Their Honeymoon Spot

Bariloche, Argentina - 1948 and 2008.

As I told you in my previous chapter, I found, in my box of memories, a few photos of my parents’ honeymoon in Bariloche. One in particular caught my attention. It was taken in the southern spring of 1948. They are standing at a fence in front of a gorgeous view of what looks like a depression full of bushes, a triangular piece of lake Nahuel Huapi, beyond which is a small glacial moraine—remnants of a glacial mound—and then, in the distant haze, a rocky peak.  They look like quite the honeymooning couple. They have synchronized their pose, their right arms follow parallel arches into their pockets, and both are smiling contentedly away from the camera, happy in their own cocoon. I love his left hand on her shoulder, both protective and possessive.

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A long time ago, I decided that one day I would find the precise spot where the photo was taken. As the decades passed, I barely remembered how it was to be next to my parents, to feel their skin or hear their voices. I had stopped mourning them a long time ago. They had become an abstraction, like distant ancestors sharing a resemblance. Yet I decided that I would one day go to Bariloche and stand on the spot by the fence where they had stood. I would try to bring them back to me and feel their presence again.

When I was a boy, Mom used to show me pictures of Bariloche and talked with delight about her honeymoon there. Given its dramatic resemblance to the European Alps, the place caught the attention of German and Swiss travelers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of whom stayed. The local architecture is basic log chalets with steep roofs and flowered balconies. There is skiing in the winter and deer hunting in the fall, and the lake villages are dotted by restaurants and inns with names like Lorelei and Alpenhaus. The place likes to call itself “The Little Switzerland of South America.” There is such a Tyrolean atmosphere in Bariloche that I was not surprised to hear that several prominent Nazis had moved in and were living there after the Second World War.

The hotel where Mom and Dad stayed, the Llao Llao, sits gracefully on a peninsula jutting into the blue Nahuel Huapi lake. It is built in the grand style of a mountain lodge, with large fireplaces, log furniture sitting on oriental rugs, and elk heads hanging from the walls. The view from the terrace onto the lake and far into the snow-capped Andes is magical. In 1948, the Llao Llao was, and remains to this day, a very fancy place.

In 2008, sixty years after my parents’ honeymoon, I took Sandy and my daughters to the Llao Llao. It was not our intention for the trip to be exactly six decades later but by a cosmic coincidence it turned out that way. It was a long journey in space and time. Geographically to the Llao Llao and back sixty years to the fence where they had stood. We took an overnight flight from Washington, DC to Buenos Aires and, the next day, a few more hours by another plane from BA to Bariloche. Finally, an hour by van to reach the hotel.

A few weeks before leaving for the Llao Llao I emailed to the concierge the photograph of my parents by the fence. I asked that she tell me where this might be. She said that she was not sure but that she would ask. Meanwhile, looking at the Llao Llao website, my daughter Mara noticed a photo of the hotel against a rocky peak in the distance. The peak looked almost identical to the one in the photo, with the same scraggy profile and the same shadows. The website caption called it the Cerro Lopez. We downloaded direct photos of the Lopez and quickly confirmed that it was indeed the mountain of my parents’ honeymoon.  A good satellite map of the hotel grounds led to a few spots where, standing on the shoreline, we would see the peak across a body of water. We were optimistic, but the concierge, even with this information, could not identify the spot.

We decided to wait until arrival to connect the last few dots. The day we got to the Llao Llao I asked the concierge if she had identified the spot. She had not, even though she had posted my parents’ photo in the employees’ lounge and had sent it around with a query. No one could tell her where my parents had been standing.

“It’s been so many years,” said the concierge, “and the hotel has changed so much. And that fence . . .  that fence! We don’t know where it might have been. The old timers are nowhere around anymore,” she added. “Lo siento mucho, I’m so sorry. We don’t even know if there was such a fence in the hotel.”

For a few days, we walked the grounds and the shorelines looking for the fence, shaking our heads. We photographed the Cerro Lopez from every possible angle, placing what water we could between the mountain and us but the pictures did not look at all like the spot by the fence. We could see a moraine in the lake, but not between the Lopez and us, or we could see the Lopez across the lake, but not a moraine. And not a sign of the darn fence. I concluded that we would not solve the riddle, and, saddened, gave up. Instead, we hiked, rode horses, and took in a lake excursion to the Bosque de Arrayanes, a gorgeous nature preserve that Mom had told me about, and that is home to the only remaining myrtle grove in the world. Arrayanes is about an hour north across the lake from the Llao Llao. We rented a boat and captain to take us there.

About thirty minutes into the trip, Sandy, who was facing astern, points to her right and shouts, “There it is! There it is!”

