Unaware of Conguillio National Park (Parque Nacional Conguillio) before researching our road trip through the Chilean Lake District, this park kept coming up as a traveller favourite, not least because of its ancient Araucaria (Monkey Puzzle) forests. Having had a fascination with these unusual trees since childhood, I was intrigued and therefore made a visit to Conguillio the first stop on our road trip. I’m so glad that I did, as it was my traveller favourite as well. Read on to find out why….
Table of Contents
About Conguillio National Park
Where is the Conguillio National Park?
Conguillio National Park sits 75 miles east of Temuco in the Araucanía region, at the northern edge of the Chilean Lake District. It takes about 1.5 hours to drive there from Temuco Airport where you can pick up a rental car – it’s advisable to book a car in advance.
The drive to the entrance of Conguillio National Park from Temuco passes through rolling farmland, tree-lined roads with tractors trundling along, until mountains begin to appear on the horizon.
Alternatively, hire your car in Santiago and drive down to Temuco to cut down on flights. The drive takes 6.5 hours on toll road Ruta 5 (Pan-American Highway).
How big is Conguillio National Park?
Conguillio National Park is large – 235 sq miles (609 sq km) – and divided into two sections:
- Sector Los Paraguas (‘The Umbrellas’) to the west, offering winter skiing.
- Sector del Lago Conguillio, offering great hiking and other outdoor activities such as camping and kayaking (October to April).
The two sectors of the National Park are geographically separated by Llaima Volcano. As we visited Sector del Lago Conguillio, this review will concentrate on that sector.
Why is Conguillio National Park so special?
Conguillio National Park is special for many reasons, but I think it’s because it has a bit of everything, including:
- An imposing two-coned volcano;
- Landscapes of striking black volcanic soil with deep lava flow channels;
- Stunning blue and green lakes backed by the Sierra Nevada mountains;
- Ancient Araucaria forests;
- Bird watching and wildlife spotting opportunities, including pumas.
It’s therefore no surprise to learn that Conguillio National Park is a UNESCO biosphere reserve. The park feels rather ‘other worldly’ and is like nowhere else on the trip (or that I have ever been), making it very memorable.
The Llaima Volcano
The Llaima Volcano (Volcán Llaima) is 10,253 ft (3,125 m) high and stands proudly over both sides of the park, and the surrounding area of the Chilean Lake District. It has a distinctive double cone, because lava got trapped during an eruption, creating an extra cone as it tried to escape.
The Llaima Volcano is Chile’s second most active volcano (after the Villarrica Volcano in Pucón), having erupted more than 40 times since recordings began in 1640. It last erupted in 2008-9, when luckily the lava flowed north and away from the nearest town of Melipeuco. Our tour guide commented that the volcano tends to erupt on average every 10 years, so the next eruption is overdue – good to know as we entered the park!
Ancient Araucaria Forests
Conguillio National Park is home to ancient forests of Araucaria, Chile’s national tree. These trees are commonly known as Monkey Puzzle trees, allegedly so called because the branches are too confusing for monkeys to climb.
This area is the traditional home of the Pehuenche people who lived in the forest and used the nuts of the coniferous araucaria trees to make food and wine; they also made weapons and fuel from the wood of the trees, hence their name ‘People of the pewen’.
Today, the Araucaria tree is the cultural and spiritual symbol of the Pehuenche, and more broadly of the region. In Mapudungun, Conguilliomeans ‘water with pine kernels’.
Long ago, the Australasia plate and South American plates were joined in a land mass known as Pangea. This is the reason why a descendent Araucaria tree can be found in Australia, and in turn, a small marsupial from Australia is found in this area of Chile.
In Europe, we have a type of Monkey Puzzle tree where the branches droop downwards to the floor. These also exist in Chile, but the Araucaria trees filling the forests here have a very distinct shape, like upturned umbrellas with their branches held upwards. The UK monkey puzzle trees are a different variant, with Chilean origins dating back to 1795 when a traveller took the seeds to Britain by boat.
These ancient trees in the Chilean Lake District are, however, prehistoric and were in the park at the time of the dinosaurs. Their tall trunks have very thick bark, which is heat resistant, making them successful at surviving lava flows when the volcano erupts.
The Araucaria trees have attracted many famous visitors over the years, including environmentalist John Muir and Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who wrote an Ode to the Araucaría. In late 1911, John Muir described them as “a glorious and novel sight, beyond all I hoped for” before sleeping in the open air beneath the trees.
Clear blue lakes
There are many beautiful lakes within the eastern sector of Conguillio National Park, created by volcanic lava flows which damned the river (Rio Truful-Truful) and created the lakes, including:
Green Lake (Laguna Verde) – a large body of water with beautiful green water which looks striking in contrast to the black volcanic soil around it.
