Today we went on what we were told was a boat trip of no more than 25 people to observe the glaciers and then go on a 2 hours flat walk through the forest at Estancia Cristina. Wow were we told wrong. First of all, the boat holds up to 120 passengers. Then, the trip was a four wheel drive trip to an observation point for the Upsala Glacier. We then started walking about 30 minutes to get close to the glacier for a good view. We have finally found a place where the winds are stronger than Chicago. We were almost blown off the mountain several times. We saw how the glacier has changed positions over the last 80 years. The landscape was barren rocks but was somehow beautiful surrounded by all of the mountains and the glacier. Our two hour walk turned into a four hour climb up and down. While it was mostly down, there were many times we had to hike up or just had to fight the wind. We did fine but are now sore. We ate a picnic lunch in the shelter of some large rocks on a small lake enjoying the amazing scenery. On this walk we saw a herd a wild Guanacos, wild horses, a flying Condor and a baby in the cliffs, and a red fox. The walk was only us, Michelle a nice man from France and a guide for the trip. The climb down was described on the boat to reach the area as a walk down a steep area, a flat area, and then another steep walk down and was intermediate and easy. We sure do not want to know what advanced is. The walk took us to parts of the mountain that had been the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean in the distant past. We saw remains of squid and shells in the rock formations. One was the petrified remains of the squid that we are told were 165 million years old and also squid shells. Our guide told us that this area was not Jurassic Park but was Cretassic Park and that we were walking on the sea floor with all its remains. Really neat to see iron rocks, sandstone and volcanic remains. The shale and slate formed a snow like surface and was like walking down a mountain in powder. We saw slate that was polished to a high gloss by the passing glacier and also that had been polished by rolling stones (they were even older than Mick Jagger.) Before the walk, the boat we took to get there stopped at Upsala Glacier and we got a really close up view. Lots of icebergs had broken off and they looked like an ice sculpture contest. All in all, this was a really good day even though it was totally different than we thought we were paying for.