Riverboat Tour

We spent the afternoon aboard the Katherine II, touring Rio Valdivia, Rio Calle-Calle and Rio Cruces, circumnavigating Isla Teja, so-named for a brick factory on the island. The island is now home to Universidad Austral´s botanical garden.

Surrounding wetlands formed in 1960 after a magnitude 9.5 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. The state preserved 18,000 acres of wetland in 1972. It provides important habitat for the black-necked swan, which was nearly extinct here by 2003 due to pulp mill pollution that killed its primary food source: algae.

Eucalyptus plantation lines much of the route but eventually gives way to state-owned natural forest.