Chile Odyssey

Santiago and the Central Valley

Flying to Chile on your chosen airline, you are met at the airport and driven to the hotel in Santiago. Those arriving in the morning can join a casual afternoon stroll with a local guide in the leafy streets and parks of the stylish Lastarria neighbourhood.

With everyone now assembled, our local guide takes us for a tour of the main sights of Santiago. We ride a funicular railway up San Cristobal Hill for views of the city against the backdrop of the snowy Andes. We visit the Plaza de Armas with the city’s key public buildings: Cathedral, City Hall, National Historical Museum, and Central Post Office. We visit the Mercado Central, with lots of options for a light lunch below its vaulted iron and glass. In the afternoon we drive to a vineyard close to the city where we are shown the stages of cultivating vines, harvesting the grapes and making wine. We are invited to a tasting of red and white wines. We return to Santiago for the evening.

Valparaiso

Driving through the Casablanca wine valley to the Pacific, we arrive in Valparaíso Chile’s, characterful second city–a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We see its main sights, ride funicular elevators, explore lanes of bright-painted houses, and call in at the grand Palacio Baburizza art gallery looking out to the bay. Later we visit Neruda’s ‘La Sebastiana’ (see box on p12) and return to Santiago.

Atacama Desert

We fly north with spectacular views along the Andes to the dusty mining town of Calama in the Atacama Desert, where we are driven across a dry barren landscape to the village of San Pedro de Atacama for 3 nights. After settling in at our lodge, we visit the Moon and the Death Valleys in the late afternoon, and watch the sun set over the Cordillera de Sal from Kari viewpoint. After an early dinner together we dress warmly to visit the SPACE astronomy centre to join others for an evening travelling around the night sky with powerful telescopes to see moon craters, planets, double stars, star clouds, and distant galaxies.

Salt flats and flamingos

This morning we travel into an Atacama desertscape to walk in canyons of coloured rock to a site where ancient cultures left carvings and petroglyphs. We return to our hotel then in the mid-afternoon we drive to Toconao’s village square with its simple church and cactus-wood bell-tower dating from 1750. We continue onto the wide expanse of the Atacama Salt Flat to a lagoon where flamingos feed while we enjoy the sunset.

Geysers

A pre-dawn start to travel into the high altiplano to Tatio Geysers, spurting steam into the cold morning air. We stop beside streams and wetlands busy with birds and call at the village of Machuca on our way back. The afternoon is free for a stroll, a bike ride to the Pukara de Quitor fort, or time in San Pedro.

Chilean Lake District and Chiloé Island

Returning to Santiago we fly on to Puerto Montt in Chile’s Lake District where we are driven to the pretty lake town of Puerto Varas for 3 nights. We settle in, with views across Lake Llanquihue.

A gorgeous day, pausing at beautiful Petrohué Falls, a succession of cascades over volcanic rock, before we board a comfortable modern boat for the cruise across Lake Todos los Santos to Peulla, an eco-village in stunning countryside. We lunch here and later return across the lake with the snow-capped Osorno and Tronador volcanoes in front of us.

We catch a public ferry across a narrow strait to Chiloé (stay on deck to see seabirds, with the chance of dolphins too). Chiloé is an island of farming and fishing traditions, full of myths and legends. We visit Dalcahue, renowned for crafts in wool and wood, Castro with its palafito houses on stilts, and a beautiful example of Chiloé’s wooden churches at Nercón.

The Far South: Puerto Natales & Torres del Paine

We fly from Puerto Montt direct to Punta Arenas beside the Strait of Magellan in the far south of Chile. Driven north across the Patagonian steppe we reach the small town of Puerto Natales by the shore of Last Hope Sound with views of mountains and glaciers into the far distance. There is free time to look around this friendly outdoorsy town, our base for 4 nights.

Balmaceda Glacier and Patagonian Estancia

At nearby Puerto Bories we join a cruise along Last Hope Sound, a very scenic journey through Patagonian landscapes. If the weather is kind, we have long views of mountain sierras, waterfalls, and forests that give way to sheep farming estancias. Along the shore we should see black-necked swans and colonies of cormorants. We reach a point below Balmaceda Glacier, which descends from the Southern Ice Field and calves small icebergs in startling blues into the Sound. At little Puerto Toro we disembark for a walk of about an hour through native coigue woods to reach a stunning viewpoint near the snout of Serrano Glacier, creaking and cracking in the remote silence. The boat continues to a small estancia for a traditional asado al palo, ‘lamb on the cross’, roasted by an open fire. We can experience life on a sheep farm, and walk or ride horses on its lakeside steppe.

to Torres del Paine National Park - for scenic views of iconic Towers of Paine mountains

This morning we drive into Torres del Paine NP, undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful national parks with its forbidding granite towers, jagged peaks, dramatic glaciers and lakes. We pause on the way to explore the Milodon Cave, a huge cavern where the remains of giant sloth were discovered, then enter the western side of the park. We visit Lago Grey and walk across a sturdy hanging bridge and along a shingle shore to a wooded promontory of lenga trees with long views of Grey Glacier. We tour the centre of the park–Salto Chico, Lake Pehoé, Salto Grande, Lake Nordenskjöld and Lake Sarmiento–with changing views of the towering mountains. A spectacular day.

Second day in Torres del Paine

We plan an active day in Torres del Paine today choosing a walking route to suit the group, perhaps in the east of the park. Keen walkers can arrange with us in advance to try the famous strong trek to the base of the Towers with their own guide, at an extra cost. Those who prefer a more gentle day can travel with the group but avoid the walk itself, or be based at the hotel.

Punta Arenas

We drive back to Punta Arenas for a short walking tour in this intriguing city. We pass the house of Bruce Chatwin’s uncle Charlie Milward, and end at Shackleton’s Bar, patronised by the heroic explorer during his quest for a ship to rescue his men trapped in the Antarctic ice. Overnight in Punta Arenas.

return to Santiago

We continue our tour of Punta Arenas at the Salesian Museum which documents the lives of indigenous Fuegian people, the Selk’nam and Yámana. In start contrast we visit the lavish European-style palace of Sara Braun, completed in 1905 by the first woman boss of major sheep estancias. Saying a fond farewell to Patagonia we catch the afternoon flight to Santiago.

Depart Chile

Free time in Santiago until we are each taken to the airport for our night flights home.

Arrive back in the UK