Clews Views November 2009

WELCOME TO THE SNOWS OF BARILOCHE
by Carter L. Clews

Here, towering, snow-covered peaks beckon veteran and beginning skiers alike to take to the trails and lose themselves in a sparkling “Winter Wonderland.” Crystal-clear lakes invite the intrepid to shed their garments and inhibitions and explore the depths of their frigid waters. And, wood-frame chateaus pepper the slopes, their warming fires welcoming the weary to an evening respite.

In the tiny, picturesque town snuggled at the feet of the snow-capped mountains, well-traveled tourists bedecked in the latest downhill attire sip from oversized mugs of rich, steaming coffee in a quaint cottage shoppe. And from the anteroom drift the aromas of world-famous chocolates freshly conched, tempered, and cooled.

Welcome to the Switzerland at its best – aka: San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina.

Now, normally, as regular Clews’ Views readers know, I am urging you to pack up your troubles in your old back pack and set forth for a Caribbean hideaway where the sun never sets on “the good life at a great price.” So, if someone had told me a year ago that I would be urging my readers to “Ski South America,” I would have thought they had been “smoking Colombian.”

Then, I walked out the door of my home in Fairfax, Virginia, early this morning to encounter the fifth straight day of freezing rain. I thought about the fact that the Weather Channel is predicting one of the coldest winters on record (Al Gore notwithstanding). And it occurred to me that if I’m going to be freezing my gluteus maximus off for the next several months, why in the heck do I want to do it on flat land where the only snow is soon covered with road salt?

If I’m going to be cold, I want snow I can sled down and ski on. I want snow that stays white all winter long and invites me to walk hand in hand with the one I love in a powdery paradise. I want snow like Bing, Danny, and Irving Berlin had – as in:

I'll soon be there with snow
I'll wash my hair with snow
And with a spade of snow
I'll build a man that's made of snow
I'd love to stay up with you but I recommend a little shuteye
Go to sleep
And dream
Of snow, snow, snow, snow, snow

And, frankly, that ain’t going to happen in drizzly Fairfax, Virginia. Nor, I realized, is it likely to happen in Chichicastenango, Guatemala; in Corozal, Belize; on beautiful Roatan Island, Honduras - or at any of the other Latin American locales to which I’ve urged you to join me in sojourning.

So, what’s a guy to do whose commitment to his readers is to uncover dreamlike destinations well below the Rio Grande? Well, believe it or not, go south, old boy! South, all the way down through Colombia, across Brazil, and through Bolivia to the Patagonia region of Argentina.

Go south, in fact, all the way down to the bustling village (pop. 130,000) of San Carlos de Bariloche, more commonly known simply as Bariloche. It was settled in or around 1895 by a roving band of Austrians, Germans, Slovenes, Chileans and Italians. It still maintains a distinctly European flavor.

And it has rightly earned the remarkable moniker: “The Snow Capital of Latin America.”

Bariloche, Argentina, is cradled in the foothills of three majestic mountains – Tronador, Cerro Catedral (more about that magical mountain in a moment), and Cerro Lopez. It is surrounded by four pristine lakes: Nahuel Huapi, Gutiérrez Lake, Moreno Lake and Mascardi Lake. The views from every angle can only be described as “breathtaking.” And the pace of life is just what you would expect from a land where one’s greatest exertion is climbing up into a ski lift.

But, before we delve further into “the good life on the great ice,” in Bariloche, let’s step back for a second and take a quick look at the country that houses the city. After all, Clews’ Views is all about places where you not only want to visit, but also might want to live. So, I like you to know what you’re getting into, top to bottom.

The fact is, Argentina, beautiful and bountiful though it may be, could be an operational definition of “economic chaos.” It seems that no sooner has the country begun recovering from one economic crisis than it is plunged into yet another. Ad infinitum. Ad nausea.