We all turn and see it, the exact alignment of lake, moraine, and Lopez. There is no bushy depression or fence, but three out of five ain’t bad. I tell Juan Pablo, the young captain, the reason for our sudden commotion. Since I do not have the photo of my parents with me, I describe the arrangement of the fence, the lake, the moraine, and the mountain in the back.  

Captain Juan Pablo says, in a matter-of-fact voice, “I know where that is. There’s only one spot around here that has such a fence looking toward the Cerro Lopez. It’s on this island to the right of us, Isla Victoria.” He points at a stretch of land along which we have been sailing. “I wasn’t going to stop there,” he adds, “pero vamos, let’s go. There’s an inn on the cliffs. That’s where there’s a fence.”

We look at each other, thrilled. “And was this inn around in 1948?” I ask.

“I think so,” says the captain. “It burned down at one point, but they have rebuilt it.”

As the captain is talking, I see, out of the corner of my eye, a quaint ship sailing in the distance ahead of us, also heading north along the lakeshore.

As I stare at her mesmerized, I suddenly recall seeing another Bariloche photo of my parents. In that one, they are standing at a small harbor about to leave on a sail. Sure enough, behind them there was . . . a ship. I can barely think through the next words . . .  it’s the same ship . . ! I then remember that Mom had mentioned a small harbor by the Llao Llao  and the name of the ship in the photo, Modesta Victoria. I am so excited, I can barely talk.

“What’s the name of the ship out there?” I ask, knowing the answer.

“Oh, that’s the Modesta Victoria,” says Captain Juan Pablo.

“And was she around in 1948?”

“Sí,” says Juan Pablo. “They’ve refurbished her, but she’s been on this lake forever.”

It all made sense. I had never thought that my parents would, like every other tourist around here, be . . . alive. Duh! After so many decades, I had gotten to think of them as dead, frozen in space and time like the white paper cutouts on black matte that you buy in antique shops. But in 1948 they moved around, they went on an excursion! I thought.  They got on a boat and spent the day on the lake. They were alive, you dummy, not dead.

Captain Juan Pablo pulls up the boat to a small wharf at the bottom of the island cliff and we all march up the path toward the inn. We get there at different times, my excited daughters having run far ahead. I go to the main reception desk and, as I am explaining our presence to the innkeeper, see my daughters and Sandy run in, flushed with enthusiasm.

“We found it! We found it!” they shout.

“The fence?” I ask.

“Yes! The fence!”

“And the moraine?”

“Yes! Right between the fence and the Cerro Lopez!”

Sure enough, the spot is on the terrace at the edge of the cliff, and it is perfect.  The fence, or a modern version of the old one that burned down in the 1980s, lines up perfectly over a little depression overgrown with bushes, a triangle of blue lake, the moraine on the right, and the Lopez in the back. That’s five out five . . .  the jackpot! We jumped for joy and spent the next fifteen minutes photographing this from every angle, posing like my parents, laughing and talking. Captain Juan Pablo was watching us from afar, grinning.

I almost forgot why I was there. As my family was leaving, I remained behind and stood on the spot alone, my eyes closed. I was overcome with emotion and the tears flowed. The ghosts of Mom and Dad were there, standing with me. It was one of the first times that I felt both of them together, as a couple. Here, years ago, they had had a moment of great happiness. Uprooted from their far-away homes, each one alone in their own diaspora, they had stood next to each other and dreamed of a future together. I stood with them both, mourning and celebrating.

“You didn’t have to come all the way to Bariloche, you know Schorschi,” I imagined Mom saying. “Yes,” I heard Dad, “We’re always happy to visit you in Washington, Jorgito.”  

My tears blended with joy. It was the joy of imagining them alive, together, planning their day, dressing for the occasion, going on a tour, climbing a hill, visiting this inn, having lunch, and posing for the camera. It was the joy of living.

Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I too have been at this spot before. . . . Maybe I am in that picture. It was after all, the Spring of 1948, nine months before I was born in July of the following year.

Sandy and my daughters had returned and formed a tight circle around me. They brought me back to the present. We all hugged until our shared tears stopped. Then, following the captain, we walked down to the boat.

***

Here is the photo of my parents at the fence during their Bariloche honeymoon in 1948. Next to it is a photo of the same spot in 2008, sixty years later.

T. S. Eliot, the modernist English poet, has the words to describe my feelings that day in Bariloche, and even today. His poem, Little Gidding, deals with life’s journeys and hardships. There is even in it a prominent ghost. While the poem is a touch too religious for my taste, its ending is evocative of my life-long quests. My life’s searches had come full circle:

We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

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Dear readers, thank you for having shared my literary journey this past year. While this is the last chapter of my stories, I will post an Epilogue in early January, so please stay tuned. Meanwhile, I wish you a good holiday season and a 2025 filled with good health and lots of creativity.