andes 36 FEATURE
ADVENTURE in the Andes
s the condor fl ies it is almost a thousand miles between the capital cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires. And while these high-fl ying vultures that soar over the Andes have no concept of national borders as they drift above the astonishingly vast landscapes and lake-scapes of Chile and Argentina, more grounded travellers will marvel over the contrasting sights and sounds of the two countries. Chile is a land of snow-capped volcanoes and Pisco Sours (the national cocktail tipple, but go easy as more than one or two can be lethal!). Argentina is the home of the Pampas- fed beef and the oh-so evocative Tango. Although I know both countries well from skiing trips, my latest visit – with my Swedish wife Vivianne – was in mid-March, which is late summer in South America. My plan was to select half a dozen of my favourite spots and – after a 250-mile rail journey south - join them all up in an exhilarating 500-mile drive, crossing the Andes and ending with a fl ight to Argentina’s spectacular capital.
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You can’t drive a rental car from Argentina into Chile, but you can drive from Chile to Argentina so we chose to start our journey in Santiago. There are no direct fl ights from the UK to the Chilean capital: we fl ew there
via Madrid. The nearby Andes, to the east of the city,
looked strangely bare without the deep covering of snow I was used to. We gave ourselves a day to recover before
moving on, visiting the excellent local zoo in Santiago (with panoramic views of the city) and wandering through the local parks near our hotel. We then boarded a train to Chillan, a rather ponderous journey which took almost fi ve hours on one of the country’s few surviving rail routes.
“Although many minor roads are unpaved, if you plan your trip carefully the driving is mostly easy, so you can comfortably recommend this self-drive tour to clients nervous about getting round under their
own steam...” ARNIE WILSON
Chillan was the birthplace (in 1778) of Chile’s fi rst president, Bernardo O’Higgins – the illegitimate son of an Irish-born Spanish offi cer who became governor of Chile and later viceroy of Peru, and Isabel Riquelme, a young Chilean aristocrat. To this day his name pops up in every
city in Chile, be it a street, a town, a lake, a hotel, a taxi service, a fl orist or even a football team (O’Higgins Fútbol Club). The seemingly endless Pan American highway links many Chilean towns and cities and keeps you from wandering off-piste
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into areas where you might encounter less satisfactory roads and even unpaved surfaces. I’d read that only 29% of Argentina’s are
paved, but we only encountered the odd 20km stretch of the unpaved variety. Also, note that dipped headlights are pretty much compulsory in both countries even during daylight hours. Once we were on the Pan American highway,
we could relax for the next 175 miles before reaching the extensive farm run by our hosts Robert and Killy Stanton, old friends from my fi rst foray into the Andes 20 years earlier. Temuco, at the heart of the Araucanía Region, is the principal base of the Mapuche people, who steadfastly resisted the Spanish conquest and are still frequently at odds with local farmers, much of whose land they regard as theirs. Here we took time to take some long riverside walks, enjoying distant views of three volcanoes before moving on towards the Argentine border. En route we visited another smouldering
peak, the magnifi cent Villarrica volcano, one of the most active in Chile. The fi nal 10 kilometres to the base area,
complete with ski area, are unpaved. Although the volcano was shrouded in mist, every now and then the peak emerged and we could see smoke puffi ng from the crater as if from a gigantic cigar. In winter there are only two mountain passes open between the two countries, but in March we were able to make our way across Mamuil Malal pass – with impressive views of yet another volcano, Lanín – towards the picturesque little lakeside town of San Martin de los Andes. The scenery changes quite emphatically here,
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