see :Marble Cathedral

The Marble Cathedral is one of the most amazing places you’ve probably never seen. Intricately carved out of the marble cliffs by the shimmering, turquoise waters of Lake General Carrera, this beautiful network of caverns is nature’s architecture at its finest.


The Marble Cathedral is just one of a number of amazing rock formations along the shores of Lake General Carrera, Chile, South America’s second largest freshwater lake (aka Lake Buenos Aires in Argentina). But it’s not surprising that they’re a little off the tourist map: from the nearest city it’s a 200-mile drive along hairy dirt roads to get to this area of remote Patagonia.

In this totally unspoilt region, the pure glacial water almost seems to glow (like the bio-luminescent bay we featured a while back), lighting up the patterned walls of the caves both above and below the surface. This is due to ‘glacial flour’, finely ground particles of rock which are suspended in the water and scatter the light.