Life in Chile

Santiago

You are met on the arrival of your international flight and transferred to your hotel.

A free day for sightseeing, museums and galleries. Bearing in mind some of the places you visit on your trip we can thoroughly recommend the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.

Temuco

This morning you are collected from your hotel for the short flight to the university city of Temuco, capital of Chile’s Araucania region and heartland of the indigenous Mapuche people, whose culture is long threatened though 13% of the nation identifies as Mapuche. With a guide, you hear something of Mapuche traditions, and you learn about their crafts, weaving, art, music, medicinal use of plants and games such as the exciting hockey-like palin. A few words of greeting in their Mapudungun language will be met with great delight. Pablo Neruda grew up in Temuco. His father worked on the railways, and Neruda’s abiding love of trains is celebrated in the Museo Nacional Ferroviario Pablo Neruda de Temuco which you visit (unless today is a Monday). It has a great collection of 12 steam locos and 9 carriages that once played their part in Chilean life. Sadly the railway is no longer in use.

Araucania’s Araucarias

This morning you are transferred to the resort town of Pucón on the shore of Lake Villarrica for 2 nights. In the afternoon your local guide takes you walking in the forests on the lower flank of Villarrica Volcano among many of Patagonia’s typical trees, the lenga, coigue, roble, nothofagus, alerce and others, with lovely birds and the chance of other wildlife.

This morning your guide takes you towards Volcán Lanin to an area of thousand year old araucaria trees. These evergreen ‘monkey puzzle’ conifers with their umbrella-like, reptilian foliage have lived here since the Jurassic. They became endangered due to logging but are now protected in a cluster of national reserves near Villarrica and Pucón. You walk in the freshness of nature from an unimaginably ancient time.

Southern Lake District

Travel south to Puerto Varas on the shore of Lake Llanquihue. Temperatures are cooler and the climate wetter in this southern section of the Lake District, notable for its Valdivian rainforest. Stop on the way for lunch at Puerto Octay and to visit the German-influenced town of Frutillar. We can try to book tickets for this evening at its busy lakeside concert hall, which opened in 2010 beside the lake with views across to the perfect cone of snow-capped Osorno volcano. Stay 2 nights in Puerto Varas. It is a 30 minute taxi ride to Frutillar if you are spending your evening at a concert there.

You visit the Valdivian forest of the Alerce Andina reserve. Stretch your legs as much as you wish on its forest trails, some beneath mighty Fitzroya cupressoides which can live over 3000 years. The reserve is home to rarely-seen pumas, tiny pudu (the planet’s second smallest deer), and lesser grison or quique–a widespread mustelid. This is a good opportunity to look for endemic woodland birds. If birds are your thing (let us know) your guide might drive you to the Gulf of Reloncaví for coastal birds–and perhaps even Peale’s dolphin too.

Chiloé Island

This morning you drive past Puerto Montt to take the ferry from Pargua across the narrow Chacao Channel to Chiloé Island where you stay for 4 nights. The crossing takes just 40min. Pods of black and white Commerson’s dolphin patrol the channel. You should see sea lion, and an array of sea birds–perhaps even the very rare Pincoya Storm-petrel. On Chiloé you will experience its unique way of life, its vivid folklore and myths, its cuisine sourced from the sea, and its special architecture–notable in wooden churches and palafito houses. Chiloé’s unusual habitats, some very pristine, support a very special fauna, such as Darwin’s fox, kodkod or güiña (a tiny spotted cat), the endangered Southern river otter and the rare marine otter. The birdlife is exceptional. You stop at Caulín Bay and mud flats where locals harvest oysters and seaweed on the mudflat . If you see a Red Knot here it will have migrated from northern Canada. You take a 30min boat ride around Punihuil Islet, home between October and March of the only known mixed colony of Humboldt and Magellanic penguins, and where the rare marine otter can be seen. Pygmy blue whales come together around Metalqui Island between December and March, and you could also join a 3-4h boat trip to see them at reasonable extra cost. Tonight you stay in the north of the island.

Today you explore by boat along the peaceful Chepu River, an unusual tidal river created in 1960 by an earthquake which sank the land by 2m and created a sunken forest. It is home to Southern river otter which is adapted to life in salt or freshwater. Reaching the Pacific shore you walk along a remote, pristine beach–a world away from the world. You travel across Chiloé, stopping to see some of its wooden churches, to arrive in Castro on the Gulf of Ancud where you stay the night.

The western and southern parts of Chiloé are well covered in pristine forests with a thick understory of native quila bamboo, ferns, mosses, lianas and epiphytes. You visit the Tepuhueico reserve on the west coast where there are some beautiful walking trails and the best chance of seeing the endemic Darwin’s fox and perhaps the diminutive kodkod. Amid Magellanic fuchsia and evergreen hazel there is an enchanting stand of arrayan myrtles, their twisting trunks papered with peeling bark of reddish gold rising to the sky–a cathedral in the forest. You stay the night at Tepuhueico’s comfortable hotel. Birdwatchers will be kept especially busy here.

You are able to spend much of today with your naturalist guide exploring the wonderful Tepuhueico reserve. You return to Castro in the late afternoon for a final night on Chiloé.

Santiago

You are transferred to Chiloé’s airport for a flight to Santiago. If you have more time, you could join an expedition cruise from Puerto Montt through the Gulf of Ancud to the Glacier San Rafael, or fly to the far south of Patagonia to Torres del Paine or cruise through the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to Cape Horn.