three sides, securing the boat perfectly safe. No anchor watch! Good thing, as we all easily agree.

Wet and funny: A walk through dense rainforest

It continues to rain the next day, which does not keep us from going out to explore a bit. After all the rain, the landscape is wet. Water everywhere, it is splashing with every step you take, wherever you put your hand. One should not be afraid of getting wet here, it is much better to re-discover the pleasure that we had as children when we played in the water, then it is fun! There is very dense Patagonian rain forest almost everywhere near the shore, a chaos of trees, stems and branches standing and lying everywhere, densely covered with mosses and lichens. A green chaos, almost impossible to penetrate.

A few metres further up, the rainforest is giving way to a more open kind of landscape, wetlands with little streams and rocky hills. The latter are partly steep and slippery, the further have grown to be real obstacles after all the rain. So you have to find your way through this landscape somehow, which is not always easy.

Curious and significantly larger than the European Red fox

Back at the shore, a Patagonian Grey fox follows us curiously for a few metres. They are surprisingly large, much larger than the European Red fox, not to mention the Arctic fox far up north. For a moment the inexperienced observer might think to see a shepherd dog! And the Grey fox is only the smaller one of two species that you may find here.