Patagonia & the Vineyards

What follows is a long country taken in three pieces, and the middle piece is the reason for the other two. One night in Santiago first, in the residential quiet of Vitacura rather than the financial district, because a flight lands late and the Andes are better met in the morning. Then south, and the scale changes completely. Three nights at Patagonia Camp on Lake Toro, where all eighteen domes face the granite towers directly, and two full days with nothing scheduled in them. Three more at Estancia Cerro Guido, a working cattle ranch on a hundred thousand hectares of steppe on the park's edge. The week ends where it began, almost. A flight back to Santiago on day eight, then out to the Casablanca hills for two nights at a working organic wine estate, which is a deliberate landing rather than an afterthought.

The days in Torres del Paine are yours to shape, and both properties are built to be shaped. Patagonia Camp runs private and shared excursion programs at a range of difficulty, so a hard day on the trail and an easy morning by the lake are equally available. The estancia offers horseback riding in the Sierra Baguales, trekking on Cerro Guido, fly fishing, and a four-wheel-drive run to the Argentine border. At Matetic the vineyard tours are private and the cellar is part of the working estate, not a showroom. Transfers are handled at both ends of every flight, with a driver waiting in the arrivals hall. Should the wind come off the cordillera hard enough to keep you inside, or the light on Lake Toro hold long enough to be worth staying out for, the schedule was built expecting it.