CHILE

Pinched between the Andean cordillera (mountain range) and the rugged Pacific coast, Chile unfurls over 4,000km (2,485 miles) from the ever-changing contours of the star-lit, sun-baked Atacama Desert in the north to the glacier-sculpted Patagonian wilderness in the south, and far west to the remote Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Between these extremes, you’ll find landscapes that have stirred the country’s poets and artists for centuries: snow-capped volcanoes, crystalline lakes, sprawling fjords, ancient forests and verdant valleys. Its cosmopolitan capital, Santiago, surprises visitors with bustling barrios, a thriving creative scene and genteel people, fond of family and conversation. Meanwhile, the rolling Maipo Valley vineyards lie just beyond the city’s southern limits, and the colourful, bohemian port city of Valparaíso tumbles into the Pacific to the west.

Further south, the Chilean Lake District, with its forests and peaks, springs and waterfalls, is still shaped by Mapuche culture and German settlers in colonial wooden towns. Then, Patagonia, and the awesome granite spires of Torres del Paine, are where the world’s climbing elite rub shoulders with hardy hikers, and the landscape is dominated by glacial monoliths, ferocious winds, azure lakes and vast kaleidoscope skies.