El Bolson: 27 - 2 Mar
28 Feb:
So we got off the bus in El Bolson, pretty shell shocked after all the busing, and wandered around for 5 minuted or so feeling like most of the people who live here (it´s a serious hippy town), when Agustin Porro (which coincidentally means joint!) offed to shown us his little wooden house in the backyard of his farm to see whether we wanted to stay there. So we piled our mochillos in to the back of his Ford Sierra, and drove 5 mins to his farm on the banks of the River Quenquenchua where he and his very extended family live.
To understand the geographic/culture/climatologic shock that we were now experiencing, you would have to have been there, and more importantly, have to have been to the dry (as in Karoo), toy (as in built solely for rich tourists), and commercial/impersonal Calafate and Chalten towns---which are, however, undeniably beautiful.
But this little wooden house amongst the plum and I-don´t-know-what-you-call-little-yellow-plums-that-taste-like-Cape-goosberries trees, with little bridges and stepping stones over all the canals from the river, was really what I needed. After stuffing ourselves with plums, we borrowed the bikes and pedalled for about 1 minute before a thicket of ripe blackberries next to the river put an end to our travels (fresh fruit isn´t that common in Argentina okay!).
Agustin then gave us a dodgy map, some instructions in Spanish (Kevin, Christina, and Sarah can speak Spanish, but I can read maps!), and we set of for a four hour walk in the jungle to see the Casscades. To cut a long story short, the walk was pretty, but I still had a stomach bug which took the Botanical Garden Sanitaros to solve! And meant that I had good weird herbal tea at the bar on the way home as opposed to the great beers from the micro brewery. A huge supper of white rice finally closed of that topic.
Town is a 10 min walk from our farm and involves crossing the river on an Indiana Jone suspension bridge over the raging (OK, not really!) river. It is pretty unstable, so I was very impressed seeing a guy cycle across yesterday. I think he was drunk though.
CAPTION: Belguim waffles. Self-explanatory.
Tuesday is market day in El Bolson! And Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday. And it´s damn interesting, though certainly not huge. The best stuff is the food, and I tried it all: every-berry smoothies, (vegetarians close your eyes) wholewheat sheeps tongue drizzled in olive oil and herb rolls, waffles with raspberries and dulce de leche and cream, and I´m now eating some cherries and blackberries that I bought. Oh yes, lots of local preservative free beer. In fact that´s where I´m going now, on a brewery tour (I´ll bring back some tips for SAB Astrid!), just after I tell you about drinking maté (and Argentinian herb tea that is way more than just a way of life here---really) with a family from Comodoro Riverdavia (pronounced commorrorroribadabia) for 2 hours. Well, I did. More than a litre of it. But the Dad drinks about 5 litres a day. We had three lage thermoses worth.
MATÉ drinking:
Put a lot of loose yerba maté in a small gourd.
Fill with hot water from the thermos that you will always be carrying, and that can be refilled anywhere (even out in mountain huts).
Drink the whole thing, through a flattened engraved silver straw with a tea strainer at the bottom.
Hand back to the oke with the thermos WITHOUT saying thank you (unless you didn´t like it and won´t be having more, and want to get off the planet).
It gets refilled and passed to the next person.
Replace the yerba maté when really watery.
Refill the thermos when empty.
You may appreciate that the last two instructions create an endless loop. It does.
CAPTION: Kevin, Christina, James, the Argentinian couple, Colin, Sarah, Matt, Sarah drinking mate.
1 Mar:
Well, we eventually got up, packed our stuff for hiking, and caught a cab to the bottom of the hill where the walk to the Sculpted Forest begins. Two hours of huffing up one side of the spectacular Bolson Valley saw us reach the amazing forest.
2 Mar:
More excellent markets, with juice, steak rolls, fruit sweets, and waffles with rsberies and cream.
CAPTION: What's your flavour?
That [late] afternoon, we finally got going to see the Swiss skinny dippers at Lago Puello that that Nigel always talks about. Alas, the wind was a little cold for even the Swiss to be trying that. James the American highschool kid staying with us was also plannig to get on the bus, but the treats at the La Anonima supermercado kepp him occupied for just longer than the bus driver was prepared to wait. Unluuuucky!
Lake and sun and moonset were beautiful. As was the delta of the Rio Azul flowing into the Lake. Nice beaches, but howling wind. Lots of signs on camping 101, including many instructions on how to avoid rats (turns out two people died there of a hantavirus some years ago!).
And then back to a couple of kilograms of leftovers of the superb super from the night before, which tasted even better when sober.
So we got off the bus in El Bolson, pretty shell shocked after all the busing, and wandered around for 5 minuted or so feeling like most of the people who live here (it´s a serious hippy town), when Agustin Porro (which coincidentally means joint!) offed to shown us his little wooden house in the backyard of his farm to see whether we wanted to stay there. So we piled our mochillos in to the back of his Ford Sierra, and drove 5 mins to his farm on the banks of the River Quenquenchua where he and his very extended family live.
