El Bolson
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2008
1
8
14
Trip End
Jun 03, 2008
El Bolson,
Argentina
Monday, April 7, 2008
We arrived in Puerto Montt and quickly booked tickets out of that funky port city and on to the second leg of our journey - The Patagonian Lakes District in Argentina. During a quick walk around Puerto Montt to regain our land legs, we were approached by a group of six guys about college age who were doused in flour and wearing large fish heads strung around their necks
BBQ at our campsite
. They asked us for money in a kind of friendly kind of aggressive way and we just kept on walking, not quite sure what else to do. Lonely Planet didn´t cover college kids wielding fish heads!? They laughed and moved on and I later learned they were going through a fraternity initiation. They were sent out like that by their brothers to beg for money for booze for an initiation party later that night. Had we known, we likely would have supported their cause. We eventually made it back to Argentina and to El Bolson, a little hippie town sandwiched between massive mountains and high alpine lakes and where the town mascot is an elf. Not a mischievous elf, but one of those fat happy elves with long beards and floppy hats..that should give you an idea what this town is like. Within the first 10 minutes of strolling through the bucolic town, Kyle was offered pot, then 100% Columbian pot, then a big jug of home brew by a dude who said he made the stuff in his backyard - all of which Kyle declined. The place could have been Eugene. Turns out, the town is the hop growing capital of all of Argentina and the main attraction, aside from the stunning scenery, is the local brew. We´ve yet to sample and we´re admittedly a little skeptical, as the beers we´ve had in South America rate somewhere between Miller High Life and Aquafina. However, if Argentina were to make a great beer, El Bolson is the place to find it
Camping in apple orchard
. We rented an apartment for the first two nights and camped in an apple orchard for the last two. We hiked up to Cerro Piltrioquetron to check a statue forest on our second, glorious sunny day. That´s right, a collection of hand-carved wood statues all standing sentry atop one of the tallest peaks around. It was a rough hike, but worth the oddity of it all. The rest of our time was spent strolling through the farmer´s market, grilling enormous steaks at our campsite and enjoying the company of the friends we met along the way. We could have easily stayed weeks, but our northward journey must chug on. Our next stop is Bariloche to gear up for our next trek and then on to San Martin De Los Andes so Kyle can get his fill of fly fishing. Seriously, life is way too easy right now. New pictures are on the way.
Ciao!
Comments
Yay!
Thanks for all the updates & gorgeous pictures, I'm finally catching up on your blog entries. I laughed so hard at 'Patience was forced to dance alone to really bad synthesizer music accompanied by a creepy DJ who kept saying ¨my name is Patience¨ in a deep voice.'
xo
Janine
Fabulous Fotos
I hope your next home has allot of wall space for those great photos! Can't wait to see more more more!! Sounds like your relaxing into your constant changes and challenges. Bariloche. Have a great time and we want more stories.
Love
Fireball