Summiting at Varas

In 1979, when I first traveled to Chile, one of my destinations was Puerto Montt (pictured above), where backpackers hoped to catch the rustbucket freighter Río Baker that sailed the Chilean fjords to Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine. Before the massive 1960 earthquake, the renowned travel writer Jan Morris had described the city’s “structures in the Alpine manner, all high-pitched roofs and quaint balconies;” some of that still exists, but Montt’s lost its earlier charm to utilitarian reconstruction, industrial expansion, and an uninspiring port – despite a natural setting that matches Seattle’s on Puget Sound.

At the time, nearby Puerto Varas (pictured above) wasn’t even on my radar. Despite the map, which showed the blue fresh waters of Lago Llanquihue and the snow-topped volcanoes around it – one of which blew its top not so long ago – the Argentine city of Bariloche held a higher profile and, in any event, I was keener to reach Tierra del Fuego, which I eventually did. On my way back north, I crossed from Bariloche back into Chile but was running short of time to detour south to Varas – if  indeed, I had properly appreciated its appeal. Instead, I turned north from the city of Osorno and, eventually, flew back home from Ecuador.

In the interim, though, I’ve gotten to know Varas  and vicinity well and, because of its attractions – the lake, whitewater rivers, rugged mountains covered by dense temperate forests, and snow-covered slopes suitable for skiing and summer climbing, it’s become one of Chile’s adventure travel hubs (along with Pucón). In fact, in early October, it will host the Adventure Travel World Summit and, though I won’t be able to attend, I will be working with the Patagon Journal to create an introduction to the country’s top 20 or 25 adventure excursions, from the Atacama to Antarctica (I am on the magazine’s editorial advisory board).

Before then, I may describe some of those excursions in this blog so, even if the summit’s not on your agenda, you’ll have an idea of what might be done.

Saved by the Bureaucracy! Across the Andes to Argentina

Yesterday I crossed the Andes from Osorno (Chile) to Villa La Angostura (Argentina) for the first time since the Cordón Caulle volcano left the Argentine side of the border under a dense cap of ash that’s still visible along much of the international highway. It’s the only place in the world where I’ve seen warning signs that ice and ash may make the road surface slippery.

I almost didn’t make it, though, even if that had nothing to do with the conditions – it was a brilliant cloudless day on both sides of the cordillera. Rather, I was late leaving Chile because of a bureaucratic snafu that was, in the end, my own fault.

When I purchased my new car last month, I knew it would take some time for the title to clear – according to the notary where we completed the sale, between 20 and 25 days. It’s already been longer than that and, in any event, I left Santiago well before that time to be able to travel through the Chilean lakes district to update part of Moon Handbooks Patagonia.

Unfortunately, when we left the notary’s, I overlooked a statement that the Pedido de Inscripción (request to change the vehicle’s title) would be available in a week’s time – well after I left Santiago. Without that document, and proof that I had paid for the title transfer, I could not cross the border into Argentina.

Absent-mindedly, I had thought the bill of sale would be sufficient to get me across the border, but I was wrong. At Chilean customs, an official informed me I at least needed the title request and, briefly, I wondered whether I might have to return to Santiago or, at the very least, retreat down the mountain toward Osorno, where my cell phone would let me get in touch with the notary’s office.

Then, apparently, I was saved. The same official who refused to approve my documents said I should speak with his superior, the superintendent of the Paso Cardenal Samoré border post. Clearly, superintendent Hernán Lausen (a Danish-Chilean with whom I could joke about my Scandinavian heritage) had dealt with such issues before, and he immediately accessed the civil register website to see whether the title transfer had gone through. It hadn’t yet and, again, my heart sank a bit.

That wasn’t the end of things, though. Señor Lausen took it upon himself to phone the notary where we had done the transfer paperwork, and managed to get her on the line (fortunately, she hadn’t yet gone on summer vacation). Going beyond the call of duty, he asked her to scan the documents and send him a PDF which, in a short time, he printed out and delivered to me as I sat in the car.

In just a few minutes, I was through the border post and rolling towards Argentina. The next time anybody complains to me about bureaucratic stonewalling, I’ll bring up the case of Hernán Lausen, the hero of my day, who clearly recognizes his duty to serve the public.

