A Tour to The Marble Chapels

The “Marble Chapels“, in General Carrera Lake, Chile, are mineral formations made of calcium carbonate located on that lake, just a few miles from the small village of Puerto Tranquilo. The formations have three main islets, a few meters away form the shore, called the Cathedral, the Chapel and the Cave. To find the origin of the marble rocks that make up the place we have to go back 370 million years, when and geologic event deposited calcareous sediments. The passing of time and the erosion produced by the wind and the swell of the lake have cleaned all the impurities of the marble rock creating the impressive shapes that we can see nowadays. The chapels can be enjoyed in situ, taking a small boat to go over them, even inside if the water level is right and the weather is good enough.

The chapels were declared “Nature’s Sanctuary”, one of the protection categories considered on the Chilean legislation over National Monuments. Despite this they are still not well know outside the area and almost unknown by the international tourism. The existence of the chapels was documented from the first time by the Italian-Argentinian explorer Clemente Onelli on his book Climbing the Andes, where he related his 1896-1897 journey, sponsored by the Argentinian government as part of the exploration and reconnaissance campaigns led by the borders expert Francisco P. Moreno. On that book he included, apart from a brief description of the marble formations, two photographies of the islets.

General Carrera Lake, located between 46° 16´y los 46° 54´ South, is a huge binational lake, extending its waters both in Argentina, where is called Buenos Aires Lake, and in Chile. It his the largest lake in Chile and the fourth largest in Argentina. All in all it is the fourth largest in South America after Maracaibo in Venezuela, Titicaca (shared by Bolivia and Perú) and Poopó in Bolivia. Its maximum depth is 590 m. and its total surface 1,850 Km^2. As most of the big lakes in Patagonia, it is of glacier origin, part of the binational Argentinian-Chilean watershed of the Baker River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean. The weather of the area is cold and extremely windy, with high cliffs over most of the lake perimeter. Nevertheless, some of the small villages on the lake shore enjoy a relatively kind weather.

The valleys surrounding the lake were populated for the first time by groups of hunter-gatherers that lived in the area. There are evidences of this in the form of cave paintings, tools and funerary sites. The original name of the lake on the native Tehuelche language is “Chelenko“, meaning “troubled waters”. The Tehuelche people occupied peacefully these valleys up to the second half of XIX century. Then the process of conquest and occupation from the European colonists of the new countries of Chile and Argentina kept displacing both physically and culturally the native people along the entire Patagonian territory. The lake was discovered by the Argentinian geographer Carlos Moyano, during an exploration journey in 1880. He was the one who gave the lake the name Buenos Aires. In Chile, in 1959, coinciding with a new political and administrative division of the Aysén province, the lake was given the name of General Carrera, to honor one of the main actors of the country’s independence.

If we could choose, we will take the name Chelenko for the lake, not only because it is the original name given by the first inhabitants of these lands, but also because using it you can refer to the entire lake with just one name, as opposed to two different ones depending on what side of the border you are, which is quite odd. These is the same situation as other big lakes in Southern Patagonia, shared by Argentina and Chile, such us lakes Pueyrredón/Cochrane or San Martín/O’Higgins.

The access to the lake and the marble chapels was done historically from the Argentinian side, from the famous Route 40, built over the ancient trails used by the native Tehuelches. From the Chilean side the Aysén area remained very isolated for long time; as other areas of the Chilean Patagonia it was accessible only by boat or plane, or passing by the Argentinian territory. During the 1990 decade, the construction of the Carretera Austral (Southern Road) made the connection with the rest of the Chilean territory possible. That allowed for some degree of touristic affluence.

From the Argentinian side you can get to the Marble Chapels from Los Antiguos, a town located by the Buenos Aires Lake, only 3 Km. away from the Chilean border. From Los Antiguos you cross the border passing to the Chilean town of Chile Chico. From there you have to cover 180 Km. of an spectacular (but unpaved) road that borders the South and West sides of the lake to reach Bahía Mansa, just a few kilometers away from Puerto Tranquilo. There several companies take visitors on boats to the marble chapels. From the Chilean side of the mountain range you can get to the chapels from the South, coming form Cochrane (116 Km. to Puerto Tranquilo) or from the North via Coihaique, 215 Km.

If you wish, you can take a tour to the Buenos Aires/General Carrera Lake and visit the Marble Chapels with Tierras Patagónicas, as part of our Southern Patagonia Tour. We go from Bariloche to El Calafate by Route 40, with one stop in Los Antiguos. From there we pass to Chile Chico and cover all the road by the lake using a 4WD vehicle. Once we reach Bahía Mansa we take the boats to the rock formations with the local guide Pedro Contreras. After the boat trip we continue to Puerto Tranquilo where we have some rest and then take our way back to Los Antiguos to spend the night there.