Argentina/Chile - Sailing the Andes: Ferry and bus rides cross South America's lofty spine

Margo Pfeiff writes about Argentina and Chile.

With a flamboyant twist of the wrist, border guard Falcon Gomez of the Gendarmería Nacional Argentina slams his stamp onto page eight of my passport, and I am officially a woman without a country.

I plunk myself down on a log outside the wooden cabin that passes for the Argentinean customs post, here in the middle of the Andes, to contemplate this rare diplomatic limbo: Ushered out of Argentina, I won't officially enter Chile for another two hours.

"Welcome," says a fellow traveler who takes a seat beside me, "to the middle of nowhere."

But as nowheres go, this one is awfully hard to beat. In the distance is the volcanic peak of 11,477-foot Mount Tronodor, white with the glaciers whose cloudy turquoise melt waters fill Lago Frías, which laps at my feet. As I contemplate this, a fox emerges from the dense bush, pounces, then dines on a slow-reacting mouse.

I am traveling a remote route from Argentina into Chile through the Andes mountains, which form the two countries' 3,200-mile-long frontier. But border crossings can be tedious and stomach-churning if you are squeezed inside public transport on winding, high altitude roads, even through the most beautiful of scenery. So I opted for a more adventurous route, a staccato journey of bus, then boat, then bus, then boat across three lakes, over mountains, through rainforests and down river valleys.

This traverse first became a popular tourist route in 1913 when an adventurous guide of Swiss descent named Ricardo Roth Schutz began leading groups across the passes on mules and small boats. These days about 60,000 people annually make the Cruce de Lagos crossing in both directions. One of them, years ago, was Che Guevara during his "Motorycle Diaries" days.

Cruce de Lagos, or Lakes Crossing, is a joint Chilean/Argentine company linking Bariloche at the northern end of Argentina's Patagonia region with Puerto Varas in Chile's Lakes District. It's possible in summer to do the 119-mile trip in a single day, but I decided to savor the journey and spend some time en route.

Bariloche is a pleasant, touristy ski resort town of 110,000 - Banff with a Spanish accent - on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi, a popular destination for some of the best skiing in South America (especially among Brazilians, which has earned it the nickname "Braziloche").

As you would expect on the doorstep of the Andes, there are outdoor gear stores everywhere and prices, with the current state of the peso, that make almost everything a bargain - even for Americans.

That German immigrants were responsible for the town's flavor is immediately clear in streets lined with chocolate makers, though they fall short of European quality. Menus at restaurants with names like Familia Weiss serve local specialties such as venison, smoked trout, spaetzle con goulash and wines from Mendoza (excellent) and Patagonia (use discretion).

Here, at the northern reaches of Patagonia, vegetarians may starve: One place serving barbecue - parilla - served "super-brochettes" that stacked wild boar, lamb, venison and beef on a spear.

There is a cozy aroma of wood smoke from fireplaces, and the town has a predilection for log architecture. Around the main square, where you can have a cheesy photo taken with one of a number of St. Bernards complete with fake brandy barrels under their drooling chins, every building, from the City Hall to the visitors center and park headquarters, is built of logs.

You half expect someone in lederhosen to break out yodeling, but instead you get locals strolling about sucking traditional maté tea through metal "straws" as if they were Starbucks' lattes.

Small wonder groups of Nazis allegedly made their way to the Bariloche area after World War II. Rumors abound, and so does a book titled "Bariloche Nazis - a Tourist Guide," written by a journalist who also claims Hitler escaped Germany and spent his last years in a farmhouse outside town.
Outdoor fun

Bariloche is a great base for outdoor fun. One day I rented a mountain bike and cycled in the crisp alpine air along a section of the Circuito Chico, a 37-mile route following the shore where almost everything I passed - lodges, supermarkets, even a phone booth - was built of logs.

And then there's the hiking. The skyline is a zigzag of mountains easily reached by gondolas and chairlifts that run all summer. Atop Cerro Otto, within minutes of a revolving restaurant where a guy was carving gnomes out of tree stumps, I had sweeping views of endless mountains to myself, walking on a trail through a surreal Valdavian forest of gnarled trees draped in moss amid Magellan fuchsia bushes dripping red flowers.

The next day I zipped on a series of chairlifts to the top of the Cerro Catedral ski area, the biggest in South America, and hiked along jagged ridges with 360-degree views, including the imposing peak of Tronodor, one of the tallest peaks in the region. This is my style of hiking: ride a lift up to 6,800 feet, and hike within minutes of cold beer in the hot sun of the mountaintop lodge.

My Andes crossing started with an early morning bus trip to Puerto Panuelo, 20 miles west of Bariloche alongside the sprawling luxury Llao Llao Hotel. We boarded a comfortable catamaran and motored across Nahuel Huapi Lake, slowing along the way to sound the ship's horn three times alongside Sentinel Island in honor of Perito Moreno, who is buried there.

Moreno was the John Muir of Argentina, the father of the country's national parks. Among other things he pushed to establish the park we were sailing through, Nahuel Huapi National Park, the nation's first, in 1934.

As we reached the far western tip of the lake, the walls became steep and narrow and the landscape reminded me of a Norwegian fjord.
Rustic outpost

At the head is a rustic, 1940s hotel at an outpost called Puerto Blest. A short walk away is a little museum set amid dense bamboo and giant Alcares trees entwined with vines. This region of the Andes gets 10 feet or more of rain a year, but on this fall day in mid-March it was clear and sunny. A road leads less than a mile through the forest to the next lake, tiny turquoise Lago Frías where another, smaller boat took us on the 20-minute crossing to the Argentinean border post.