Rainbow Lake (Lanuna Arcolris) – a lake where you can see a sunken forest under the clear blue water. These are dead beech trees that are preserved in the water. The lake has a sign near the road about it being a filming location for the BBC TV series Walking with Dinosaurs. To be honest, when you are walking on the black earth around the blue lake, it isn’t too much of a mental leap to imagine a dinosaur lumbering out of the forest beyond.
Conguillio Lake (Laguna Conguillio) – a stunning lake to the north of the park and backed by the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains. This is the perfect place to kayak – see below. If you’re lucky,you might find red stones around the lake, once thrown out during previous volcanic eruptions.
Wildlife
Despite the park being a relatively dry and desolate landscape, there are many opportunities for wildlife spotting. Yellow signs throughout the park hint at puma sightings, however you are unlikely to see them during the day, unless you’re very lucky.
In addition to puma, keep your eyes peeled for smaller wildcats, red and gray foxes, hawks, black Magellanic Woodpeckers (which have a black body and a red head), and even Condors. Our condor sighting (see below) was one of the highlights of our road trip through the Chilean Lake District.
How best to explore Conguillio National Park?
Buy your National Park tickets in advance
The Chilean National Park organisation is called CONAF (Chile’s National Forest Corporation) and apparently their brown uniforms were designed to resemble trees!
We booked our tickets in advance of our tour using the National Park ticket website: www.conaf.cl
You will be asked to present your passes (and potentially ID) at the Ranger’s Office at the gates of the park when you arrive. This applies, even if you are entering on a guided tour.
Book a guided tour, hike or kayak trip
Before travelling to Chile for our road trip through the Chilean Lake District, we booked two trips with Melitrekan – a full day tour of Conguillio National Park, and a half day kayaking trip on Lake Conguillio.
We had the same guide for both days, Dany Pincheira, who I can’t recommend highly enough. He chatted in perfect English, was both interested and informative, and went out of his way to make our two days safe and memorable.
Dany picked us up from our hotel in his red Chevrolet double cab pick-up truck each morning before heading to the entrance of the Conguillio National Park.
You can contact Dani through his Instagram account is @Melitrekan to arrange tours, or alternatively I notice that the tours we did can now be booked on Get Your Guide (links below).
Full-day Conguillio National Park – Sadly, the weather was against us on the date of our full day visit to the park as once it started raining, it didn’t really stop. As a result, the Llaima Volcano was hidden by cloud and mist for the most part, although occasionally the cloud moved to show us snow on the ‘feet’ of the volcano. However, Dany was determined to help us enjoy our visit despite the weather.
We drove around Sector del Lago Conguillio through the volcanic black moonscape, stopping to take photos and take short walks through the trees in key places such as Rainbow Lake and Green Lake which looked very moody against a solid grey sky. We also sheltered from the rain amongst the dense, ancient Araucaria forest and visited ‘Araucaria Madre’, a tree which is over 1,800 years old.
The large expanse of fine black volcanic soil has a certain beauty to it. Whilst wildlife is scarce on the lava fields and volcanic slopes, we spotted hares bouncing along in-between small green shrubs – signs of new growth on the older lava fields. We heard the Magellanic Woodpecker tapping on trees in the Araucaria forest but unfortunately couldn’t spot the bird itself. There were many hawk-like birds around the park.
Kayak trip on Lake Conguillio – this was the highlight of my entire trip to the Chilean Lake District. Returning to the north end of Conguillio National Park on our second day, we were rewarded with a clear weather day.
As we drove through the black lava fields from the Ranger Station for a second time, we could see everything which had been obscured by clouds the previous day, including Volcano Llaima. As we drove through the section of the park with younger Araucaria trees on each side of the road, this time we could enjoy the view of the trees with the snowy Sierra Nevada behind, which is very pretty.
At Lake Conguillio, Dany parked up and unloaded the kayaks. After an equipment and safety briefing, we set off paddling across the lake which was as still and clear as a mirror. The paddle was so tranquil, with only the occasional hawk overhead interrupting the stillness.
We got out of our kayaks on the far shore of the lake for refreshments in the sun – hot tea with ginger and lemon, and homemade cake, before making our way across the lake to some hidden waterfalls, so remote that they have never been named, not even by the Mapuche.
At one point, we passed a tree on shore and stopped to watch an adult Condor feeding its juvenile on the branches, before taking flight and giving us a chance to admire its impressive wingspan. A very special moment.
