Coyhaique Travel Guide

Introduction

222km (138 miles) S of Puyuhuapi; 774km (480 miles) N of Cochrane

Aysén includes natural preserves whose rivers and lakes draw thousands every year for superb fly-fishing opportunities. Visitors who are not traveling the Carretera Austral can fly into Coyhaique from Santiago or Puerto Montt; travel to southern Patagonia from here requires that you fly again to Punta Arenas, unless you have your own car and plan to take the long and gravelly road through flat Argentine pampa, enter via sea to Chacabuco, or hike in through remote Villa O'Higgins.

South out of Queulat, the scenery provokes oohs and ahhs at every turn. The pinnacle of Cerro Picacho comes into view before you enter Villa Amengual, a service village for farmers. Sadly, however, the scenery is marred at times by the terrible destruction wreaked by settlers who burned much of the area for pastureland. An ill-conceived law in 1937 provoked the ecological disaster as colonists could only receive title to the land...