As the Patagonia region is really big, we are publishing the next highlights straight away. Due to the particularly harsh climate, there are many natural attractions that are simply worth seeing and reporting on. This blog post is about exciting marble formations on the one hand and a detour to the Patagonia National Park on the other, you can’t get much more Patagonia than this.

Marble caves on Lago General Carrera

The only way to get to the famous marble caves is by water. We either grab a kayak or join a motorized boat tour. We opt for the second option, less wet and more time for the marble caves fits in well with our plan. Here, the layers of rock were formed by prehistoric times in such a way that marble and limestone are close together. Later glaciers and their meltwater formed the second largest lake in the whole of South America, Lago General Carrera, and the differences in level of the water washed out the limestone between the marble, resulting in the beautiful marble caves. We drive slowly along the coastline to see the marble caves that have been artfully shaped by nature. Some of the caves are large enough for the boat to enter them and get very close to the cool marble. Impressive! The sun and the blue-green water turn the marble in different shades of blue. Such a beautiful spectacle – the marble cave tour has already paid off.

Two remarkable marble formations are the marble cathedral and the somewhat smaller marble chapel a few meters off the coast. Both are small islands which are held up by marble alone. This allows us to see through the base of the island because of the erosion. For tourists who like to make videos, the captain drives 360° around the marble cathedral, so that the video shows the perforated foundation of the island to its best advantage. At the same time, it is probably the 20 seconds of the boat trip that give the captain the most pleasure, as we complete the circle quite quickly. We enjoy the trip on Lago General Carrera, which is quite friendly today, and are unloaded again in Puerto Río Tranquilo. The marble cave tour: a must for every tourist visiting Lago General Carrera!

Fun fact 1: Lago General Carrera is located on both the Chilean and Argentinian sides and therefore has two names! In Chile, where we visit the lake, it is called Lago General Carrera, in Argentina it has the name Lago Buenos Aires.

Fun fact 2: As described above, Lago General Carrera/Buenos Aires is the second largest lake in South America. Only Lake Titicaca is larger. Lake Titicaca is also an international lake and connects two countries: Peru and Bolivia. Read our report from our visit to Lake Titicaca here.

Patagonia National Park

On our route across the smallest border crossing to Argentina so far, we drive through the Patagonia National Park one way or another. We want to finally see a puma and several visitors have already seen pumas in this national park. We make a somewhat longer stop at an official campsite in the middle of the national park. We try everything: in the evening, at dusk, we are still out and about, we are walking over 20 km and watching everything that moves just a little bit. But it’s no use. This time we don’t see a puma. Maybe the next time we visit this park? Fortunately, the chances of a sighting are still high as we continue on our way over the Paso Roballos. And there is still a puma population further south, so a sighting is not yet out of the realm of possibility for us.
Incidentally, the Patagonia National Park was still private until recently! The park was founded and maintained by the American Douglas Tompkins and his wife until it was donated to the state of Chile in 2018. Does the name sound familiar? We have already written about Douglas Tompkins in our report Patagonia Pt Montt – Río Tranquilo, as Douglas also founded the Pumalín National Park. A true nature lover to whom Chile and Argentina owe some of their greatest national parks and nature reserves.

Onwards through Patagonia

As previously announced, we leave Chile via the single-lane international road over the Paso Roballos and again travel through Argentinian Patagonia. The nature is similar but depending on the side of the mountain range in the middle the sights are either in Chile or Argentina. We’ll be reporting from Argentina again in the next blog post!