It doesn’t matter how many fancy Instagram filters you use, no photograph can accurately represent the mesmeric beauty of the Cuevas de Marmol, in Patagonia.
Like all the best natural wonders, it’s a pain to reach. You need to fly to Santiago, Chile, then take an internal flight to Balmaceda, 870 miles south. From there it’s a spectacular, bumpy four-hour drive down the Carretera Austral road to Puerto Rio Tranquilo, on the shores of Lake General Carrera. Now the magic begins, as you board a motorboat or, better still, hop into a kayak.
From a distance, the lake’s shore looks perfectly normal, but as you get closer, you notice the weird light. Over millennia, the lake’s glacial waters have licked the shore like ice cream, carving swirling tunnels, deep chambers and mushroom-like islands. Reflected sunlight bounces around the caves in a disco-like randomness of flashes, waves and glows.
Then something odd happens. The clarity of the lake and the play of the light on submerged rocks fool the mind into thinking that, rather than floating on water, you’re flying in space, drifting in zero gravity through the surreal, striated canyons of another world.
The Cuevas de Marmol are best visited in autumn (April to June in Chile), when water levels are lowest, and at sunrise, when the light is at its bounciest. Tours start at £12pp through boat operators in Puerto Rio Tranquilo. A two-week self-drive trip on the Carretera Austral starts at £3,735pp (01993 838640, audleytravel.com).