Ash Across the Andes: Chile's Volcán Puyehue Erupts

In 1979, when I first visited Chile, one of my most memorable excursions was an overnight trek to the slopes of Volcán Puyehue, a stratovolcano that, as part of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle Volcanic Complex, produced a massive 1960 eruption shortly after the historic Valdivia earthquake (at 9.5 on the Richter scale, the most powerful ever recorded). Continuing for two months, that eruption (depicted in the NOAA photograph above) left a landscape that, despite a marine west coast climate comparable to Seattle or Portland, was no less barren than the Atacama Desert.

At a time when Chile received few foreign visitors, I saw nobody else even along the trail's wooded lower slopes, slept in a comfortable national park shelter, and soaked in rustic thermal baths, all the while photographing sights such as the geometric fumaroles and massive lava flows left by the eruption nearly two decades earlier. Since I did it, the Puyehue trek has acquired a certain popularity for its scenic grandeur and its easy accessibility on the international highway from Osorno to the Argentine lakes district resorts of Villa La Angostura and San Carlos de Bariloche.

At the moment, though, this route is closed, and not just because of early winter snowstorms. On Saturday, the Córdon Caulle erupted with pumice and ashfalls that forced the evacuation of some 3,500 people, and closed the highway between Chile and Argentina (some footage on Chilean TV showed policemen hefting stones of lightweight pumice now scattered along the road over the Andes). Guests at the historic Hotel Termas de Puyehue, a classic hot springs resort within Parque Nacional Puyehue, were among the evacuees.

According to MercoPress, the ashfall has also left Bariloche beneath a film of gray; city residents were advised to stockpile water and wear surgical masks if they needed to go out, to avoid breathing the ash. Parts of Argentina’s Ruta 40 were 30 centimeters (about 12 inches) deep in ash, making driving inadvisable. It also obliged Argentine authorities to suspend flights and close airports at Bariloche, San Martín de los Andes, Neuquén, Esquel and even the Atlantic coast city of Trelew.

Originally, the column of steam and ash reached an altitude of ten kilometers (roughly 30,000 feet) but, as of Sunday, it had subsided. Presuming it continues to subside, the economic disruption should be minimal but, if it continues, it could have a high cost. After the Libertadores pass between Santiago and Mendoza, the Cardenal Samoré pass is the second-busiest border crossing between the two countries, both for commercial and tourist traffic.

Many Chileans spend the weekend across the border but, more importantly for Bariloche, Villa La Angostura, San Martín de los Andes and Esquel, ski season is about to begin. If flights from Buenos Aires and Brazil can’t land anywhere in northern Argentine Patagonia, it won’t matter how much snow falls at Cerro Catedral, Cerro Bayo, Chapelco and La Hoya.

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Geldwechsel in Osorno

Today in Puerto Varas, I met a Swiss tourist who had lost his travelers’ checks and will have to wait until next week to have them replaced. In reality, I was surprised to find anyone carrying travelers’ checks these days as, in Chile and especially in Argentina, cashing them can be a bureaucracy-filled nightmare. It almost invariably requires visiting a bank or, alternatively, an exchange house, and they often take unconscionably large commissions - up to five percent and sometimes even more. Their hours are often inconvenient.

When I first visited South America, in the mid-1970s, there wasn’t much alternative to travelers’ checks, but the modern prevalence of ATMs has made them seem positively quaint, but it wasn’t always so. When I first visited Argentina and Chile in 1979, I hitchhiked from San Carlos de Bariloche to the southern Chilean city of Osorno, founded in colonial times but transformed by German immigration in the mid-19th century (the photograph here shows one of the city’s Germanic monuments, now a cultural center). It was the long Easter weekend, and I found myself with a few US dollars and American Express TCs, but without any Chilean currency.

At that time, under the Pinochet dictatorship’s regulations, only banks could change money, and I found myself unable to pay for a room or even buy food. One Chilean with whom I spoke suggested visiting one of the city’s more prestigious hotels, as they often changed money surreptitiously for their guests. I chose the Deco-style Hotel Waeger, whose German name suggested it would get at least some international clientele at a time when few foreigners visited Chile.

Despite my then limited Spanish, I approached the front desk and asked if they could change a few cash dollars into Chilean pesos. No, they told me, government rules prohibited their doing so. At that time, though, I spoke better German than Spanish and, on impulse, I asked in German whether it was impossible to find a place to change money until Monday.

The response, in German, was “How much would you like to change?” and an inquiry into what part of Germany I was from (in high school and university, all my instructors were native speakers, and my accent is still very good, even though my vocabulary and grammar have deteriorated). Even after explaining that I was American - which shocked them, as so few Americans can handle German - I had enough Chilean cash to get me through the weekend, though I couldn’t afford to stay at the Waeger.