Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506300105
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: G-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: TORRES DEL PAINE, CHILE LENGTH: Long
Beyond lay a glassy green lake, silent hills and an utterly implausible range of mountain peaks. Then came a large and satisfying breakfast in a dining room resounding with Chilean and Brazilian accents, and two days of hiking, horseback riding and glacier inspection.
``There are very few places where you can get so far away that there isn't a sign of civilization,'' said Winsor Copeland, another newcomer, as he scanned the horizon later on that first day. ``You can see forever. No roads. No power lines. Nothing.''
Patagonia is about as close to nowhere as a person can get on this Earth. The region begins where the rivers Negro and Limay cut across Chile and Argentina - the southernmost reaches of the South American continent - and sprawls southward across the outback of both countries down to Tierra del Fuego. It is not so much a landscape as it is an ongoing natural riot. Vast plains. Wild flamingos. Sparse population.
In the middle of Patagonia's Chilean half, amid the sharpest mountain peaks and greenest lakes, is Torres del Paine National Park. The area has had national park status since 1959, and has grown to include 598,000 acres. In summer (December to March) there is wind; in winter, snow. Rangers counted 36,038 visitors to the park last year - as many as California's Yosemite National Park gets in three typical days. There are a handful of rough-hewn hotels around, but the hardiest campers disdain them and spend seven to 10 days hiking and camping on ``el circuito,'' a loop connected by ``hosterias'' (sites with campgrounds and rustic shelters) up to 18 miles apart.
I'll camp, I hope, on another trip. This time, I paid big money and checked into Explora, the first luxury lodging in the history of these parts.
Explora opened quietly in late 1993. Thanks to a pact between the government and the resort's well-connected owner, Pedro Ibanez (whose company, Corpora, also owns several food companies and most of Ladeco Chilean Airlines), the lodging is set inside the park's boundaries. Its location, on a hill overlooking Lake Pehoe, is nearly unsurpassable. Its exterior is stark, metallic and unnatural, but its interior is a cozily modernist concoction of blond woods, broad picture windows and Scandinavian design influence. There are just 30 rooms, and the staff is largely outdoorsy young people, most of whom speak English and Spanish. Guests pay about $260 a night and up, all meals and activities included.
Each morning I woke in my lodge-style room and marveled at the mountains and lakes; seeing them through bleary eyes at 6 a.m. was like being sung awake by a 100-voice choir. Clearly, the view impressed the architect too: Above the sink, where every other hotel puts a mirror, my room had a glass panel so that I could keep an eye on the mountains and lake while flossing. (There was a mirror, too, off to the side.)
The hotel is open year-round, and guests stay for three, four or seven nights. Explora has done well with the rich and famous of South America, but has never advertised in the United States, apparently preferring stealth in seeking out the appropriately upscale and outdoorsy among us.
Every night, there was a briefing on the next day's outdoor options and a sign-up session. A 21/2-hour hike past an ice field to a condor lookout? A demanding daylong exploration, by boat and foot, of Grey Glacier? A strenuous daylong hike to the base of the Paine Towers? A horseback ride around the waters of Laguna Verde? There are more than a dozen standard activities, five of which are offered each day.
The menu is limited to a couple of main dishes each lunch and dinner (the chef is understandably inclined to concentrate on the area's supplies of fresh fish and lamb). Garbage is trucked out. Children are not particularly encouraged, but during my visit there were half a dozen on hand. Those over 8 seemed to enjoy it more, and pose fewer problems than those younger.
On my first full day at the park, the picnic lunch was barbecued lamb, and the afternoon's adventure was a horseback ride. I hastily saddled up and joined Copeland and others for the three-hour, seven-mile expedition. Our route passed a little of everything, including, as we climbed to a cleft between mountains, the most striking, and intimidating, view I've ever seen from horseback.
Beneath us stretched the aquamarine waters of Lago de Toro, miles of unconquered outback and a horizon of jagged mountains. Directly in front of us, a difficult mountainside path descended sharply on loose dirt, then cut across an even steeper slope of loose, black volcanic rock. For hundreds of yards the slope descended, with nothing to slow the roll of a fallen horse and rider.
The day after our horseback adventure, we boarded a van, drove for half an hour on more dirt roads, piled out and crossed a wood suspension bridge on which the gaps were almost as wide as the planks, while a 35-degree stream raced milkily below. Then we trudged across a long sandbar, and soon a sparkling lakefront scene spread before us.
Ice nuggets mingled with pebbles at our feet. Icebergs sloshed, bluish and locomotive-size, in the deeper waters. And at the other end of the lake, the solid walls of Grey Glacier tilted toward us. It was enough to make the craggy mountain to our right, snow-dusted and tall enough to disappear into the high windblown clouds, seem incidental.
We crossed the lake by boat, scrambled onto rocks adjoining the glacial ice and merrily climbed around, snapping pictures. On the return trip, we sipped whiskey chilled with chipped-off bits of 12,000-year-old glacier.
Then, as we began the half-mile return hike across the sandbar, the wind kicked up - way up, to a force we guessed was 50 mph. It drove the children to seek cover inside their mothers' parkas, flung my cap into an icy puddle and knocked over a woman who looked to be about retirement age. And while it shoved us along, a new rain began to pelt us, and a shaft of sunbeam reached down to connect with a distant iceberg.
While we whimpered in our insignificance, the chunk of ice stood there gleaming like an outsize blue-white diamond in a world otherwise gray and wind-lashed. It was a sight, and a reminder: You can find comfort and you can find wilderness. But even if you travel to the end of the Earth to find them in their most concentrated and uncrowded forms, you may not be able to enjoy them simultaneously.
by CNB