Ranco Lake

(Crab waters)

Ranco Lake (Lago Ranco) comprises 104,525 acres, is square shaped and splashed with islands.  Currently almost the entire coast is occupied by summer houses. Ranco Lake is well equipped for tourism and sport fishing and stands as one of the most beautiful lakes in the South of Chile lake district.

Ranco Lake is fed by the Iculpe, Futangue, Riñinahue, Nilahue, Calcurrupe, Melipue and Guinahue rivers. Its flow forms the Bueno river (río Bueno), which after 82 miles, gets to the sea.

Ranco Lake has a dock that is some hundred years old where you can find small steam boats, which have been abandoned, resting melancholic and dreaming away with the possibility of returning to the ocean one day.

The visitors to Ranco Lake can take rowing boat trips and access to the deserted islands. It’s also possible to spend a night in these mysterious and solitary places.

Exactly in the middle of Ranco Lake there’s the Huapi island, a Mapuche reservation, which fortifies the indigenous influence in the zone. Besides, there’s the Colcuma island, property of a local family, where it’s possible to find, sheltered among the forests of ulmos (Eucryphia cordifolia), tepas (Laureliopsis philipiana), coigües (Nothofagus dombeyi), raulíes (Nothofagusalpina poeep), boldos (Peumus boldus) and laureles (Laurus nobilis), thousand of deer, pheasants, and all kind of birds, many of them in extinction in other places of the country.

During the day, the waters of Ranco Lake have an intense blue, making it hard to differentiate them from the deep sky that at sunset turns red and violet.

The lake is surrounded by native forest, where immense oaks and coigües play interlacing its roots between the strong waves, creating an unbelievable scenery.

** Information related to Hours, Rates and Dates might change without any previous notice **