It was all organized like clockwork, and soon a bus arrived for the narrow, winding, 90-minute trip through coniferous forest, over the shoulder of the Andes and through Chile's Parque Vicente Pérez Rosales.

The highest point in the trip is only a brief rise to 6,150 feet - almost a thousand feet lower than Donner Pass - so there are no problems with altitude, as can happen in other Andes crossings.

The view opened up as we descended into the broad Peulla River Valley - wide, dry cattle country. We passed a horse-drawn cart on the side of the road near a small cluster of buildings - including the Chilean customs post - all tucked between the mountains and Lago Todos Los Santos. Clutching my freshly stamped passport, I walked 150 feet to the Hotel Natura, my home for the next two nights.

"This is not a town or a village," the guide said of Peulla. "It is just two hotels."

In fact, Peulla is a community of 120 people who work at the rambling, slightly dowdy Hotel Peulla, built in 1896, and the newly minted Hotel Natura, an oasis of luxury that opened in November 2006.

The Hotel Peulla was started by Ricardo Roth Schütz, the man who started taking tourists on Andes crossings in 1913. He was the grandfather of current owner Alberto Schirmer, who grew up in this area and once had a pet puma he took hiking with him. Schutz is revered as the Chilean counterpart of Argentina's Moreno, instrumental in creating Parque Vicente Pérez Rosales, Chile's first national park. Peulla lies buried at the center of that park.

If travelers stop at all, they usually spend just one night at either hotel, but I wanted a few days of Andean silence. Once the rest of the group set off on the next leg of the journey I trotted off with a guide, Michelange, for a horseback ride through yellow broom in bloom, crossing rivers and watching condors spin in the thermals of the mountains. We rode past a small lagoon where the hotel keeps red wooden boats for fly fishermen in search of rainbow and brown trout.

There was plenty to keep me busy: I hiked one day through dark tunnels of bamboo and pangue, a giant-leafed relative of rhubarb, and on another slipped into a harness to fly on cables strung through 2,400 feet of treetop canopies.

Every day, just after noon, the boat would arrive from the west and there would be a flurry of activity until 2:30 p.m., when the bus arrived from the east. But by 3 p.m. the hotel had settled back into peace and there would be just a few of us sipping pisco sours in the bar made of a great single log, or in front of the stone fireplace. I felt as if I were on an island.
Floating school bus

The final boat leg of the trip is a leisurely two-hour cruise across Lago Todos Los Santos. We slowed several times to take on schoolchildren in uniforms returning to school in Puerto Varas. They were shuttled out to our catamaran in skiffs from houses on the remote shoreline by their parents.

The Puntiagudo volcano came into view, a spectacular, steep, pointy snout with a glacier tucked into its tip. And then there was Osorno, Chile's answer to the perfect symmetry of Japan's Mount Fuji and which last erupted in 1835, an event witnessed by Charles Darwin.

On the eastern shore of the lake at Petrohue, we boarded one more bus for the last bus journey of our trip, stopping briefly at the Petrohue River falls before arriving in the charming German-flavored town of Puerto Varas and a traditional local dinner specialty of conger eel with margarita sauce.

There are faster ways to cross the Andes, but unless you tackle the route on foot, none could put you in such intimate touch with the heart of the mountains. And in such comfort.
If you go

All prices are listed in U.S. dollars.

THE CROSSING

Cruce de Lagos cruise/bus trips operate daily in the antipodal summer (September to April) between Bariloche, Argentina and Puerto Varas, Chile. The trip can be taken in either direction and costs $175 (hotels and meals extra). There are several two-hour flights daily between Buenos Aires and Bariloche, and between Santiago and Puerto Montt near Puerto Varas. Cruce de Lagos, www.crucedelagos.cl (click on "English version") and www.crucedelagos.com (click on British flag icon for English) for rates and bookings.
WHERE TO STAY

Llao Llao Hotel, Bariloche, Argentina. (011) 54-2944-44-8530, www.llaollao.com. Located just west of Bariloche. Classic luxury, one of Latin America's best hotels. Doubles from $280 a night including breakfast.

New Andino, Palacios 109, Bariloche. (011) 54-2944-40-0443, www.newandino.com.ar. Comfortable small inn in the heart of town near the lake. Rooms for two with breakfast, $40.

Hotel Natura, Peulla, Chile: 011-56-65-560485, www.hotelnatura.cl. Rooms (including breakfast) start at $169.00 double. Can also be booked through Cruce de Lagos.

Hotel Puelche, Puerto Varas, Chile. www.hotelpuelche.com. Elegant and casual, with great views of Osorno volcano and the lake. Double with breakfast from $130.
WHERE TO EAT

Familia Weiss, corner of Palacios and V.A. O'Connor, Bariloche. Very good regional cuisine with a specialty of smoked game meat and trout. Main courses from $5 to $12.

Kandahar, 20 de Febrero 698, Bariloche, www.kandahar.com.ar. Interesting, creative cuisine. Main courses from $5 to $12.

Donde el Gordito, San Bernardo 560, Puerto Varas. Very simple, funky local specialties at the market, Mercado Municipal. Lunch for two, $25.

Sirocco Restaurant, 537 San Pedro, Puerto Varas, www.sirocco.cl. Excellent French bistro and chic inn. Best crème brûlée in Chile. Dinner for two, $60.