We met M the day we arrived to the Tronador Hotel, this February. She was just recovering from the sting of a “yellow jacket” wasp in her right hand.
The Tronador Hotel is an idyllic place located in the middle of Argentina´s northern Patagonia. Built in 1934 by Benito Vereertbrugghen, the son of a Belgian doctor that emigrated to Argentina at the beginnings of the past century, the hotel is a longstanding tradition among its visitors, who usually inherit their affection for the place from their parents.
That was the case of my wife, whose childhood and teenage memories were fire marked by the summers spent in this place, specially from his father who had passed by a few years ago. He was a fanatic fly fisher and had also spent long summers there with his own father a long time ago. He usually told us stories about old hotel hosts that rivaled in eccentricity with some of the characters of “The Magic Mountain” by Tomas Mann.
The Tronador Hotel features perhaps one of the most amazing landscapes in the world: built at the shore of the Mascardi Lake near the city of Bariloche, is surrounded by dense native forests, impressive snow capped craggy mountains and the remains of the glaciers that carved this features into the environment during the last glacial age. The massive glaciers of Mount Tronador (3554 m) face the little jabali’s head shaped glacier that lays on the Bonete peak (2257 m).
A longstanding tradition that is trying to adapt to a fast changing world, the Hotel’s main attraction was trout fly fishing in the cold blue tinged waters of the Mascardi lake. Newer generations being less prone to patience enduring activities, the Vereertbrugghen´s family newer generations have been promoting trekking based on the Hotel in order to attract younger visitors. Concessions have been made in some aspects, such as Wi Fi Internet access from all the Hotel surroundings, but in others tradition is strongly kept, like in the restaurant’s menu.
M. had that in mind, after a long difficult divorce she had decided to start again and one of her goals was to do the Laguna Azul or Callvu (Blue Lagoon) trek. She had done treks all over Bariloche with her former husband, but the Laguna Azul was a pending issue. After talking with him before taking the flight, he told her that the trek was too demanding and that he didn’t believe she would have the endurance that it required.
After many years of family vacations that left us more tired than before, my wife Irene and me decided to leave our kids a couple of days with their Grandma. So we arrived to the Hotel with the initial idea of relax and rest without the kids.
Now, I´m a trekker, even though some health issues have prevented me of keeping as active as I’d like. So whenever I’m near any mountains, the trekker’s bug starts to bite.
Next morning, while we were having breakfast, I asked Irene if she was willing to do the Laguna Azul trek. I had done it a couple of times before, so I feel confident about doing it again, although I didn’t had the stamina of years before. After some scones and coffee, she agreed.
M. was sitting next to us, I guess carefully listening our plans. As soon as Irene said yes, she asked if she could join us. Now we were a team.
We prepared our gear, picked up some food and started to walk. Trek talks have one virtue: a couple hours of trek chat equal to months of city talk. So we heard the story about her desire to reach Laguna Azul and suddenly it became a team’s goal.
Surprisingly, I found myself in a far better shape than I thought, so I took the lead and set the pace. The path is easy to follow, one has to follow the crystaline waters of the Claro creek upwards and go along a valley formed by the flanks of the Bonete and Punta Negra peaks.
The initial part of the trek goes across beautiful Coihue (Nothofagus Dombeyi) forests, called “Valdivian forest”, after the Spanish governor of Chile Pedro de Valdivia. This kind of forest feature vegetation that is endemic to this region, and is very similar to the forests from New Zealand’s Southern Alps.
One of the best things of the treks based on the Tronador Hotel is that, due to its relative isolation, it will be very possible that your trekking party will find nobody during the day, so you can enjoy the place in an almost private way.
After a couple of hours of forest, rock makes its appearance. The trail becomes a path through boulders marked by small stone piles. It´s not technically difficult but it certainly helps to be in shape. And as every trekker knows, walking through rock boulders can become a tricky business
Time went by and the path became steeper as the valley narrowed into a rocky slope. As we went higher, vegetation changed dramatically. Suddenly at 1400 m above sea level, the Coihue trees are replaced by the Lenga (Nothofagus Pumilio), a shorter and stubbier tree, better suited to endure for the colder climate and the winter´s snow. It also meant that both M. and Irene were starting to show signs of fatigue.
Having worked as a guide in my youth, I started to use every trick to persuade them to continue, promising that we were about 45 minutes from the fabled Laguna Azul. After walking for four and a half hours we arrived to the lagoon.
The scenery was dramatic, with the sky covered by clouds and a cold breeze hissing by. The lagoon lies surrounded by a rock circus, so in the past some people mistakenly took it for a volcano crater.
Every trek has a meaning for everybody. For me, this trek meant that I still could do this stuff, maybe not with the same intensity as before, but it was certainly possible.
For Irene, I think watching me jump from stone to stone and trotting up and down the slopes was rediscovering the joy of reaching a summit, that sense of achievement that is so difficult to explain to somebody that hasn’t climbed before. It also meant that she could evoke the memories of her father as cherished moments devoid of the pain of early loss.
For M. I guess it meant that she could start over and get rid of the past. Also that she could achieve by her own what she decided. A chapter of her life had ended and now she could start writing the next one.
The return was long and tiresome, after all our team average age was beyond the forties and in my case near the fifties. we arrived to the hotel at eight o’clock, just in time for dinner.
Next day we returned to Bariloche and to our kids, M. flew back to Buenos Aires.
Yesterday we invited her for dinner. After several years spent in a separation that ended in a divorce, she finally had stopped paying her former husband’s health care monthly bill. She looked empowered and happy, like waking up after a long bad dream.
For our Team of three, the path ahead seemed to be a bit less rough, at the end life just goes on.
Mirko Torrez Contreras is a freelance Process Automation consultant that loves trekking in the Patagonian Andes. Although he is no longer as fit as he used to be in his twenties, he adheres to the theory that the forties are the new thirties.