El Bolson
Trip Start
Aug 19, 2008
1
8
15
Trip End
Oct 04, 2008
El Bolson,
Argentina
Thursday, September 11, 2008
We arrived on Monday, by bus, a mere two-hour journey. We went straight to our hostel, which is a small family run place and is the nicest place we have ever stayed anywhere. We have a lovely room looking out at the mountains, have a delicious breakfast of coffee and pastries every morning, and are made to feel like part of the family.
Shortly after we arrived the people from the hostel drove us up to a lookout point overlooking the valley, so we could get our bearings and see the fantastic scenery of mountains, valley, river, and far-off (not so far off really) Chile.
We spent the rest of the afternoon looking round the town, drinking coffee in a cafe, having lunch, and visiting the very odd ornithological museum.
The museum was run by one man, who opened it up for us. It seems to be a private collection, a labour of love, and consists of one room, beautifully presented, of over a hundred stuffed birds of the area, in various positions. All are immaculately preserved, and not falling off perches as they usually seem to be, and they ranged from hummingbirds to condors, parrots to albatrosses, owls to emus.
On Tuesday we started the day with the lovely hostel breakfast, supplemented by some local yoghurt which comes in one-litre bags. We polished one of those off between us.
We set off at about 11 oīclock to walk up to the Cabeza del Indio, the Indianīs head. It is a big rock formation about 8 kilometres from town and looks just like an uptilted head. The first part of the hike took about half an hour, up quite a steep hill to the viewing point we were at the day before. Then we continued to the Cabeza, took some amusing photos, and walked around it. You walk underneath the head and around, and there are some spectacular views out over the valley.
We continued on the part to find the Cascada Escondida, hidden waterfalls, on a route that was mostly flat and easy, through fields and woods. Once we reached there we walked around, following paths down to the bottom and then up to the top. We hardly saw anyone on the entire walk, just a couple of people at the falls.
We set off again walking through the woods, believing we could find an easy way back to town, but this wasnīt to be. We were following the Interpretative Path, which has posts with numbers on at various points along it where, presumably, one is supposed to do some interpreting, although itīs not clear what you are supposed to be interpreting.
The high point, literally, was a wooden platform precariously perched on the side of the mountain from which we could see El Bolson and the long dull road back. This encouraged us to try and find a different route down, but one path ended in a sheer drop and another was blocked by fallen trees, so we ended up having to walk two hours along stony roads in the dust to get back to town.
We had a lovely meal that night in a local parrilla and I tried the local trout, which was very good. Paul had steak stuffed with smoked venison and mozzarella, which was also delicious.
Yesterday we hired bikes from the hostel and cycled to Lago Puelo, a lake bordering Chile about 18 kilometres away from town.
The first part of the ride was more a push, as it was a steep uphill climb that was impossible to ride up. After about ten minutes of that though, it was downhill on quiet country roads for the most part of three hours, with some flat bits on a tarmacked road.
We took our time, stopping to watch the enormous hares running in the fields, and taking pictures of the birds. The morning was quite cold, but then it became quite windy, and by the time we got to the lake it was very cold. We didnīt stay there long, as it was so cold, and even the cafe was shut for the season.
So we set off back, and the weather changed again and it got quite hot. We stopped off at an artesanal alfajor (Argentinian cookie) shop for tea and alfajores, which was richly deserved, and then continued along the main road into town, arriving back at about 5 oīclock, having been cycling for the greater part of six hours.
In the evening Claudio, the owner of our hostel, did a barbecue for all the guests (six of us). We went to the supermarket with him to buy the meat. At the time I thought there was no way we would eat all of it, but as it turned out the dogs got very little in the way of leftovers. We ate boneless ribs and smoked sausages with salad. We ate with the family and one of their friends, and it was a nice family atmosphere that we havenīt really come across elsewhere on our travels.
Today is going to be a bit of a lazy day, recovering from six hours of walking on Tuesday and six hours of cycling yesterday, so I will leave this for now and plan which flavour of icecream to have.
Hopefully I will be able to update this again before we leave El Bolson in a couple of days.
