Lonely Planet sells El Bolson as a hippy, artistic town that is very environmentally aware. But when we arrived we didn´t get that impression at all, and it didn´t really come to us later either. A two hour bus ride from Bariloche, we got out of the bus in the middle of nowhere and walked to our hostel which was 4km out of town. El Pueblito had been recommended to us by our last hostel plus it seemed to be the only one you could book online that had private bathrooms, and after 6 nights of sharing one in Bariloche, I´d had enough. The hostel was run by a hippy German and looked like a real mountain retreat. We were given a cosy cabin away from the main house which was fantastic. It had a kitchenette, a loft bed above ours plus a heater and great bathroom. We dropped off our bags and immediately walked into town, which is basically a main street with some nice chocolate shops and cafes serving the Lakes District favourite Trucha (trout). El Bolson survives on tourism and this is clear, although they dont shove it down your throat. The main street has a small artifical lake within the plaza and as we were walking near it the funniest site was to be seen - over 200 teenagers were throwing each other in, fully clothed! All of them got thrown in no matter how fast they ran and it was very amusing to see them drying in the sun and caked with mud even though it was no more than 18 degrees. El Bolson is a great place to get exercise and relax in the hostel at night. We´ve been cooking far more often now - after 2 months of travelling we´ve had enough of eating out - plus I really haven´t found the food in Argentian restaurants to be great and the restaurant prices are around the same as Australia but the supermarket seems a quarter of the price. Further to my previous post about Michael´s fear of small dogs and their hate of him, it seems larger dogs love him and follow him everywhere! Bariloche had about 7 town dogs that wandered down the main street where we were staying and they´d follow him into shops and the hostel and often wait until he came out! Our El Bolson hostel had 5 resident dogs and most of them have taken a fancy to him and follow him around too. And when we rode our bikes, he got seriously chased by about 4 dogs and when i rode past them they didn´t give a hoot! But what was even funnier was that he was even chased by a flock of geese when we were bike riding! Day 2 we decided to get some serious exercise by hiring mountain bikes from the hostel and riding to the two large lakes in the area as the ride forms a nice loop. We took a wrong turn (Michael and his great map skills again, although apparently ´the map wasn´t detailed enough!´) and ended up at this cool little bridge and then had to carry our bikes over a small stream which was lovely - until we had to do it again 5 minutes later! We stopped off at the second lake (Lagu Puelo) which was so stunning and the day was around 25 degrees and perfect sunshine. A picnic gave us a good rest before we spent several hours riding back, all in all 50km or more. I stupidly decided to not put sunscreen and ended up burnt! We ended the perfect day with an asado bbq at our hostel which was marking the start of the summer season (when prices generally go up so it is good we were still in low season!!!). Day 3 we thought we`d take it a bit easy and do an easier walk but it ended up being pretty tough! We started near our hostel along a small river stream with some beautiful waterfalls. We took the `short cut`route which involved much rock climbing, climbing on a very thin cliff and through thick forest, but we survived and it was fun. The scenery is just amazing from the flowers and the trees plus the mountains and the perfect weather. We then went on for another hour and a half to a lookout that has a man`s face carved into the rock, pretty cool. A long walk home and we were very glad to be back! Our last full day in El Bolson we went on a hike to Bosque Tallado, which is 13 steep kilometres to a place where there are 30 wooden carvings in the bush done by local artists. The days have been getting hotter and hotter and our hostel owner suggested we get a taxi there which was expensive but when we could barely make it in the taxi we knew it was well worth it! We crossed quite a few people who hadn`t even made it a third of the way and they looked like they were dying. Half way up we picked up a very grateful French couple who were dying of heat exhaustian and they kept us company when we reached Refugio Piliquitron after around 1.5 hours of walking once the taxi dropped us at the Plataforma, where we had a well deserved cerveza! (Michael diluted his with coke, weirdo). The Refugio had two teenage cats who were very playful which was fun. The way down we walked the 13km of very difficult steep and slippery rocks in the boiling heat, and then another 5km into town. By the time we got there I thought I was going to die, thank god for the great ice cream shop in town where we again met with the French couple who had also hitched a lift down the mountain, the lucky things! But we were glad for the experience even though the further 4km back to our hostel we could have lived without. There aren`t many buses in El Bolson at the best of times (and none on Sundays) so the local habit is to hitchhike - every few metres on big roads you`d see people, quite amusing but I understand why as things are very remote out there and in this hot spring weather it is tough! When we got back to our cabin, the temperature gauge told us it was about 42 degrees (in the shade!) so now we know why we struggled so much!
Our second last stop of the South American tour is Mendoza for 3 nights. We`ve heard mixed reviews so it is time to go and see for ourselves!