Chilean Patagonia (Southern Chile)
Southern Channels, Magallanes (Chile), Western Patagonia
Patagonia is the scene of the world's great adventures. Even if we know
little of the place, the name itself inhabits our subconscious; el fin del
mundo or end of the world. We picture large silent spaces, tempestuous seas,
windblown solitude.
The first Europeans to sight this landscape were led by Ferdinand Magellan, who pioneered passage through the treacherous strait that now bears his name. His expedition named the mainland 'Tierra de los Patagones,' unwittingly spawning the myth of a race of Patagonian giants. To the south, they saw the horizon darkened by smoke from the natives' fires, and named the great island Tierra del Fuego ( Land of Fire ).
The indigenous groups who inhabited Tierra del Fuego deserved to be legends, as these were the world's first and greatest adventurers. In arriving on Tierra del Fuego they had completed the world's furthest human migration, arriving finally at the very end of the earth, where the Andes disappeared into the sea and glaciers flowed to the water's edge.
To the east of the Andes, the Patagonian pampa or plain is an immense desert, by some accounts among the five largest deserts in the world.
West of the Andes is another world. Here both the Central Valley and the Coast Range have sunk into the Pacific; what were once glacial valleys are now fjords, and what were once mountain-tops are now islands. Hot springs lay revealed by coastal erosion, while great glaciers further fragment the landscape. Great forests cloak the Andes from the Pacific shoreline to the continental divide, bisected by surging rivers carrying glacial silt to the sea and providing habitat for trout and salmon.
This immense territory is best understood as two separate regions, separated by the vast expanse of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.
Northern Patagonia is one of the world's last great expanses of wilderness, accessed by a gravel highway known as the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway), completed in 1988. Even today, road access to the region is not complete, and travelers on the Carretera Austral must hop ferries across the mouths of great fjords.
Here the port of Chaitén provides access to the northernmost portions of the Carretera Austral, including truly world-class rafting and fly fishing, and cruises to glaciers and island hot springs. Further south is the city of Coihaique, capital of the Aisén Region and an ideal base for flyfishing and overland trips on the southern Carretera Austral, to lago General Carrera and the Northern and Southern Ice Fields.
Southern Patagonia, known as Magallanes Region, is a world apart, where the broad expanses of the pampa meet with the glacially sculpted spires of the Andes. Torres del Paine National Park and World Biosphere Reserve is the most famous of the vast protected areas in Magallanes, preserving habitat for guanacos, foxes, rheas and flamingos. South of the park is Puerto Natales, terminal for southbound ferries from Puerto Montt and operations base for hiking and horseback trips, glacier cruises, and overland trips.
Last updated: March 24, 2006