Chile #5: Parque Nacional Huerquehue

Written by

I wanted to include our a post about our day at Parque Nacional Huerquehue, but there’s not really a story besides a nice day of hiking, so I’m going to be demo-ing my first post where the main focus is photography instead of writing. Shot on iPhone, so don’t be expecting DSLR wizardry.

Hodei sleeping in the car.

“Huerquehue” is endlessly fun to say. Pronounced wehr-KEH-weh.

This photo is a screenshot from a video, so excuse the bad quality. This road violates just about any car rental contract, so I had to include it.

The funky-looking (and beautiful) tree is the Araucaria, native only to select regions of southern Chile.

Whenever you’re in rural southern Chile, seeing sheep is almost a guarantee.

Around this part in the forest, and not for the last time, we started listening to “Concerning Hobbits” from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack.

Halfway up the hike, you get beautiful views of Volcán Villarica and the surrounding scenery.

Not that I wasn’t ever before, but during Chile I really was such a lake merchant.

This was, however, one of the few times I didn’t jump into a body of water.

More looks at the Araucaria. I guess these were widespread during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, which makes sense—remnants from the dinosaur age.

Comments

4 responses to “Chile #5: Parque Nacional Huerquehue”

January 21, 2026

Anonymous

Love the Araucaria trees!! And that road–wanna drive a rental car on/through it contract be damned!

LikeLike

Reply
January 21, 2026

Chile #6: Pucón, Part 3: Stranded – Sam Healey

[…] buses back to Santiago were at 9 and 9:30, and it was already dark as we were leaving Parque Nacional Huerquehue. We knew that it was going to be a bit of a scramble, though I was on the second bus, so I had less […]

LikeLike

Reply
January 22, 2026

leahhetteberg

Get this man a DSLR ASAP

LikeLike

Reply
January 22, 2026

dutifullyjolly61cbf073df

i thought hodei was o’day 😭

LikeLike

Reply