Guanacos on Tour in Chile
Domesticated llama and alpaca species are raised commercially
Most of the guanacos that visitors observe while hiking in Chile will be in one of the country’s guanaco reserves or national parks in the far north or south of this narrow, 2,653 mile-long country. Visitors on Chile tours may also observe the species, looking out the car window between Patagonia hiking destinations in the vast stretches of steppe, a major component of the Patagonian landscape. If you travel to Chile on the northern coast, you may see frolicking baby guanacos any time of year because there is no predictable birthing season, though most guanacos are born between July and December.
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Guanacos on Tour
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Guanacos are found in great numbers in Chile Patagonia. Of Chile’s national parks, 450,000-acre Torres del Paine National Park is a place where visitors on Chile tours will definitely see guanacos, because several thousand of them inhabit the park. In this hiker’s paradise, guanacos are a common sight along the trails, especially in some of the less-visited areas of the park such as Laguna Verde.
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Guanacos mate between November and February in Chile’s southern regions. Guanaco breeding grounds are found on the west side of the park. Thanks to the breeding patterns of guanacos, newborns are a common sight during the short tourist season when visitors travel to Patagonia. Most are born in December and January. This makes the species a popular photo subject for visitors who travel to Torres del Paine National Park where early December is the prime guanaco birthing time. The other likely spot to observe guanacos during travel to Chile is the country’s most southerly tip. Here in Tierra del Fuego, visitors will see the most newborns from mid-December through the month of January.
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Seven of Southern Explorations’ Chile tours visit Torres del Paine National Park, ranging from seven to twelve days. For visitors wishing to travel to Argentina during their Patagonia vacations, we also offer six Chile-Argentina combo trips that include Torres del Paine National Park tours. These are the eleven-day Luxury Patagonia, the fourteen-day Hiking Patagonia Panorama and Luxury Patagonia and Wineries trips, the fifteen-day Patagonian Lakes and Glaciers trip, the sixteen-day Australis Glacier Cruise and Patagonia Hiking Plus trip and the twenty-one-day Full Patagonia trip. Of these combo trips, the Australis Glacier Cruise and Patagonia Hiking Plus and Full Patagonia trips also visit Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego National Park, an area inhabited by far more guanacos. The Patagonia Lakes and Glaciers and Full Patagonia combo trips also travel to Nahuel Huapi National Park where guanacos roam in the higher elevations areas of the park’s eastern region. The itinerary of our Full Patagonia trip itinerary includes the Valdes Peninsula, another protected area for the species. In addition, we offer a four to five-day lodge-based tour extension to Torres del Paine National Park which visitors on Chile tours or Argentina tours may wish to add to their travel to Patagonia.
