Last month, I began a new era of my short life. New job, new city and new experiences. After 5 years living close to the sea, in the hills of Valparaíso city, I’ve moved to Santiago de Chile. Capital, cosmopolitan and…terrible traffic jams at peak hours! But it just doesn’t matter because the reason why I am here is totally worth it: a work in Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve.
Yes it is! The ideal job I was looking for to enhance my professional career. But by the way, you might be asking yourself what is Huilo Huilo. If not, you might just give it a try in Google Images, then come back to this article with more interest.
There are still magical places in this world where things move at a natural pace…
Huilo Huilo begun in 2000 as a crazy dream in the south of Chile. Peterman-Reifschneider family started with a 100.000 ha private natural reserve project in the river region of Chile, near the border with Argentina. A protected area where the owners mainly chose to develop a sustainable and responsible tourism as a tool for nature conservation and community integration. I actually heard about this travel destination when I used to work as a journalist assistant for a French travel guide book.
Some Chilean friends might want to make a correction, by saying that Patagonia begins actually in Chiloe region, which is located south of Reloncaví fjord. But we need to consider that Patagonia begins at the same latitude as Huilo Huilo, on the Argentinian side, as indicated on ancient maps. So maybe a debate is still to come about where Chilean Patagonia begins.
Huilo Huilo is a natural temperate rainforest at the gates of Patagonia pampas. High native trees stands as an unique and complex ecosystem that shelters a variety of flora and fauna. The inventory work of species is still in progress as I write this article, but some endemic species have already been identified, such as the Darwin’s frog or the Little bush monkey.
With time, theses 100.000 ha of private property revealed a strong potential to develop sustainable and responsible tourism in the heart of a preserved natural environment. Montaña Mágica (Magic Mountain) is the first lodge ever built in the Biological Reserve, proudly standing in the middle of the century native trees, with a small waterfall pouring from its top. Like a magic dream that grow out from the fertile soil of the rainforest. Then came 7 other accommodations disseminated in the intensity of the forest.
Huilo Huilo stands also as an internationally awarded destination that also enhance the natural and cultural heritage of this specific area of Chile. Through different and original projects of species conservation and reintroduction projects, Huilo Huilo Foundation managed to implement a global project that in long term would allow the complete regeneration of the native ecosystem of its temperate rainforest. Among the most remarkable projects, we could name the Huemul Conservation Center.
Constant works of integration of local community through the development of a sustainable tourism and education are the other pilar that makes Huilo Huilo so complete and unique. The area shares its past between Mapucheculture and wood commerce which used to be the only source of income. Today, Huilo Huilo Foundation take concrete actions to create jobs in tourism, hand crafted production and scientific investigation area to encourage conservation of the forest.
I had a great time spending five days discovering a small part of this wide rainforest. Maybe this is one of few places of Chile where being immersed in a forest is part of the travel experience. Chile offers such a huge diversity of landscapes, but not a lot take in account native forest. Certainly because wood is also a source of income for many companies.
Today, Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve is world known thanks to its most emblematic accommodation Montaña Mágica, which is considered by a lot of travel magazines and blogs as one of the hotels to go before you die. Moreover in 2015, the Reserve won its most prestigious prize: the National Geographic World Legacy Awards 2015.
