Chilean Patagonia

There's something to be said for getting off the beaten path.  And I'm a person naturally attracted to the unknown, the untrammeled, the undiscovered.  So when someone turned me on to a little-known private reserve deep in the Lakes District, I had to go check it out.  Haven't heard of Huilo Huilo?  Neither had I.

The rainforest of the northern Lakes District of Chile reminds me a bit of Olympic National Park in western Washington.  Big mountains, big trees, volcanoes everywhere, and hundreds upon hundreds of lakes.  It's an impressive landscape.  Over the course of 4 days at Huilo Huilo, we snowshoed on the Mocho Volcano, caught fish in a private lagoon nestled in the mountains, hiked along the Rio Fuy, drank excellent beer at the on-site brewery, zip-lined above the valley floor, and ate some of the best food of our entire trip.