To understand the geographic/culture/climatologic shock that we were now experiencing, you would have to have been there, and more importantly, have to have been to the dry (as in Karoo), toy (as in built solely for rich tourists), and commercial/impersonal Calafate and Chalten towns---which are, however, undeniably beautiful.
But this little wooden house amongst the plum and I-don´t-know-what-you-call-little-yellow-plums-that-taste-like-Cape-goosberries trees, with little bridges and stepping stones over all the canals from the river, was really what I needed. After stuffing ourselves with plums, we borrowed the bikes and pedalled for about 1 minute before a thicket of ripe blackberries next to the river put an end to our travels (fresh fruit isn´t that common in Argentina okay!).
Agustin then gave us a dodgy map, some instructions in Spanish (Kevin, Christina, and Sarah can speak Spanish, but I can read maps!), and we set of for a four hour walk in the jungle to see the Casscades. To cut a long story short, the walk was pretty, but I still had a stomach bug which took the Botanical Garden Sanitaros to solve! And meant that I had good weird herbal tea at the bar on the way home as opposed to the great beers from the micro brewery. A huge supper of white rice finally closed of that topic.
Town is a 10 min walk from our farm and involves crossing the river on an Indiana Jone suspension bridge over the raging (OK, not really!) river. It is pretty unstable, so I was very impressed seeing a guy cycle across yesterday. I think he was drunk though.
CAPTION: Belguim waffles. Self-explanatory.
Tuesday is market day in El Bolson! And Thursday. And Saturday and Sunday. And it´s damn interesting, though certainly not huge. The best stuff is the food, and I tried it all: every-berry smoothies, (vegetarians close your eyes) wholewheat sheeps tongue drizzled in olive oil and herb rolls, waffles with raspberries and dulce de leche and cream, and I´m now eating some cherries and blackberries that I bought. Oh yes, lots of local preservative free beer. In fact that´s where I´m going now, on a brewery tour (I´ll bring back some tips for SAB Astrid!), just after I tell you about drinking maté (and Argentinian herb tea that is way more than just a way of life here---really) with a family from Comodoro Riverdavia (pronounced commorrorroribadabia) for 2 hours. Well, I did. More than a litre of it. But the Dad drinks about 5 litres a day. We had three lage thermoses worth.
MATÉ drinking:
Put a lot of loose yerba maté in a small gourd.
Fill with hot water from the thermos that you will always be carrying, and that can be refilled anywhere (even out in mountain huts).
Drink the whole thing, through a flattened engraved silver straw with a tea strainer at the bottom.
Hand back to the oke with the thermos WITHOUT saying thank you (unless you didn´t like it and won´t be having more, and want to get off the planet).
It gets refilled and passed to the next person.
Replace the yerba maté when really watery.
Refill the thermos when empty.
You may appreciate that the last two instructions create an endless loop. It does.
CAPTION: Kevin, Christina, James, the Argentinian couple, Colin, Sarah, Matt, Sarah drinking mate.
1 Mar:
Well, we eventually got up, packed our stuff for hiking, and caught a cab to the bottom of the hill where the walk to the Sculpted Forest begins. Two hours of huffing up one side of the spectacular Bolson Valley saw us reach the amazing forest.
2 Mar:
More excellent markets, with juice, steak rolls, fruit sweets, and waffles with rsberies and cream.
CAPTION: What's your flavour?
That [late] afternoon, we finally got going to see the Swiss skinny dippers at Lago Puello that that Nigel always talks about. Alas, the wind was a little cold for even the Swiss to be trying that. James the American highschool kid staying with us was also plannig to get on the bus, but the treats at the La Anonima supermercado kepp him occupied for just longer than the bus driver was prepared to wait. Unluuuucky!
Lake and sun and moonset were beautiful. As was the delta of the Rio Azul flowing into the Lake. Nice beaches, but howling wind. Lots of signs on camping 101, including many instructions on how to avoid rats (turns out two people died there of a hantavirus some years ago!).
And then back to a couple of kilograms of leftovers of the superb super from the night before, which tasted even better when sober.
posted by Colin at 12:52 am
5 Comments:
Interesting Travel Blog.
How are you posting? Do u carry a notebook computer ? and how? or do u use netcafes?
Hi Colin,
Oh, how I am missing you, when reading your very well-written interesting stories! I cannot wait to see you! We all miss you very much - but you went at a good time: Very frustrating to work without power.
Love you,
Ilze
Hey, Bru.
Can't keep up with your postings, a few days of work should sort that out :-). Sounds all good stuff you are doin.
Cheers from Cabin fever Hobart!
Tim
Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all the comments and messages. I DO read and appreciate them!
Love,
Colin
Yo Soutie!
Sounds (reads) like you are making the kind of memories one tells the grandchildren about one day :D.
Have you bought yourself a little farm there yet?
Anyhow, safe trip and keep the posts coming!
Toit
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