INTO THE FOREST PRIMEVAL

THERE’S A SPOT around six kilometres into the Los Lagos Trail, in Chile’s Huerquehue National Park, where venerable araucaria trees preside over a primordial rainforest. They pop like umbrellas from lumpy hills; they curve like palms over placid lagoons. Araucarias are so ecstatic, so top-heavy in their design, that they seemed to punctuate the path ahead of us like giddy exclamation marks.

My partner, Felipe, and I had been hiking all morning just to see them. The higher we climbed, the colder the forest became. Of course, the trees don’t mind; they’re dressed for the weather in fur coats of pea-green lichen. Araucarias grow only in Chile and Argentina, and only at altitudes above 914 metres. Perhaps that’s why this area, about 805 kilometres south of Santiago, has become a place of pilgrimage for Felipe and me over the