Exploring Conguillio National Park under your own steam
If you plan to visit the park under your own steam, then consider the following:
Opening times
Conguillio National Park is a year-round destination for those who enjoy hiking, scenery, and wildlife, while skiing is possible in the winter. The park has different opening times depending on the time of year, so make sure that you check it online before visiting. Broadly speaking:
- April until mid-December (Autumn and Winter), open from 8.30am to 5.30pm, Tuesday to Sunday.
- From mid-December until March (Spring and Summer), open from 8.30am to 6.15pm, daily.
You will need a 4WD vehicle
The gravel and rocky roads in Conguillio National Park are a hazard to tyres as they weave through the harsh volcanic landscape. In addition, if it’s raining, the roads in the wooded areas can become muddy, and therefore slippy. As a result, a 4WD vehicle is required to enter the park.
Hiking in Conguillio National Park
There are many options for hikes in the park, but two popular ones are:
- Sendero Araucarias – a short woodland trail suitable for any hiker.
- Longer walk – from Playa Linda at the east end of Laguna Conguillio to the base of the Sierra Nevada, a more strenuous walk offering rewarding views of the Araucaria forest.
NOTE – Always check with the Rangers about the weather conditions for your visit, to make sure that the hike you are planning is suitable for the conditions.
Facilities
You can pick up a map from the Ranger station at the entrance to the park which will show you where the toilet facilities are in the park.
Cafe and refreshment options are limited inside this National Park, especially before the summer season get going.
There are however some options on the road towards the park, or back in the town of Melipeuco. On the advice of our guide, we booked a meal at Ruta Al Conguillio Restaurant which specialises in Chilean dishes. It offered a hearty meal of short ribs and salad, and chicken and salad, alongside bread made with flour ground from the pine nut of the araucaria trees.
Staying within the park
There are some rustic cabanas for staying within the park, or at designated campsites by Lake Conguillio – perfect if you want to ‘get away from it all’ as this is a great place for a digital detox and to reset. The sites are managed by the company Sendas. Alternatively stay outside the park and travel into the park each morning as desired.
Your base for a visit to Conguillio National Park
You can take day tours to Conguillio National Park from Temuco, but as it takes 1.5 hours of bus travel before you even get to the park entrance (plus further driving to get to the centre or north of the park sector) then it makes for a very long day of travel.
On a road trip through the Chilean Lake District, in my opinion, a better option is to stay overnight in the charming town of Melipeuco which makes an excellent base for exploring the Conguillio National Park and offers more homely accommodation options than camping or rustic cabanas in the park.
The town of Melipeuco
Melipeuco is a small, untouristy town backed by views of the mighty Volcano Llaima. It is within a 10 minutes’ drive of the Ranger station at Conguillio National Park.
In Melipeuco you can expect:
- Cosy, low-rise wooden buildings lining both sides of the main street with monkey puzzle trees on the pavements.
- Lots of places to pull up and park, so you can explore what the town has to offer.
- Tourist Office with a small museum housing Mapuche exhibits and information boards about volcanoes. We were surprised however that English was not spoken in the tourist office, which made us feel that we were off the beaten track!
- Offices of adventure tour operators to book tours, if you have not booked activities in advance.
- Craft and souvenir shops where you can pick up lots of woven, crocheted, and wooden carved goods.
- Note – the shops are usually closed between 1pm and 5.30pm.
- Lots of supermarket and mini-markets for picking up food supplies.
- Cafes for hot chocolates and local eateries such as Los Tranchos which we would highly recommend for a hearty lunch.
- Los Troncos (‘The Logs’) is a great place to sample Caseulas, a soup made with rice, meat, sweetcorn and squash. They grow their own vegetables and offered us organic chamomile liqueurafter the meal.
If you want nightlife, this probably isn’t the place for you, but if you want a laid-back vibe and perfect place to rest after a day’s activity in Conguillio National Park, then Melipeuco is a great base.
Accommodation in Melipeuco?
Hotel Conguillio is a lovely option just outside town and overlooking the Truful-Truful River. It is a wooden building in the woods with log burners and a cosy feel. We felt like we were staying in a cabin even though it was a hotel. Breakfast is included, and the hotel restaurant is open for food on some evenings. Interestingly, English was not spoken here either – a common theme in this town in our experience. We booked Hotel Conguillio on Booking.com
Final thoughts….
As outlined above, the Conguillio National Park is a very special place and one which is easily accessible on a road trip through the Chilean Lake District.
My recommendation is to make this an essential stop on your road trip. The scenery is stunning, and the Araucaria, or ‘Towers of Chile’ as called by Pablo Neruda, are iconic.
What an experience, and what a park. Seriously, don’t miss it!
Next stop Pucon and Chile’s most active volcano…..
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