North to South

Santiago

You are met on arrival at Santiago de Chile and transferred to your hotel where you stay for two nights.

This morning you are collected from your hotel for a tour of Chile’s capital. With your guide you stroll to Santa Lucia Hill, where Pedro de Valdivia founded the city in 1541. You visit the main Plaza de Armas with City Hall, National Museum, Central Post Office and Cathedral and other notable buildings nearby.

Atacama

This morning you are transferred to Santiago airport for your flight north to Calama. You are met on arrival at the airport and taken to San Pedro de Atacama where you stay for the next 3 nights to explore this spectacular area.

You begin to explore Atacama with a visit to the stone fortress of Pukará de Quitor–one of the most important archaeological sites of the area. You continue to Tulor, one of Atacama’s first settlements. In the afternoon you head to the village of Toconao which looks out across the wide salt flats. Toconao’s Church of San Lucas has a distinctive bell tower, built in 1750 from cactus wood and adobe. A small handicraft market is popular for alpaca wool and crafts. Descending to the Atacama Salt Flat, you cross to Chaxa Lagoon where flamingos quietly feed as you enjoy the sunset.

Today you travel high into the Andes reaching 4800m, the height of Mt Blanc–there are good alternatives at lower altitudes, close to the mighty Licancabur Volcano (5916m) and the border with Argentina. You journey through a puna landscape of lagoons and meadows, and pastures where llamas have grazed for centuries, to the weirdly eroded Los Monjes de la Pacana, where wind and frost have sculpted standing rocks into the shape of monks–monjes in Spanish. The monks guard the Salar de Aguas Calientes. Look for flamingos, vicuñas, rheas, ibis and other wildlife of the altiplano here. You return to San Pedro in time for lunch. In the latter part of the afternoon you leave your hotel again for the lunar setting of the Moon Valley–one of the Atacama’s most iconic sites. You look across Death Valley with its impressive salt formations before enjoying the sunset at Kari viewpoint.

A pre-dawn start for the drive to the Tatio Geysers (4320m) among the world’s largest and most impressive geothermal fields, puffing and steaming in the early morning chill. As you return you stop by the wetlands of Putana and at little Pueblo Machuca before arriving back in San Pedro. You are transferred to Calama airport for your flight back to Santiago for one night.

Chilean Lake District

Today you fly from Santiago to Puerto Montt in the Chilean Lake District. You are met on arrival and taken for a tour of the city: the main Plaza de Armas with its unusual wooden cathedral built from native larch, Melipulli Hill for views down to the port and fishing boats in the Tenglo channel, and Angelmo Market where the day’s catch is laid out for sale and Chilean specialities such as curanto and paila marina are on the menu in nearby restaurants. It is a short drive north to Puerto Varas on the shore of Lake Llanquihue opposite snow-capped Osorno Volcano and the peaks of Calbuco Volcano and Mt Tronador. The town’s Germanic architecture reflects its founders’ origins, and you visit the hillside church with your guide who gives you an introductory tour around the town where you stay for the next 2 nights.

Start today’s touring with a short visit to the beautiful Petrohué Falls that cascade down volcanic rock, before boarding a boat across the beautiful Lake Todos los Santos to Peulla, a remote village in stunning countryside for lunch. The snow-capped Osorno and Tronador volcanoes are ahead of you as you sail back across the lake, on a service that forms part of the fabulous ‘lake crossing’ route through the Andes to Argentina. From the landing you return by road to Puerto Varas.

The Far South

You are driven to Puerto Montt to fly south to Punta Arenas where you are met and taken to Puerto Natales, your base for the next 3 nights. During the 3 hour drive across the grasslands of the Patagonian steppe keep an eye open for grazing guanacos and ñandu or rheas. There is some free time for you to explore Puerto Natales for yourself and line up a restaurant for dinner.

Today you are collected from your hotel and taken to the pier at nearby Puerto Bories for a cruise along Last Hope Sound. This is a very scenic journey through Patagonian landscapes, which, if the Patagonian weather is being kind, gives long views of mountain sierras, waterfalls, and forests that give way to sheep farming estancias. Along the shore you should see black-necked swans and colonies of cormorants. ou 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 you 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. Your boat continues to a small estancia where you stop for a traditional asado al palo, or ‘lamb on the cross’ roasted by an open fire, with an opportunity to experience life on a sheep farm, and walk out or ride horses onto the lakeside steppe if you wish. You sail back to Puerto Natales and are transferred back to your hotel by the late afternoon.

Torres del Paine

Leaving Puerto Natales early, you travel by road into the spectacular Torres del Paine NP, undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and impressive reserves in the world with its distinctive granite peaks, lakes and glaciers. During the day you tour the main sites of the park, from the Cerro Castillo entry to the exit near the Milodon Cave, including many of the iconic views of the Paine massif, such as Lago Sarmiento and the Amarga Lagoon where on a sunny day the granite towers are mirrored in the clear water. You visit the Salto Grande waterfall, you stop at Nordenskjöld Lake for views of the cuernos, or horns, and at Lago Grey where you can walk across a hanging bridge over the Rio Pingo and along the lake’s shingle shore to an island forest of lenga trees and views of the floating Grey Glacier. Leaving the park you stop to walk inside the Milodón’s Cave beside a replica of the mylodon, a giant sloth from the Pleistocene era whose remains were found here. You should reach your hotel in the early evening after a very full day.

Santiago

Saying goodbye to the south you travel back to Punta Arenas to fly back to Santiago in central Chile for a final night.

A free morning to explore Santiago some more before you are collected and driven to the airport in time for your overnight flight back to the UK. If you have more time, you could easily extend this trip, perhaps to visit Easter Island, or to spend a few days among the vineyards of the Central Valley and in Valparaíso.