Chile Guide
Southern Patagonia
Patagonia lies tucked away right at the southernmost tip of the Americas – indeed of the world's landmass, not counting Antarctica. Geographically ill-defined, "Patagonia" usually refers to the narrow triangle of land south of a line between Puerto Montt, in Chile, and Argentina's Península Valdés, while in Chile the term is usually reserved for SOUTHERN PATAGONIA. Much of this area is flat and dreary pampa but in the sliver of land shared by both countries, the Andes take a last, dramatic breath before plunging into the ocean.
Its very name holds a fascination for many travellers, including those of the armchair variety, but the reality can be harsh: Patagonia is cursed by a persistent wind (trees grow horizontally here, sculpted by the gales), winters are cold and summers short. It's still pretty much as described in the 1881 Across Patagonia by the eccentric nineteenth-century English traveller, Lady Florence Dixie: "Nowhere else are you so completely alone. Nowhere else is there an area of 100,000 square miles which you may gallop over, and where, whilst enjoying a healthy, bracing climate, you are safe from the persecution of fever, friends, savage tribes, obnoxious animals, telephones, letters and every other nuisance you are elsewhere liable to be exposed to."
These days large numbers of Chileans and non-Chilean visitors come to Patagonia principally to hike in the country's most famous and stunning national park, Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, a massif crowned with otherworldly granite towers. Others want to follow in the footsteps of the region's famous travellers, such as navigator Ferdinand Magellan, naturalist Charles Darwin, and author Bruce Chatwin. Others still come to gaze at the glaciers that calve icebergs into the sea, watch the penguins, and discover what it's like down here, at the very foot of the world.