Cerro Tronador

Since a long moment already, asphalt gave place to the stony and dusty track. Green water of the Mascardi lake appears at road turns. The dense forest of coihués gives a little shade and freshness in this basin protected from the western winds.
Suddenly its silhouette appears. Its summit attacks almost eyes, so much is bright the whiteness of the eternal snow and the glaciers which cover it compared with green meadows which spread out at its feet. It is the highest top of this area of the Cordillera, culminating at 3478 meters.
The frightened Spanishes who could hear its entrails roar gave its name to it. They were only the seracs from the glacier fall detached and precipitated in its crater by the rays of the sun. The Cerro Tronador is indeed a volcano.
The first colonists to have seen it are probably the missionaries Jesuits of the colony of the island of Chiloé, Chilean side. One of them, Father Mascardi, relates an Indian legend in his notes.
A very brave young Cacique, named Linco Nahuel, had posted sentinels on the watershed dominating the valley where lived his tribe, to prevent any invasion.
A tribe however, powerfully armed dwarf men, thwarted the traps he had set, and made captive, at the end of a bloody battle, men, women and children of the young chief tribe, which remained in life.
Linco Nahuel had, for his punishment, to assist impotent to survivors of his people massacre, precipitated in the volcano crater. He could not do anything else than pray the mountain Spirit, “el Pillán”.Thus a violent storm covered with snow indifferently vanquishers and defeated ones.

Hotel Llao Llao (Bariloche)

When Alejandro Bustillo (*) saw his project adopted for the construction of a hotel of luxury on the edges of the lake Nahuel Huapi, perhaps he did not owe it only to his only architect talent. The function his brother occupied then, was undoubtedly useful to him: Exequiel Bustillo was indeed the National parks Director and thus well placed to attribute this public market . Alejandro did not need however his brother pulled string for him. 23 years old in 1912, he had obtained the First Price of the National Exhibition of Painting without ever having exposed before. 2 years later, he was graduate school of architecture.
From 1923 to 1937, he constructed many private mansions of the Argentinian high society. In 1925, he directed his first important building site : that of the Tornquist Bank. The first foundations of Llao Llao were dug in 1936. More than 5000 trees will be cut down for its realization. Only stone and of wood made, surmounted of a tiled roof of alerce, the hotel is inaugurated in great ceremony, on December 31, 1938.Less than one year later, on October 29, 1939, a terrible fire ravage it entirely but the Bustillo brothers finds both morals and financial resources to rebuild it. On December 15, 1940, Llao Llao rises again from his ashes.
The hotel will know a decline during the Seventies until its closing in 1979. The "Club Méditerranée" will acquire it in 1985. Entirely renovated in 1993, after having changed owner, it is today one of the most prestigious establishments of planet.

(*) Alejandro Bustillo (1889-1982) Argentinian architect who built : the Bank of the Nation (Bs As), the hotel Continental (Bs As), the building Martinez de Hoz (head office of the SIDE - Bs As), the National Museum of the Art schools (Bs As), Headquarters of the Otis companies and Volta (Bs As).

Victoria Island (Nahuel Huapi lake)

The quay is located at the feet of “Llao Llao”. From there the boats leave for various excursions on Nahuel Huapi. One of them, true floating museum, takes you along for the wood of the arayanes and the Victoria island.
On the deck during the crossing, the air is so pure that it dazes the townsman not accustomed to such an amount of nature.
Puerto Anchorena, as in a lagoon protected by a coral barrier, is huddled in a bay called Anchorena too. It is there that moor the boats which pour their floods of tourists,
Few hours are proposed to them to discover the island. Ways go through vertiginous sequoias and allow to discover an astonishing flora, a lost village of loggers, prints of hands left by Indians few centuries earlier.

The Arayanes wood (Villa La Angostura)

The Quétrihué peninsula is the only place of the world where one can find an arayanes wood. This essence of tree indeed completely disappeared from the surface of the Earth.
Another forest of this type existed in the United States but it was victim of vandalism, after having inspired Walt Disney in the drawing of the wood of the film "Bambi".
The characteristic of the arayan (myrtle) is to have a bark of color grooves, and a hard wood like stone.

Patagonia's trees in summer.

Patagonia's flowers in summer.

The road of the 7 lakes, from San Martin de Los Andes to Bariloche

Comparable so that it is possible to imagine in Europe several centuries earlier, when one approach the large Italian lakes, Côme, Majeur, or Garde, 7 lakes between San Martin de Los the Andes and Bariloche (which are in fact 8) offer a virgin nature of any dwelling. And even in certain places, of any human presence.
Clothed with arracannes, araucaria, coihue, alerce, lenga or sequoia, the slope of the surrounding mountains plunges gently in deep water intensely blue of lakes which the Indians mapuches baptized in strange way, like Nahuel Huapi, largest of all: "Nahuel" meaning tiger and "huapi", island.