Wild Patagonia

"Patagonia is a hard mistress. She casts her spell," wrote Bruce Chatwin. You find out for yourself within hours of reaching Torres del Paine, where every dawn begins with a quiet wait: a naturalist guide, a team of trackers on the radio, and somewhere out on the steppe a puma that may or may not choose to show itself. You sleep in a dome at the foot of the massif, and your days follow the cat's movements rather than a schedule.

Then you take the wheel. Tierra del Fuego is crossed by ferry and by 4x4, past abandoned estancias, guanacos and rheas, all the way to the only king penguin colony on the American mainland and the lenga forests of Karukinka park.

The journey ends at sea, aboard a small expedition vessel that rounds Cape Froward and enters the Francisco Coloane marine park. Two nights on Carlos III island, in the company of a biologist who knows the humpback whales by name, with the breathing of the whales to lull the camp to sleep.

At a glance

A wildlife-watching journey, designed with partners committed to conservation: part of your price plants trees in Patagonia and supports puma monitoring. Wildlife days start before dawn and take place in small groups with English- or Spanish-speaking naturalist guides; Terra Chile's French-speaking assistance remains a phone call away throughout. You drive yourself across Tierra del Fuego, on gravel roads and with two ferry crossings, and you accept two simple nights in a dome, with shared facilities, on an island with no other inhabitants. For curious, patient travellers in good shape, who would rather take their chances on a wild encounter than settle for a fixed itinerary.