Travel with Indigo

For reasons that would bore you and pain me, the extensive refit work on Indigo that was scheduled to take two months instead consumed eight. But as the work wound its way to conclusion, I invaded Chile in the belief–wrong, as it turned out–that my proximity would speed things along. The result was that I spent a month or so wandering about in Chile and Argentina, hovering around the refit work but staying just out of sight. During this time I stayed two weeks in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Santiago, using the place as a base from which to tour the city and its surrounds.

It is a city of about six million sited inexplicably against the western slope of the Andes, nearly a two hour drive from the Pacific coast but back dropped by the stunningly beautiful mountains, a chain of ragged peaks that form the spine of Chile. Though it surely ranks as one of the tidiest of South American cities it also is among the tamest. Street crime, though a persistent problem, falls far short of major cities in Brazil and of Buenos Aires. Near my hotel I was able to wander around many blocks late at night without the slightest hint of threat, though cautioned not to do so in other barrios of the city.

I visited the Museo de Belles Artes, the Museo of the Pre-Columbian Indians, Plaza de Armas, countless bars and fine restaurants and raucous night spots, and took a private tour of the other major tourist sites. By a happy coincidence, the country celebrates its independence–meaning the military overthrow of the Communist regime of Salvador Allende in 1973–on the same day as I celebrate my arrival on Planet Earth. Thus am I treated to a parade of monumental proportions, including snappily dressed Navy, Army, Air Force and Marine units with accompanying martial music, all easily viewed from the Club Floor of my hotel.

A side trip to Valle Nevado, one of the many ski resorts within less than a two hour drive, introduces me to the climatic diversity of
Chile. You can actually water ski in a lake one day and snow ski in the Andes the next. The city is almost surrounded by vineyards and wineries, and tours of these are a major tourist attraction. Some of the finest wines in the world are produced here, mostly reds, including the memorable carmenere.

After exhausting the opportunities afforded in Santiago, I travel to Puerto Montt, a port and fishing city an hour and a half flight to the south. There I take a private plane on a scenic flight up and over the dramatic Andes into Argentina and land alongside the magnificent Lago Nahuel Huapi, the heart of a two million acre national park. The largely forgetable town of Bariloche sits alongside the enormous lake (557 square miles). Its saving grace is the five-star Hotel Llau Llau (pronounced in Argentine Spanish as shau shau). Sited on a rise adjacent to the lake with dramatic snow covered peaks in the distance, it is backed by steep granite walls and pine forests and surrounded by a fine golf course. Its style is that of a Bavarian resort set in, say, the Arlberg of Austria.

I rent a four-wheel drive pickup truck and decide to take a long trip through the park on its many unpaved roads, some nothing more than wide hiking trails. Over several days I wind my way through massive forests of pinion, closely resembling the trees of the Oregon coast, alongside glacial lakes, and around and over Andean peaks some still draped in piles of snow not yet melted by the coming spring.

The Bavarian-like town of San Martin de Los Andes is an early stopover. With wide clean streets lined in planted trees and a fine city park, it is a major attraction for snow skiers and hikers. After an overnight stay in a small but friendly hotel, I travel on through the park forests and over more mountains returning to the Lago Nahuel Huapi, where along its north shore sits the tiny village of Villa Angostura. At a fine inn sited on the lake’s shore, I spend a quiet night dining on exceptional meals and enjoying the heated pool in its spa.

After spending a week wandering about in Argentina, I drive across the border into Chile passing through a high mountain pass still lined with twenty-foot high banks of snow. Border formalities, as in all Latin countries, are needlessly complicated.

Driving on to the city of Osorno, I get on Route 5, the national highway equivalent of I-95, which runs nearly the entire length of Chile. A few hours more and I at last reach Valdivia, the current home of Indigo.