When I first conceived of this journey, the last thing I expected was to do it riding a rented van. I romantically thought that like Neruda, I would ride horseback. He describes his experience:
"The sky overhead can't be seen. Below, leaves have been falling for centuries, forming a layer of humus the hoof of the mounts sink down into...It was all the dazzling and secretive work of nature and at the same time a growing threat of cold, snow, and pursuit. It all came into play: solitude, danger, silence, and the urgency of my mission".
They passed through primeval forest including Rauli trees, "the diameter of a horse." His companions marked them with machetes to use as "breadcrumbs" for the way back. They have to cross a river:
"Soon my horse was almost completely covered by the water, I began to plunge up and down without support, my feet fighting desperately while the horse struggled to keep its head above water." Neruda thought he was going to drown, but the "seasoned countryfolk" assured they had their lassos ready, though one admitted that the river had once swept his father away.
Me and the van-group stop to see the tranquil but deep water of the Curringue. Then we drive over it.
Neruda and company rest the first night at the Chihuío hot springs. The volcanic waters "cleansed off the heaviness of our long ride." In a crude structure men with bull horns for cups lay around a bonfire among stacks of cheese and meat, which they shared with the new arrivals. They sang songs of love and faraway places and Neruda transfixed them with stories of his childhood in this nature. "We left on our horses, singing, with a new air filling our lungs, a breath that drove us on to the great highway of the world waiting for me."
Today, about five dollars gets me into the Chihuío hot springs along with a bunch of families. Cabins made from half decaying Coihue lumber house private baths. An older couple begs me to take a photo of them soaking into hyper-plump raisins. The main attraction is a shallow pool heated by the springs and moderated with cold blasts from a stream-fed hose. Bickering mothers, fathers, and children pull chilly pranks on each other while keeping themselves from burning.
The grass still grows where he told stories and slept. Improvised plumbing slathering the hillside collects the streams of fire. I stumble into one and scald my foot. Just in case that wasn't enough, underground bubbling and gurgling confirms I'm in the land of geyserdom.
A bit up the road from Chihuío the van halts when we enter private property. It takes Ramón an hour and a half to negotiate with the owner, though I think an hour of that is just getting to her secret lair on horseback. She lets us on but two border police have to escort us. Ramón tells me she is somehow connected to Britain's largest advertising firm and bought these 14,000 acres (almost 3 times larger than the biggest U.S. Ski resort) in 2000. I never thought an individual could own a entire mountain range, let alone one named Devil's Fangs. Their bald snow-ringed peaks bite into the sky. We walk through the valley along a wide path torn by the giant claw of past logging. All the land until Argentina is hers. Although she keeps it unused, little if any of Neruda's "primitive nature's great cathedral" still stands. Ramón saysit was clear-cut fifty years ago. He points out Rauli trees whose dimensions have shrunken from horses to squirrels. I ask him rhetorically whether its better to kill a million trees or one man.
1 vote 
