Backroads Lakes of Chile

Chile’s Benjamín Subercaseaux famously described his country’s territory as “a crazy geography,” just as British author Sara Wheeler recounted her experiences there in Travels in a Thin Country between the Pacific Ocean and the high Andes. For much of the country’s history, travel has been a unidirectional venture, with few alternatives by sea, train or road—rather different from Argentina, where there’ve been multiple routes suitable for road trips.

Lago Llanquihue at Puerto Varas, the southern starting point for this road trip.

This occurred to late last year, when a New York reader wrote me about an upcoming literary trip to Chile—his book club takes it on the road—and asked me for recommendations for a trip between Puerto Varas and Pucón that would avoid the Ruta 5 freeway, the quickest (but least interesting) route between the two resorts.

New highway signs mark the Red Interlagos.

Not so long ago, that wouldn’t have been possible but, in recent years, the Chilean government has linked and improved a series of roughly parallel easterly roads that provide a more scenic alternative along the lakes of the Andean front range. The Red Interlagos stretches from the town of Inspector Fernández, north of Temuco, south to the village of Puelo, southeast of Puerto Montt. I recommended an itinerary to my client and, when I next returned to Chile, I decided to follow the route—more or less—myself. It bears mention that the Interlagos is not a single highway, but a network of interconnected routes that pass through smaller towns and villages, not all of which are resorts, so there are multiple options.

Roadside frontage of the Hotel Awa

My client started in Puerto Varas and so did I, spending a couple nights in the new design Hotel Awa, a multi-story concrete, glass and girder structure on the city’s eastern outskirts. With views over Lago Llanquihue to the perfect cone of Volcán Osorno, it’s the area’s most technologically sophisticated hotel, but with rustic touches such as hiding the TV in an old steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. At night, I dined on truffled pork loin, complemented by a barley-based risotto from its own vegetable garden and garnished with a hazelnut sauce.

Grounds of the Museo Colonial Alemán, Frutillar

From Llanquihue’s south shore, there are two ways north, on the west side via Frutillar or the longer east side route via Ensenada. At the former, there’s the remarkable Teatro del Lago and the outstanding Museo Colonial Alemán, a tribute to German colonists that reminds me of in situ museums in Scandinavia.

A cycling event on the easterly route along Lago Llanquihue, beneath Volcán Osorno 

Puerto Octay, on Lago Llanquihue's north shore

I chose the longer route, which offers a detour up to the volcano’s ski area, which is open for hikers in summer, and then proceeded to picturesque Puerto Octay, a small north shore town with a metal-clad church and turreted houses that evoke Mitteleuropa. On Octay’s outskirts, my choice for the night is Hostal Zapato Amarillo, a Swiss-Chilean B&B with sod-roofed cabins, personalized attention, and fine dinners.

Hostal Zapato Amarillo is a cluster of sod-roofed guest rooms just outside Puerto Octay.

Hotel Termas de Puyehue is one of Patagonia's grand hotels.

For my client, though, I recommended continuing to Hotel Termas de Puyehue, a classic grand hotel at Parque Nacional Puyehue, about an hour north of Octay on the highway that runs from Villa La Angostura to Osorno. For visitors coming from Argentina, this sprawling hot springs hotel, with nearby hiking trails, makes an ideal overnight or multi-day stay in what may be the closest analogue to Bariloche’s Hotel Llao Llao. Along this highway, there’s still abundant evidence of the 2012 Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption that covered much of the area in ash.

Volcanic ash still covers parts of the shoulders along the highway between Argentina and Chile.

North of Entre Lagos, parts of the route are still unpaved but being improved.

I didn’t stay at the Puyehue this time, instead heading north through the town of Entre Lagos toward Lago Ranco, a lesser visited destination in the heart of Mapuche country. Along this segment, the Interlagos road signs say “Norpatagonia,” and, on a gravel surface with signs of improvement, muddy potholes splashed water onto my windshield. As I approached the south shore town of Lago Ranco, I could spot Isla Huapi, an offshore island inhabited almost exclusively by Mapuches.

The route around Lago Ranco is completely paved.

Here, in an area far more popular with Chileans than foreigners, I stopped for a sandwich before continuing east along a smooth paved road with plenty of scenic overlooks. The last time I had visited, a cable barge was the only means of crossing the Río Nilahue, but now modern bridges ease the route around the densely forested east side to the north shore town of Futrono. Here, almost opposite San Martín de los Andes, I spent the night at the Cabañas Nórdicas, a cluster of spacious and seemingly Scandinavian structures on a bluff overlooking the lake.

Sunset over Lago Ranco from my accommodations at Futrono

North of Futrono, the route’s a bit better trod, approaching the Ruta 5 town of Los Lagos but then veering northeast to Panguipulli, the entry point to a “Siete Lagos” route that resembles Argentina’s in Río Negro and Neuquén. Panguipulli fancies itself the "City of Roses" for its gardens at the east end of its namesake lake, but the area’s big attraction is its hot springs resorts. My client raved about the Zen-inspired Termas Geométricas—an isolated canyon of waterfalls, creeks and naturally heated pools linked by boardwalks near Coñaripe that’s open for day visits only—in the shadow of the fuming Volcán Villarrica.

The Termas Geométricas is a secluded hot springs venue south of Pucón.

