A glint from the small Jewish star on her neck sparkled in the candlelight and caught my eye as we sat savoring Clos Apalta, Chilean winner of best wine of the year, from her cellar. A fire crackled in the immense hearth, giving a warm glow to the handcrafted, paneled walls. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided panoramic views of Lake Villarrica and the forest below. The soft white carpet and goatskin rugs blended harmoniously with the natural setting, creating an ambiance at once simple, clean and elegant.
Rony Pollak, our hostess and owner of Hotel Antumalal, slowly let her story unfold as we dined. “My newlywed parents, Guillermo and Catalina Pollak, left most of their family members behind as looming, dark clouds of war began spreading in Czechoslovakia,” she began. “With only Catalina’s mother, Davita, they arrived in Chile in 1938. Little did they know that the rest would perish in the Holocaust.” Guillermo’s mother, knowing they were about to be shipped to Auschwitz, desperately wanted to leave something to her son. “With a dreadful certainty of immi- nent danger, she contacted a sympathetic neighbor to whom she could entrust the gold Magen David star and chain, in the hopes it would eventually reach her son in Chile,” Rony continued. “The precious keepsake, however, did not arrive until more than 20 years later!”
One day, a small package was mysteriously delivered, and in it was the Star of David sent so long ago. Rony told me, “This star is more precious to me than even my dear Antumalal.” Rony’s parents were drawn by the extraordinary beauty of the lakeside village of Pucón. “Having met in the Alps, they’d been looking for a landscape of mountains, lakes and skiing that reminded them of home,” Rony said. “They took over the management of Hotel Playa and gained concession of the ski lodge on nearby Villarrica Volcano. Then disaster struck. Within a short space of time, the hotel burned down and the ski lodge was destroyed in the volcanic eruption of 1949.”
Others would have taken that as a sign to give up their dream, but the Pollaks saw it simply as an unfortunate detour and a challenge to be overcome. The couple had already purchased some arid and rocky land at the edge of Lake Villarrica. There they built a small cafe where Catalina and her mother, Davita, baked cakes using traditional Czech recipes. “Little by little, what started out as a tea house by the lake came to be known for summer weddings and year-round celebrations of ‘Onces,’ a sort of evening brunch to satisfy ap- petites until larger dinners are served around 9 pm,” Rony said. “In honor of the breathtaking sunsets, they called their place Antumalal, meaning Corral of the Sun in the local language of the indigenous Mapuche.”
Guillermo’s dream of building his own hotel suddenly came closer to reality one day when President Videla of Chile and his entire entou- rage arrived. Videla was so impressed with Guillermo’s plan that he arranged a special government loan for him, and Antumalal was born, a vibrant and con- temporary 22-room hotel on a forested outcrop surrounded by acres of gardens, terraced vista points and waterfalls. “It was designed by a young architect, Jorge Elton, who had studied under Frank Lloyd Wright,” Rony informed us. “Elton used mostly beech and araucaria trees.” I’d never heard of araucaria before, but seeing this tall, bizarre-looking native Chilean conifer was an unforgettable sight. “We nickname them monkey puzzle trees,” Rony said, “because it’s a puzzle how monkeys could ever climb up those prickly, tangled branches.” I thought so. Although there are no monkeys in the Lake District, fossil evidence shows the tree originated during the Jurassic Period 150 million years ago, when its sharp, thorny leaves must have discouraged many a hungry dinosaur.
It’s the large tasty seeds of the araucaria that hold the most interest for Mapuche Indians, however. Though this jumbo ver- sion of pine nuts can take up to 40 years to mature, the delicious results can be savored in the nearby village of Curar- rehue. There at her humble cafe, Elisa Cea Epuin concocts a soup from the araucaria’s piñon nuts and prepares a popular Pishco vegetable stew made with beans, lentils and wheat berries.
Elisa’s most celebrated sweet is purple maqui pie. Maqui berries, Elisa informed us, are the world’s most powerful antioxi- dant, with double the health benefits of Brazil’s acai berry. Maqui goes into local teas, juices and kuchen (cakes), adapted from pastries made by German immi- grants who settled here.
In addition to Antumalal’s own indoor/ outdoor Antumaco Spa pools, another upside to volcanic living is the natural Termas Geometricas hot springs, carved into the steep sides of a waterfall-fed ravine. The 21 thermal pools, ranging from comfortably warm to risky hot, are linked by a half-mile of elevated wooden walkway. Throughout the years, Rony has never wandered far from her Jewish heritage, sometimes connecting in rather surprising ways. “There was one rather sad incident,” she said, “when the former ambassador from Israel chose this hotel to accompany and provide comfort and lodging to five members of an Israeli family whose son went missing on the volcano. It was concluded after a week that the boy had fallen into a crevasse, and his body was never recovered.”
Other noteworthy guests included Queen Elizabeth of England, astronaut Neil Armstrong, actors James Stewart and Emma Thompson, and politicians Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater. Today the family tradition continues, although Rony’s son Andrew left to study psychology at the University of Oregon in Eugene and lived for a while in Portland. On our final evening, we observed first- hand how Antumalal earned its name. In their Restaurant Parque Antumalal, after a meal of quinoa and mint salad with avo- cado dressing, hot pumpkin soup blended with oven-roasted oranges and grilled trout with quinoa risotto, we watched spellbound as a spectacular lava-red sunset filled the horizon with a romantic glow that lifted our spirits. Through Rony Pollak’s warmth and charm, volcanic Chile had worked its magic, transforming a once-distant nation into a welcoming wonderland of visual and culinary delights.
Ellen Levin is a freelance travel writer.
