Soul journey

By Abbie Kozolchyk

updated 3:57 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2006

Acute wanderlust isn’t the usual reaction to a movie. But The Motorcycle Diaries — the cinematic version of the journey that took Ernesto “Che” Guevara from Argentina to Venezuela, and from bourgeois med student to proto-revolutionary — was promptly credited by The New York Times with begetting a boom in tourism. The story “is in itself an invitation not only to travel but also to experience and be changed and transformed,” explains director Walter Salles.

Not one to turn down such invitations, I too headed south to retrace Che’s steps, albeit figuratively, with neither a motorcycle nor eight spare months. But even if “La Poderosa” (the wheezing Norton 500 on which Che set out) was replaced by LAN jets — and his barn lodgings by spas — transformation unquestionably ensued: The combination of endlessly beautiful surroundings and uniquely gifted therapists made any other outcome impossible.

ARGENTINA

After an 11-hour flight from New York where slush and rain delayed my departure, I arrived in Buenos Aires on an impossibly perfect summer day. With its Parisian-feeling sidewalk cafés, boulevards bustling with elegant shoppers and sun-dappled park benches providing refuge for amorous couples, the city held obligingly true to description. The combination made for a strong, citywide buzz — a sort of urban chi that energized everything in its path, including me. I hit the pavement early and often and quickly developed a fascination for the gritty tango street shows that popped up at regular intervals. At the tiny Bar Sur, where I was sent by local consensus, the expressiveness of the dancers’ faces was rivaled only by that of their bodies. Here, the knife-sharp twists and turns that are the dance’s main idiom gave way to an indigenous expertise — the tiniest flinch of a back muscle eloquently conveyed anything from desire to revulsion. In fact, a seasoned milonguera seems to say more with her exposed back than most can say in a dissertation.

Fittingly, the back is one of the city’s most glorified body parts — and the focus of a signature spa treatment at the Four Seasons Hotel, where I stayed. The Porteño Massage, so-named for the locals (porteños), is something of a multisensory cultural primer: With tango music playing softly in the background, a skin-revitalizing, antioxidant-rich local wine distillate is applied to the back before the therapist administers a hot stone massage that eradicates all tension.

Finally able to leave the mesmerizing energy of Buenos Aires behind, I chose to fly south to the Argentine lake region, a grand convergence of lush green forest, shimmering blue water and majestic Andean peaks. Though I never would have imagined snorkeling in a place in the vicinity of glaciers, one look at Nahuel Huapí National Park (Argentina’s oldest — with rivers, waterfalls, mountains, valleys, lakes, ice packs and more) was all I needed to be convinced by a resident guide that plunging into the water was a great idea. (The promise of a wet suit also helped close the deal.) And here’s what I learned: For a taste of the truly sublime, nothing beats kayaking to a rocky beach, recharging with some steamy yerba maté, then snorkeling through a dead-calm, crystal-clear, sunlight-pierced Patagonian lake.

The sublime was also in evidence at my local lodgings: hostería Las Balsas, not far from the Patagonian hub town of Bariloche. A secluded 15-room property set on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapí, the hotel houses a surpassingly beautiful little spa. With its outsized, altarlike circular massage table, the main treatment room seems more like a chapel than a place of pampering. But the building’s most striking feature is the pool used for Watsu. Because it looks out onto the lake, the two almost appear to be a single, watery continuum. Once you’re submerged, though, and in Marisa Trivellini’s calming hands (she’s the lead therapist but could really be called lead magician), the view is beside the point, the Watsu is that good — with unique extras such as Tibetan chimes sounded underwater. Entirely transported, I emerged refreshed and clearheaded.

CHILE

Since my own Diaries journey was motorcycle-free, I spent a fair amount of time on this trip traveling to and from various airports, the typical drive being at best unremarkable — and at worst a big drag. Not so the ride from Calama, Chile, to San Pedro de Atacama. Here in the high desert, Atacama’s vast, starkly surreal beauty — with its Dada-esque rock formations, austere salt flats and far-off, snowcapped peaks — lined almost the entire road to Terrantai Lodge, the place that would become my home base for the next few days.

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