Volcán Villarrica, as seen from Pucón, on the opposite side of Termas Geométricas

After a leisurely day at the Termas Geométricas, nearby accommodations options include the

Termas de Coñaripe—a hot springs hotel in its own right—and the town of Lican Ray, with its black sand beaches at Lago Calafquén. Termas Geométricas, though, gets many day-trippers from Pucón, the uber-resort city that’s just over the hill (mountains, that is) on Lago Villarrica. There, the place to stay is the hillside Hotel Antumalal, a Bauhaus-inspired masterpiece that, arguably, set the stage for Varas’s Awa. Still, there are many cheaper but still outstanding options here, and great hiking in spots like Parque Nacional Villarrica, Parque Nacional Huerquehue, and the Santuario Cañi, a private conservation effort aimed at protecting the area’s Araucaria forests.

Queen Elizabeth II and other big names have stayed at Pucón's Hotel Antumalal.

At Parque Nacional Huerquehue, the Sendero Quinchol leads to dense upland forests of Araucarias and southern beeches.

For visitors from Argentina, it’s easy to return by the Paso Mamuil Malal to Junín de los Andes and thence to Buenos Aires or back to Bariloche. The road goes on forever.

Finding the Forest For the (Monkey-Puzzle) Trees

New growth on an Araucaria branch, Parque Nacional Conguillío

In November of 1911, when John Muir climbed a ridge to camp among the “monkey-puzzle” forests of southern Chile, he marveled at “A glorious and novel sight, beyond all I had hoped for.” At the age 73, the legendary conservationist had sailed to South America, first exploring the Amazon and, after reaching Buenos Aires, he crossed the Andes in search of Araucaria araucana, the “monkey puzzle tree.”

Bark of a mature Araucaria tree

The present-day gateway to Fundo Ontario, where John Muir stayed in his search for the Araucaria

In Santiago—where even Juan Söhrens, director of the national botanical garden, had never seen the tree in the wild—Muir took a hint from a friend of the US ambassador and the train to the city of Victoria, just north of Temuco. Here, he made contact with the Smiths, a Canadian immigrant family, whose Fundo Ontario ranch was Muir’s gateway to the Andean foothills near what is today Parque Nacional Tolhuaca. It was here that sketched the forests and slept beneath the trees he’d come to observe—just as he did beneath the giant sequoias of California’s Sierra Nevada.

Parque Nacional Tolhuaca, with Araucaria trees in the right foreground and atop the ridge in the distance

Several times I’ve had the good fortune to see the area Muir visited, and several comparable areas on both sides of the Andes. The pewén, as it’s known in the indigenous Mapudungun language, has a narrow distribution between 37º20' and 40º20'S. In total, Araucaria forests cover less than 400 square kilometers, mostly in the Andean cordillera but with scattered stands in Chile’s coastal range.

A young ornamental Araucaria on the grounds of Oakland Technical High School

Where are the best places to see this distinctive tree, also known as the paraguas (umbrella tree)? It’s not uncommon as an ornamental—there’s one on the grounds of Oakland Technical High School, about five minutes from my California home—but Argentina and Chile are the Holy Grail. Following Muir’s trail toward Tolhuaca is one option, but access by public transportation is limited at best. Larger numbers see Parque Nacional Conguillío, to the southeast, which is more accessible from Temuco and the town of Melipeuco (though only by taxi).

A mature Araucaria forest at Parque Nacional Conguillío 

In terms of public transportation access, though, the best place to see the Araucariais the more southerly resort of Pucón. Two nearby national parks, Parque Nacional Villarrica and Parque Nacional Huerquehue, have frequent bus service. Personally, I prefer Huerquehue for easy access to hiking trails, dense pewén forests, and great panoramas that include the smoking, snow-topped Volcán Villarrica, which Spanish conquistador poet Alonso de Ercilla called the “great neighbor volcano.”

Araucarias on the Sendero Quinchol, Parque Nacional Huerquehue

On my most recent visit, though, I chose the Santuario Cañi, a private nature reserve that’s only 20 minutes out of town, and also easily accessible by public transport. I first hiked here in the 1990s as a guest of the non-profit Fundación Lahuén, on a sore ankle that caused me some difficulty. This time my joints were healthy, but the trail seemed even steeper than I remembered, and younger hikers were consistently passing me. At the end, though, I reached the plateau of Laguna Las Totoras, a marshy lake surrounded by monkey puzzle trees, but declined to climb to the El Mirador ridge. 

Hikers among the Araucarias in the Santuario Cañi

An Araucaria seedling has found growing space at Parque Nacional Nahuelbuta.

For my money, though, the best place to see the trees is Parque Nacional Nahuelbuta, in the coastal range near the city of Angol, where the trees even find growing spaces in cracks among its igneous outcrops. One of the best nights I ever spent was the campground here on Christmas Eve of 1998, when I had the entire park to myself. Nahuelbuta is scenic, with great hiking trails, but it doesn’t get many Chileans because it lacks water—there are no rivers or lakes suitable for swimming except outside park limits.

A panorama of the Araucaria forests at Parque Nacional Nahuelbuta

Along the trail at Argentina's Parque Nacional Lanín

I’ve barely mentioned Argentina, where the best site is Parque Nacional Lanín, across the Andes from Pucón, and easily reached from the cities of San Martín de los Andes and Junín de los Andes. It bears mention that the indigenous Pewenche—who take their name from the trees—gathered fallen forest nuts for their subsistence. I myself have eaten the toasted nuts and also consumed them in a pesto in a San Martín restaurant that is now, sadly, closed.

Pewén nuts on display at the Feria Masticar, an annual food fair in Buenos Aires