Within the wavy steppe, 90 kilometres north of Punta Arenas, a rocky crack sinks below the bushes, discrete in its attempt to hide in the topography, while seeking shelter from the wind.
This refuge was greatly appreciated by the pedestrian ancestors from Paeloindian times, who knew to locate and use the irregularities provided by the landscape of the steppe. It was within long wanders throughout the pampa when they found this fissure, and left behind art and paintings on its rocky walls as perhaps a grateful gesture towards this transitory home.
It is currently a place of cultural memory, where bird colonies nest and provide a lively landscape, of wildlife habitability and millenary refuge.
Georeading
Abrupt creeks appear near Laguna Blanca, whose white walls stand out in the arid, brown, steppe. They are made of volcanic ash, massive flows of gas and ash that travelled silent and fast, lethally ardent, from an unknown volcanic source.
Fine layers delineated the topography at its base for massive amounts of ash to be deposited on top, creating an ash wall eight meters thick. Gasses cooled down leaving behind the peculiar mosaic of empty bubbles.
The glacial sheet that covered Laguna Blanca started to retreat, finally giving place to the era of rivers. Water trails draw fine lines of the bloodstream system of the Earth. Always downhill, water cut the soft preglacial ash, encountering no resistance; rivers opened roads for live, creating these protected oases for flora, fauna, and humans to thrive.
