Exploring Patagonia at Yahoo! News

This week in my Yahoo! News travel column, I interview Moon Handbooks author Wayne Bernhardson about South America’s Patagonia region — a sprawling frontier of unrivaled wilderness; an emptier, antipodean version of the American West, full of gorgeous dry plateaus, dense, temperate rainforests, and active glaciers.

Bernhardson has a few tips for Patagonia first-timers:

I would say that first timers should sample the three principal environments — the wildlife-rich Atlantic coastline, the windy and seemingly endless steppe, and the ruggedly scenic Andes. The best, most accessible choice for the first would be Argentina’s Península Valdés, which swarms with whales, penguins, orcas, elephant seals, sea lions and other South Atlantic wildlife.

Inland, on the vast steppe between the Atlantic coast and the Andes, the highway between the Chilean cities of Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales (the gateway to Torres del Paine) is good for a first-timer. The road from Natales to Paine, also through the steppe, probably has more wildlife, though.

For sampling wildest mountain scenery, and its forests and lakes, the usual suspects are the granite needles of Chile’s Torres del Paine and the Moreno Glacier in Argentina’s Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (they’re close enough to each other that many people visit both). A more conventional choice is the more northerly area surrounding the Argentine city of Bariloche, in the so-called “lake district” that extends into Chile.

More tips on travel to Patagonia can be found in the full article, online here.

Posted by | Comments Off on Exploring Patagonia at Yahoo! News  | August 25, 2006
Category: Travel News

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