Laura Tanna
Air so pure only now - in Northern Patagonia, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains - do I realise how polluted is the rest of the world. Years ago I caught a newscast of President Clinton meeting with other world leaders in a place called Llao Llao. The view from that hotel took my breath away. I vowed that one day I, too, would look upon the glory of glacier-covered mountains beyond blue lakes surrounded by evergreen forests.
Little did I know that by planning our flight from Buenos Aires to San Carlos de Bariloche in November, spring in Argentina, we have that incredible view made more majestic by golden flowers of the retama bush blooming brilliant yellow throughout the landscape, just as the jacaranda trees blooming purple in Buenos Aires made our visit there more beautiful.
Mind you, the 40-minute bumpy drive from Bariloche airport to Llao Llao Hotel (pronounced Shao Shao) put me off a bit with the flat, arid landscape - not at all what I expected, nor what we finally experience. And the hotel's driver not speaking a word of English doesn't help.
At first, the isolation, the solitude, creates a loneliness, a feeling of being abandoned in the boondocks, no matter how stunningly beautiful. Right away my instinct says, "Return to the splendour and cultural richness of Buenos Aires! Don't waste your precious time here." Oddly enough, my city-loving husband is the one who persuades me to stay. Perhaps he hasn't the energy to pack and travel again, though the two-hour Lan flight from the city airport just five minutes from Recoleta went perfectly smoothly in a large aircraft with pleasant staff.
Llao Llao Hotel is under the same ownership as the Alvear Palace in Buenos Aires, but the Alvear's gilded luxury gives way at Llao Llao to rustic comfort, resembling the Lodge at Yellowstone Park, in Wyoming. Llao Llao's exterior, built of brown logs with slanted roofs to allow winter snows to slide off, simulates Alpine architecture of a ski resort, which it is in winter. The interior of cypress-panelled high ceilings, chandeliers created from antlers, chairs covered with deerskins or native Indian textiles, lampshades of transparent animal skins - reminding me creepily of Hitler's human-skin light shades - portrays Llao Llao's other life as a locale for hunting, fishing and horseback riding.
The property
View from Llao Llao Hotel of Lago Nahuel Huapi and Andes mountain range. - Photos by Laura Tanna
Opposite the lobby entrance plate-glass floor to ceiling windows open on to a veranda where the focal point of the mountain resort is the truly spectacular vista of green lawns rolling down to a lake, surrounded by evergreens while sunlight plays across the snow-covered Andes.
Life here is much slower than in Buenos Aires, and much less English is spoken. Definitely not a place for the high-powered to continue living at a fast pace. Photographs of President Eisenhower visiting in 1960 line the stairwell. Perhaps the 18-hole golf course attracted him, though I understand he fished as well. The Municipal Park lies a short walk down the hill. We take a walk in the woods of no great consequence, though are enchanted when we meet a group of tiny, tiny school children all neatly dressed, singing in unison.
Puerto Panuelo also lies a short walk down the hill and from there one can take boat trips of varying lengths, even to Chile. We opt for an afternoon voyage on Lake Nahuel Huapi to Victoria Island, part of Nahuel Huapi National Park where we walk through a forest of Arrayanes trees, in the same family as eucalyptus trees. Normally Arrayanes grow only into small shrubs. In Japan, they make them into tiny Bonzi trees.
The unique climatic conditions of Northern Patagonia allow Bosque Arrayano to be the only place in the whole world where the Arrayanes grow to more than 20 metres. For US$32, instead of $20, one can sit upstairs in the boat where they serve delicious pastries - shortbread covered in caramel and coated in chocolate, or savouries similar to patties - and offer drinks to offset the chill, though most people venture outside to feed swooping seagulls who will eat crackers from one's hands. A variety of tours, as short as two and a half hours or all day for almost 10 hours, allow one to take ski lifts to Campanario Hill or to Cerro Catedral (Mt. Cathedral) for fantastic mountain vistas, or excursions around other lakes and villages, though don't necessarily expect to find an English-speaking guide unless you come in a group with one.
High season for visitors from Buenos Aires and especially Brazil is July and January/February, their winter and summer months, at which time the area's hotels and restaurants are crowded; otherwise one enjoys calm. Llao Llao Hotel (www.llaollao.com) sends shuttle buses twice a day to and from Bariloche, a city of 130,000.
On the streets
The stone Cathedral of Bariloche merits a visit; while the main streets are devoted to shops selling chocolates, a speciality of the region, leather goods and handcrafted items. The large Pan American hotel hosts conferences and with multiple smaller inns, there is a fair nightlife.
On board our lake tour we converse in Spanglish with a fascinating Venezuelan couple, in Bariloche for a conference on energy! Many of the area restaurants specialise in venison and wild game. We prefer our hotel's Patagonia Coffee Shop, with its fresh flowers, superb Italian cuisine, pleasant service, and Swiss Alpine Chalet atmosphere. Always we are drawn first to the veranda of our isolated hotel, where at 7:30 in the evening one savours a cool drink as the sun slowly leaves the lake and forests in darkness. Only the mountain-peak glaciers bathe in its last rays, as though eternity might be held for just an instant.
It is good to have seen this splendour. Though, truth be told, we're not hunters, fishermen, skiers, golfers, nor are we into spa treatments, so after three days of communing with nature, we are desperate to return to Buenos Aires!
