Carretera Austral and Northern Patagonia

V!VA User‘s Description

Considering its proximity to the Lake District, the Carretera Austral and the Chilean part of Southern Patagonia receive surprisingly few visitors – as a lot of people simply skip over the area on their way down to Tierra del Fuego. The climate starts to get harsher around here, with strong winds, freezing cold nights and barren terrain – a landscape immortalised by novelist Bruce Chatwin in his book ‘In Patagonia’.

One of the most visited spots on the Carreterra Austral is Villa O’Higgins, a tiny hamlet in the south that owes its popularity partly to the fact that it is right at the end of the Carretera – the road from which this region takes its name. The drive down the final 100km of the road boasts some amazing scenery, as does the town itself, set on the edge of a lake – Lago O’Higgins.

At the tip of Latin America’s landmass, meanwhile, Southern Patagonia features one of the most beautiful national parks, Torres del Paine. It is named after its three huge vertical granite towers, standing high in a barren, windswept land.