Chilean Lake District

This weekend I have started to read a new library book called "A History of the English Lake District". It has many fine illustrations of mountain and lake scenery plus describes in detail famous people who lived their and promoted the region from about 17th century onwards. The poets Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey feature strongly and painters Turner and Constable, and the more recent children's writers Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome of "Swallows and Amazons" fame. This literary background has helped make the English Lake District a huge tourist attraction. Cumbria Tourism claim more than 8 million visitors in a single year when the resident population is only 43,000. It's too soon for this to become an Amazon book.

Similar, bigger, but culturally different Lake Districts exist around the world which attract tourists for the scenery. The New Zealand Lake District adjacent to the Southern Alps in the Canterbury and Otago Provinces I first explored ages ago to go hiking and trout fishing. Next I ventured to the Chilean Lake District or "Region de los Lagos" which stretches from the town of Pucon on Lago Villarica to Puerto Varas on Lago Llanquihue.

It is a great region for hiking, skiing, boating, fishing and just chilling out in. Perhaps some Chilean friends can tell me of early literature of the region? The first German settlers in Chile eventually made their way through the mountains via Lago Todos Los Santos to settle in Argentina at Bariloche. I wonder if Pablo Neruda wrote any poems about the Chilean Lake District? My articles on the region are listed in the RHS column of this page and include:
Chilean Lake District A & B, and Southern Lakes Crossing, which is the tourist trip through the Andes to Argentina at Bariloche.

"Some great ferry boat trips in Chile"

One of the many exciting travel experiences in Chile's southern region is the frequent voyage by ship, or "transbordador", as they are called locally, or car ferry elsewhere in the world.

.....At Puerto Montt you can have your first experience of voyaging on a transbordador. The choice is considerable for distance traveled and size of ship. One needs only to front up at the bus terminal on the waterfront and buy a bus ticket to the town of Castro on the adjacent island of Chiloe, or Isla Grande de Chiloe, a 3 hour journey. Nobody tells you that the bus goes on a car ferry for half an hour, crossing the often stormy Canal de Chacao. Go to sleep on the bus and you miss the experience.
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Puerto Natales in Fiordland Chile

Puerto Natales in Chilean Patagonia is the starting off point to see the finest mountain and lake scenery in South America.

Torres del Paine National Park is one of the "in places" to go to in South America, rivaling Machu Picchu as a "must see" destination. While Torres del Paine is the big local attraction, there is plenty else to do and see around Puerto Natales. The Milodon Cave is superb as is the boat cruise up the adjacent fiord to view the glaciers... and close by over the Argentine border is the mighty Perito Moreno Glacier.
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A Guide to the Atacama Desert, Chile

.....How big is it?


As an "eco-region" it takes in most of northern Chile from the Peru border at Arica down south to about Copiapo, or a coastal strip of about 1000 kms. This is the really dry part where yearly rainfall recorded can be 1 mm or less! To the east the desert extends to the less arid central Andean plateau at 4000 meters in altitude. All told, the Atacama desert covers over 180,000 sq. kms consisting of barren sand, volcanic rock and salt pans.
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