El Bolson Hotels
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El Bolson
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Ruta 40
I went to El Bolson via the legendary ruta 40. Tour companies make it look like a tour, I knew beforehand that it wouldn´t be more than just a bus, but there is no regular bus service going North, except for taking a big detour via Rio Gallegos, so I just went for this expensive tour/bus. It is nice though to experience this side of Patagonia as well, its enourmous emptiness. Hours and hours we rode on the bumpy dirt road without seeing anything else than the pampa´s and the occasional guanaco or rhea family (a kind of ostrich (struisvogel)). Sometimes we passed an estancia (a farm) and I think that the nicest way to do the ruta 40 would be to do it with own transportation, stopping at some of those estancias to experience the other side (compared to the touristy side) of Patagonia. After all, al nice experience, but again very expensive, no accomodation or food included and with no excursions whatsoever. Just two days of bus.
El Bolson
In El Bolson I stayed in the nice and cozy hosal El Pueblito, where company was great and the nights always fun. The first day we went to check out an artisan market, an easy day and guess what I found at the food stalls!? A "frietkot" (sorry, I only know the word in flemish), my first packet of fries in 4 months wasn´t of Belgian quality, but it did the trick. The second day we (Canadian couple Carey and Colleen and Australian woman Marie) did a walk through the canyon Azul. A nice, though not very spectacular walk.
Mr. Eyebrow
That night it would be Christmas eve and during the walk we thought of a game for during dinner. After two nights in the hostal we had already gotten to know this older English guy, nicknamed Mr. Eyebrow or Jack (Nicholson), who was a very proud man, proud of his knowledge. So proud that he would interfere in any conversation when he had some "interesting" facts to share. An example would be when we Colleen and Carey were talking about how they enjoyed the enormous variety of cheese available in Belgium and he would say, in a for us inignorably way, "in England we also have lot s of cheeses" followed by a list of at least 15 different cities in England, clearly also names of cheeses and concluded by "my favourite is cheddar. do you know there are many different chedders? english cheddar, walish cheddar, scottisch cheddar, <list of at leat 5 more> , there is even Canadian cheddar!". All of this from somewhere out of the conversation thrown in and repeated with many different subjects, history, geography, languages, animals, ... he knew the facts!
Anyway, the game was this. We gave each other a subject about which we had to make Mr. Eyebrow talk during christmas eve dinner. Carey got star constellations, Colleen flowers, Marie Bill Bryson and I got famous mountain climbers. Main rule: he had to come into the conversation on his own initiative. It worked perfectly and was hilarious. Sometimes it was hard to keep from laughing when he was talking to us, but even when we did he would just continu. Amazing! He even added some interventions on his own account, on the origin of the Enlgish language for instance, Carrey filmed this with is camera, it is too big though to put online, that will be for when I get back.
Christmas Eve
Even without Mr.Eyebrow it would have been a nice evening by the way. The girl of the house had cooked a great meal, company was fun, wine abundand, ... everything was there to make it a great night and so it was.
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