Christmas holidays in Argentina

November 30, 2009 – 4:57 pm

When I was a boy, I thought of South America as being the home of the flamboyant Hollywood superstar Carmen Miranda – the Lady with the Tutti-Frutti Hat – who in the early Forties was the highest-paid star in the movies.

She wore her amazing headgear – a pyramid of bananas, strawberries, lemons and whatever else was available at the fruiterers – in a musical called The Gang’s All Here in 1943.

But she first excited my adolescent interest in the earlier Down Argentine Way, in which her over-the-top sexiness outshone even the gloss of legs-up-to-here Betty Grable.

Perhaps something stuck in my erotic memory cells: certainly Argentina has always resonated as a country that had to be visited one day.

Well, it took nearly 70 years – but at last I find myself touring this fascinating and beautiful nation, with my wife Lynne.

After flying to Buenos Aires, we stay first at a pampas estancia, or ranch – the lovely La Oriental, about three hours out of the city.

Then we travel west for a few days to another estancia, Peuma Hue, near the resort town of Bariloche.

This beautiful estancia has more than 500 acres of mountains, pristine forests, creeks, waterfalls and lush valleys, and is run by a dedicated conservationist, Kathryn Hoter, who provides wonderful, organic, full-board food, and 12 warm and luxurious rooms in houses and log cabins.

There are horses to ride along the estancia’s two miles of lakeshore, some really tough climbs for the enthusiast, miles of trails for hikers and, 15 minutes away, Bariloche’s ski slopes – the best in Argentina in winter.

From Peuma Hue it’s an awesome two-hour drive through magnificent lake and mountain scenery to the little port of El Bolson at the eastern end of Lago Puelo.

On the quayside the Argentinian customs officials check our bags and stamp our passports and we board a turbo-driven rubber boat for what proves to be an extremely bumpy voyage.

When we reach the approaches to the river our boatman pauses briefly and, alarmingly for Lynne, hands out life jackets.

‘For the rapids,’ he announces. I’m used to rapids so I’m looking forward to a thrilling few minutes. As it turns out, these rapids are easy stuff – though Lynne thinks they’re great.

‘You see that wire above our heads?’ says our tiller man, pointing to a slightly sagging cable that crosses the swirling waters. ‘That’s the border between Argentina and Chile.’

El Bolson sits on a river that connects Lago Puelo, in Argentina, to Lago Inferior, which is in Chile.

Appropriately enough, Lago Inferior is lower and the difference in altitude produces the rapids we go slip-sliding down. Once in Lago Inferior, it’s an easy 20-minute ride
until we reach a small jetty.

‘This your pick-up point,’ the boatman informs us as he unloads our luggage.

I look around for a welcoming party. Nobody. The boatman is on his portable radio.

‘They delayed for a few minutes,’ he says, then gets back in his boat and putters away.
It’s a lovely, calm summer’s day now, so we sit on the jetty and dangle our feet in the water.

An hour later we hear voices and the jingle of harness, and a substantial pack horse and two young men appear out of the trees.

The men load up the horse with our two disgracefully heavy bags, strapping one to each side of the saddle for balance, and the beast sets off with its handler up the hillside’s steep trail.

The smaller, wirier of the young men smilingly volunteers to carry Lynne’s backpack.

‘The age of chivalry still exists among the young of this country,’ I muse old-fartishly.

The trail is steep and winding, and after ten minutes I’m finding myself extremely short of puff. ‘Cuanto distancia mas?’ I enquire of our guide. ‘Un kilómetro.’

‘OK,’ I think, and let him carry my backpack as well. So? He’s used to the hillside…and he’s probably 60 years younger than me.

When we reach the sunlit meadow at the top of the trail, we see a middle-aged gentleman waving to us from the gate of a small house.

‘How charming,’ I think, and wave back. ‘He customs man,’ says the guide.

We go into the chap’s modest office, where he takes an inordinate amount of time checking our passports. Maybe he doesn’t see too many people and wants to keep us as long as possible.

He asks us what our professions are. ‘Writer,’ I reply, bold as brass, and this is pencilled into the form with approval. But Lynne’s answer of ‘software engineer’ meets with a puzzled ‘Que?’

He thumbs through his handbook to find the list of professions. There is much shaking of his and the guide’s heads.

‘Tell him you’re a housewife.’ I hiss. ‘Certainly not,’ says Lynne. ‘Software engineer,’ she repeats stubbornly. ‘Mecánica?’ he asks slightly incredulously. ‘Mecánica de coche?’

Lynne looks at me. Well, why not, this could go on and on. So Chile becomes the holiday choice of a female motor mechanic.

After posing for photographs with us, the officer returns to his post, and we continue along the relatively flat path to the next lake, Lago Las Rocas – and our ultimate destination.

Our guide’s boat is tethered to a tree, waiting. We putt-putt for 20 minutes, round a corner of the lake and there it is: tiny, a hint of a house peeking through the trees…Isla Las Bandurrias.

As we get nearer we see the elegant figure of our hostess, Françoise Dutheil, waving to us from the landing stage.

Soon we’re inside her nearly-too-charming house, where lunch is laid out on the refectory table in the living room.

The house is built almost entirely from local ‘found’ wood from the forest, the lake and Françoise’s mainland farm. It is, as a result, notably short of hard, straight lines.

As we admire the beautiful home-made fabrics and art that adorn the room, Françoise tells us that getting her builder to use ‘crookedy wood’ in the construction was the hardest part of the job.

Up the creaky, windy staircase is our room, which has a little window overlooking the lake. There are bedrooms, too, for Françoise and her daughter, Cathy, who looks after the organisational and horse-riding side of their tiny travel business, Open Travel, with great charm and efficiency.

A five-minute walk from the main house is the Cottage, where there are sleeping quarters for six (or eight at a pinch), two bathrooms and a living room with a wood-burning stove in the kitchen area.

It also has a delightful veranda, with stunning views of the lake and mountains and a stairway leading down to a little bathing beach.

Both houses are entirely ‘off-grid’. Not just because there isn’t a grid to be on in a place as remote as this, but because Françoise is a committed conservationist, fiercely determined to sustain the beauty and resources of her little realm.

Lighting and power come by way of solar-powered batteries; hot water, heating and cooking from wood stoves using found branches and logs from fallen forest trees.
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SOURCE:
“Christmas holidays abroad: Argentina to Chile and saddling up for a trek to the end of the world”
By Richard Johnson
29th November 2009
Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1231477/Christmas-holidays-abroad-Argentina-Chile-saddling-trek-end-world.html