Category: Chile

Introduction If you read our last blog you will know that, following a service including a coolant change, we found oil in Phil’s (the van!) coolant tank. We noticed the issue whilst we were visiting Conguillio National Park. As such we carefully drove back to the garage in Temuco that did the service, where the… Read more

Conguillio National Park Our next stop within Chile’s Lake District was Conguillio National Park. Having already seen several volcanoes on our way northwards through Chile, we were debating whether driving the extra 110 kilometres and paying to enter Conguillio National Park, home to the impressive Volcán Llaima, was really worth it. We had actually seen… Read more

Heading northwards from the island of Chiloé, we arrived at the southern end of Chile’s Lake District (El Region de Los Lagos) around mid-March. Within this region, we explored three stunning national parks, unlike anything we’d seen before – Puyehue, Villarica and Conguillio.  In order to avoid writing a blog as long as an academic… Read more

Chiloé Island After reaching the end of the Carretera Austral in Puerto Montt, our next port of call was the beautiful island of Chiloé, South America’s fifth largest island. In particular, we were heading for the coastal fishing cove of Puñihuil and the Islotes de Puñihuil. The journey to get to Puñihuil was interesting to… Read more

South America is full of dramatic landscapes and stark contrasts. This was no more so apparent than when journeying into the temperate rainforest of the Chilean Andes from the dry Patagonian steppe. Our aim was to join the famous Carretera Austral near Villa Cerro Castillo, and from our previous stop, Chile Chico, we took a… Read more

Torres del Paine, Chile’s iconic and one of it’s most visited national park, is the antithesis of the off the beaten track locations that we typically prefer. However, we still felt that it was probably a must-visit due to potential for spotting the elusive puma – Torres del Paine has the highest population density of… Read more

Whilst planning our big trip around South America, there are certain species that we thought we would only get to see through splashing out on a cruise to the Antarctic. King penguin was certainly one of them. However, it turns out that we were very wrong! Reserva Natural Pingüino Rey, a private reserve located in… Read more