Chile 2016-17

Arriving safely on 29 December, our plant enthusiasts wasted no time getting acquainted with the native flora.

(Click on any photo to view scroll through the gallery and see the plant names)

With plenty of flowers and glorious sunshine, the tour got off to a great start. Staying in Farellones, on the first full day the group went to a nearby ski centre (Valle Nevado) and took the chair lift to 10,400 ft, continuing on foot to reach 11,480 ft.

A lot of physical exertion on this day – they had to walk all the way back down as the chair lift stopped at noon for New Year!

The next visit was to La Parva – a town and ski resort 50km north east of Santiago.

Lagunillas Ski Centre was up next. Located in Cordillera province, it’s 67km from Santiago. Time for another walk to explore the native flowers.

Another day, another long walk! This was a tough one – six hours up San Francisco Valley, but the spectacular plants were well worth the effort.

The next stop was El Planchon, on the border with Argentina. Here, our group tackled the steep road via 4×4. There were some good plants to be seen but as the year had been dry, there was less to see than they hoped.

Travelling to Volcán Chillán, there weren’t many plants to see but there was a fantastic view of smoke coming out the top of the volcano!

Time to explore Volcán Chillán – part of a group of stratovolcanoes in the Andes and one of the most active in the region.

Next it was onto Shangri-La where Viola rosulata grows.

On to Antuco in Bío Bío Province.

The National Park of Conguillo was next, home to Llaima Volcano – one of the largest and most active volcanoes in Chile.

From there, it was on to Lake Coburn for a few days – the final stop before heading home.

Photos: David Haselgrove

Interested in finding out more about our tours? We regularly run trips like these to South America, including Argentina and Peru.