PATAGONIA

Patagonia, also known as the end of the world, it is located at the tip of south America, separated from the rest of Chile by a barrier of fjords and mountains covered by the south and north ice-field. The south ice-field is the biggest ice mass in the southern hemisphere, with the exception of Antarctica. It is beautiful scenery with enormous inhabited areas and remarkable skies that are place for a variety of birds and mammals. The incomparable rustic beauty of Patagonia is so unique that most of the areas are protected by parks, forest reserves or worldwide biosphere reserves such as the Torres del Paine National Park.

Patagonia has different types of landscapes, depending on its geographic location and also on the weather conditions present in each area.
On the west side we find a labyrinth of Patagonian channels that wind along the fjords, glaciers and countless islands covered by nothofagus, cypress and canelo forests, one of the wildest, beautiful and unknown landscape.

Towards the North the Torres del Paine National Park is located, with such beauty it was declared by UNESCO as a biosphere worldwide reserve in 1978. The Paine massif is a mountain group totally independent from the Andes mountain range, it formed itself 12.000.000 years ago, this was caused by the intrusion of granite rocks into the Magallanes river basin, and they pushed the sedimentary rocks outside. After successive glacial periods, the massif was carved, giving away the characteristics we can see today in the park, such as the soft color granite rocks which are in the Torres, the lower part in the Cuernos and in the Fortaleza, while the sedimentary rock is the black portion on top of the Cuernos and in the Fortaleza's hill.

Towards the East, on Brunswick Peninsula, Punta Arenas is located, the capital of Magallanes and the Chilean Antarctic, situated on the famous Strait of Magellan, that was the mandatory pass to all ships going to the Pacific Ocean, before the Panama Channel was opened in 1914.

Tierra del Fuego, the South America's largest island is located on the other side of the Strait of Magellan. It is divided between Chile and Argentina, inhabited by a few thousand people and a million sheep.
The territory was discovered in 1520 by the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, who named the place first Land of Smokes and later Land of Fire, as he saw what were probably the fires produced by the local aborigines for heat.
The Pampas (grasslands), extended from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas, also including the north part of the Tierra del Fuego Island.
The south part of the island changes its vegetation as it gets closer to the Darwin Cordillera; this is where we can find enormous Nothofagus forests and also hidden lakes that are much appreciated for fly fishing.

The Beagle Channel it's what separates Tierra del Fuego Island to Navarino Island, it is here where we can find Puerto Williams with only 1,500 inhabitants is then the southernmost village in the world. This place has beautiful national parks and virgin protected areas, practically unknown for most of the inhabitants of the region. Southern this area the Cape Horn archipelago can be found, a group of inhospitable islands inhabited only by one family who are watching this place. Going across the Drake Passage we get to Antarctica, one of the worlds most untouched places, which is home for an incredible fauna of marine mammals, birds such as penguins and petrels.

The region is one of the most prosperous in the whole country, because of the excellent tour services that are offered, such as travel agencies tour packages, hotels, restaurants.

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