2020-06-01_Travel+Leisure

78 TRAVEL+LEISURE | JUNE 2020

for the dolphins that live here. Sadly, she didn’t

spot any, but we later heard that they had been

seen that day in front of the hotel.

The following morning we got up early and

headed into the park. Aside from the isolation,

its biggest draw is the Hanging Glacier, which

droops precipitously from a mountaintop nearly

2,000 feet high. After crossing a wooden

When the poet Pablo Neruda wrote that ‘at the

end of Chile the planet breaks,’ he must have

had in mind the fractured landscapes of Aysén.

footbridge strung over the Ventisquero River,

we followed a path through the forest. The

vegetation grew in an extraordinary profusion of

tufts and fronds, and something in the jungle

was emitting a sharp minty scent. “It’s just like

Vicks VapoRub!” Charlie shouted back at me.

Apart from the squelching mud under our feet,

the only sound was the call of the chucao

Puyuhuapi Lodge,

a hot-springs hotel

on the shores of the

Puyuhuapi fjord.

TAL0620_F_AysenChile.indd 78 FINAL 4/21/20 8:19 PM