Travelling not soliciting: From the Andes to Buckingham Palace

Those of you who are faithful readers of my blog will probably be wondering why I haven't done a blog post for two weeks. When I last posted on 28 March I was about to cross the Andes from Argentina into Chile. And here I am sitting in the Goring Hotel next door to Buckingham Palace in London!

Well, I did cross the Andes and then flew back from Puerto Montt in central Chile to London where I have been attending to some personal matters, seeing friends, and have also done two days of training for my role as a London Ambassador for the Olympics this summer--I haven't been so busy since I left London last December!

This short trip has also given me an opportunity to see London in a new light, as a visitor.

Bariloche, Argentina to Puerto Varas, Chile

The famous "Cruce de Lagos" trip involves going by boat and by bus across the Andes through the Argentinian and Chilean Lakes District over two days. We left Bariloche on the morning of 31 March and arrived in Puerto Varas in the evening of 1 April. The first stage of the crossing is a passenger boat trip across the deep blue Lake Nahuel Huapi, at 550 sq km the largest of the lakes on the Argentinian side.This is all through national parkland so the mountains surrounding the lake are heavily treed up to their rugged tops above the tree line, and free of habitation. Both Argentina and Chile seem to have recognised early in the 20th century the need to create national parks and preserves and to put a halt to unconstrained cutting down of the ancient and slow growing aleurce forests and to preserve the pristine mountain lakes.

After a very short bus ride we crossed the small Lago Frias by boat, to the Chilean border. This was quite fine. In contrast to the deep blue of most of the lakes in the area, Lago Frias is a milky green caused by the glacial run-off from the volcano Tronador which dominates the end of the lake.

We were fortunate to get a spectacularly clear view of Tronador and its glaciers from the boat --a very unusual occurrence I understand since it is usually shrouded in cloud. (This volcano is the same one which I saw from my hotel room in Lao Lao (see last blog post), but of course much closer now.) Tronador is exactly on the Chilean/Argentinian border,and of its three peaks one is in Argentina, one in Chile and the middle one exactly on the border.

What I had not appreciated when planning this trip was that the Andes are really not very high at this point. When you look at a flat map you do not see the contours. Having seen the spectacular peaks in Torres del Paine in Southern Patagonia on my trip in 2008 and seen the massive mountains in central Peru when I was there in 2003, I had naively assumed that the Andes were the same height (ie in average over 4000 meters and reaching up to 7000 meters over the Andes' 7000 km length.)

Not so. The Andes in the Lakes District are actually quite low, relatively speaking-- around 1000 meters on average. Only the volcanoes rise above these levels and even they are not as high as the giants further north. So Tronador at 3600 meters is the highest in the lakes region of the Andes, but would be insignificant next to the mighty Aconcagua at 6900 metres which lies 1000 km further north. So the trip across the Andes at this point is scenic but not "spectacular". You see lovely lakes surrounded by wooded mountains but you don't see snow-covered jagged peaks. But that makes the sight of the volcanoes although the more surprising and impressive.

We overnighted in Puerto Peulla, population 120 with 5 pupils in the local school. There is an enormous government-run hotel there as well as the Chilean immigration and customs post. Although the village and surrounding farm land, rivers and forest is quite nice the only reason I can see for making people overnight there is to give some business to the hotel, since it is entirely possible to do the whole trip from Barliloche to Puerto Varas in one day.

Our second day involved a passenger ship crossing of Lago Todos Los Santos (All Saints). This was a lovely trip which afforded us views not only of the surrounding tree-covered mountains but also three very fine snow-capped volcanoes: the by-now-familiar volcano Tronador (3600 metres), the hooked peak of volcano Puntiagudo (2,500 metres) and --by far the best of all --the perfect snow covered cone of volcano Osorno (2,600 metres).

Osorno wins all the prizes for showmanship. It has conveniently located itself between Lago Todos Los Santos and the much larger Lago Llanquihue so you get a fantastic view of it from all sides without having to go to the effort of climbing. It is called the Mount Fuji of the Andes because it looks exactly like it---the perfect volcano shape (see photos below). It is also convenient to largish cities in Chile and so is the centre of an active adventure and holiday business.

The final stage of our trip was by bus along the shore of Lago Llanquihue (the third largest in South America) to Puerto Varas. This area was settled by German immigrants and the countryside and the houses are very reminiscent of Bavaria. I hope to tell you more about this area after my return to Puerto Varas this Sunday.

Would I recommend the Cruce de Lagos? Well yes, if you approach it with the right expectations. The lakes are beautiful and the volcanos are very fine, but this is not a high-adventure, awe-inspiring trip, especially if you have seen Norway or the Alps or the Rockies or even northern Ontario.

London through the eyes of a "visitor"

As mentioned, I am "visiting" London for 10 days before I return to Chile. After my 4 months on the road, I decided to stay in some nice hotels in London and in the Cotswolds to see things from the visitor's perspective.

How does England stack up? Very very well, I'd say. The weather has been appalling--no surprise there--but the countryside and the spring flowers are achingly beautiful. The hotels (the Cadogan, Buckland Manor and the Goring) demonstrate how fine traditional English hospitality is. Expensive? Yes, very.

And London itself? Very impressive. Compared to what I have seen elsewhere it is a well-oiled machine: most things work, cars stop at cross walks, information is readily available, people are polite, you don't need to show your passport or ID to check into a hotel or use a credit card, your feel safe, it is quietly efficient (the Olympic site and all the new transport and infrastructure is complete and the games could start tomorrow), the variety of things to see and do is truly unparalleled, the press is strident and the politicians scrap with each other but there is no corrosive corruption and the scandals are pretty tame.

The only problem is that the rest of the world clearly thinks that England is great as well, and when you travel around London the crowds are so thick on the streets that you wonder if you have strayed into a protest march or a mass fire drill or something.

So, a few pictures. Looking ahead, I return to Chile on Sunday and will be travelling to Chiloe Island--"green, rainy, dotted with wooden churches, enchanting and mystical" my guide book says. Then on April 22 I head to Santiago for a week and then travel to Easter Island for four days. Stay tuned.

me on the passenger catamaran at the start of the Cruce de Lagos. Llao Llao Hotel in the background

The scenery along the shore of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Even though the mountains are not high, the tree line is low because of the prevailing drying winds

ditto

The end of Lake Nahuel Huapi

Lago Frias, coloured milky green by glacial run-off from volcano Tronador

Crossing Lago Frias

An unusually clear view of Tronador which is on the border of Chile and Argentina. It has three peaks, one in Argentina, one in Chile and the middle one right on the border

ditto

the top of Tronador, showing the glaciers which feed the lakes in both Chile and Argentina

The little ferry that took us across Lago Frias --note the ubiquitous Monkey Puzzle tree

One of the many large mountain rivers, some run west to the Pacific and some run east to the Atlantic

A boat trip on the Rio Negro --black river, so called because it is full of volcanic residue

a final glimpse of Tronador as we cross Lago Todos Los Santos

The hook-shaped peak of volcano Puntiagudo

Osorno, the picture-perfect volcano

ditto

flying over the Andes from Santiago on the way back to London

ditto

This is what I have missed! You can't beat England in spring.

The lovely Buckland Manor in the Cotswolds--the manor is listed in the Domesday Book . The present church dates in part from 1200 and the present manor house is from the 1500s. Note the glowering black clouds