El Bolson Argentina

"Bolso" means purse in Spanish, and so this little valley nestled between massive cordilleras must have looked like a treasure purse to early European settlers making their way through the wilds of Patagonia. Today, El Bolson is a popular tourist stop, mostly for the outdoorsy crowd, folks looking to hike, fish, climb and ski their way around Patagonia. To boot, the town is one of the most liberal in Argentina, banning all nuclear activity and opposing many international conflicts. Woody remarked several times that it was a lot like Eugene, OR, though a lot smaller and without a big University and ugly yellow duck mascots all over the place. In short, as a couple of wandering Seattleites we fit right in.


We found ourselves a room at Refugio Patagonica and stayed a total of five nights. The Refugio made a great homebase for us as we explored the surrounding countryside, socialized with folks from around the world (the typical hostel crowd) and took Spanish lessons. After bouncing around for a few weeks, having a place to come home to felt great.

We had our Spanish lessons each morning at 9 am with Maestra Sussana, who tried valiantly to help us with the new language. We learned about verb conjugations, past and future tenses and lots of vocabulary. Butt most importantly, Maestra Sussana taught us that Argentinians pronounce Ys like Js, that they will drop Ss from their words at will - everyone (including Maestra Sussana) says "ma", not "mas" - and above all never learn Spanish in Chile, which is even worse than Argentina.
On a culinary note, Woody had been craving some real beef and we we decided to go out for some Chorizo in El Bolson. For those who don't know, the term Chorizo translates as "half a dead cow on your plate." Thank god we were having dinner with other folks as the mound of meat required many mouths to adequately ingest it. And even then, we still had enough left over for lunches and dinners for a couple of days. It's truethat Argentinians love their beef, and as far as we can tell, eating it rivals soccer as the nation's most sacred past-time. As we were leaving town, there was a "National Grilled Meat Festival" starting up not far from El Bolson (we're not kidding, seriously, check it out .)



We took a few hikes around El Bolson. One day we went to Lago Peule, a charming lake outside of town, rimmed by mountains. However, other than a couple nice lookouts, the most notable part of the day was meeting a drum teacher from Buenos Aires named Damian, he followed us for about two hours mumbling in Spanish and telling us how lucky he was to find some people to hike with. We didn't really understand him so just kept hiking - Every now and then he would surprise us with some English and we would get back on track about what he was talking bout for a few minutes and then he was off and running on another subject.



We did head out for an all day trip to Cajon del Azul, a gorgeous slot canyon along the Rio Azul. The hike was strenuous, and the bridges were out of a pirate movie, but we were rewarded with a stunning picnic spot next to an ice cold pool of crystal blue water.


We thought we'd have the site to ourselves, but shortly after arriving, about 20 people - mostly women - from Buenos Aires showed up. The group quickly segregated between the sexes - the women stayed by our picnic spot, while the men scampered up some large boulders overlooking the river. The guys undressed to the shorts, stretched their arms several times, looked at the river below them and decided to smoke a few cigarets to impress their female companions. The ladies look disappointed, so Woody decided to strip down to his undies and jump in himself
Now, it was only a little jump from the beach (no risks of injury), but the water was cold and the bold move prompted cheers from the ladies.

The men felt that their honor had been challenged and so decided to jump from the rocks into the river, which was impressive, as there really wasn't much space for a safe landing and based on the way they flailed themselves into the water, they didn't really know how to dive, or even swim for that matter. But they all survived and felt proud of themselves, the machismo evident from their wide grins.



After the hike, we headed back to the Refugio and packed up in preparation for our long bus ride the following day (Friday Feb 3) to Puerto Montt, Chile, which would be our jumping off point to explore the mystical green island of Chiloe.

For more photos, check out our web album.