In search of the Salmon of Knowledge!

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Myself and Pat hit the road at half nine in search of the Salmon of knowledge. Little did we know is that our knowledge wouldn’t catch us a thing. We had an adventure to say the least. We arrived at the lake and set out in search of the point where the shop said to fish. The guy said we would need to cross a river the would be barely knee deep. Bu****it. We arrived at the point to find it was a little bit deeper than he had said. Pat was undeterred by this and put on his shorts and started to wade through the river. I didn’t have any shorts with me. He was half way through and I knew we needed to get to the other side and this was the only way. The only option I had was to go through in my underwear with my bags above my head! The water was feckin’ freezing. Three quarters way over Pat decided it was too deep to continue so we turned back. I was only half way over and the water was nearly up to my waist. We redressed and continued on to find a place to fish. We kept crossing streams and I’d say I took my boots off ten times in about half an hour to cross them. We knew we were fighting a losing battle so we headed back to the pier. Our boots were covered in mud from walking along the edge of the lake. We were feeling defeated and ready to give up. There was a guy at the pier giving lifts to fisher men and bringing them to good fishing spots. We decided this was our only option and soon we were on our way. He landed us basically on a rock and told us he would be back at 6pm. We set ourselves up and the water was good and high compared to the shallow river side we were fishing at before. We had high hopes. We landed there at 1pm and had some lunch first before we began to fish. Pat move about 10m down from me and we began to fish. We were the biggest cowboy act. Neither one of us had a clue. Pat lost his spinner within minutes so I re-attached a float, hook and a worm. He took mine while I fixed up his. I then fished with his for an hour or so with not even as much as a nibble. Things were not going according to plan. After a few hours I lost the float and hook. Pat soon arrived back up to me after losing his too. It was 4pm and we had nothing left to catch fish. The boat wasn’t coming back until 6pm so all we could do was sit on the rock. We tried to sleep for a while.

I was woken up by the noise of some people at about 5pm. A French couple had crossed the border from Chile and were trekking to El Bolson. The only way they could get to where we were going was by boat. We sat and talked for awhile about all sorts but mainly rugby and the grand slam. At 6:10 there was no sign of the boat. Soon it was 6:30 and still no sign. We knew in South America that they operate on their own time but we were starting to get worried. It was now 6:45 and we were worried that the guy who dropped us here had forgotten about us. Pat called out to a nearby fishing boat and they came near to see what was wrong. He asked them to call to the pier to get us a boat. Still by 7pm nobody had arrived. Another option was trekking 10km with the French couple to the nearest bridge to cross to where we needed to get. We didn’t fancy that! Soon a guy arrived and pulled in to take us back to the pier. We were pretty relieved. Half way over the guy who was meant to pick us up passed by on the way to get us. He turned around when he saw us and followed us back. He asked for the full price even though he hadn’t collected us. In the end he got 50 instead of the 80 peso’s he was meant to get.

We shared a taxi then with the French couple to the town centre. We continued on to our hostel. That was our last night in the hostel before we would head on to Bariloche. We sat and talked for the evening with two guys from Leeds. One supported Newcastle and the other St. Johnston as he was born in Scotland so I was a little bit disappointed as a Leeds fan!

Michelle.......Well Darren took off that morning about eight I think but I was still fast asleep as the few drinks the night before had taken their toll. When I did get up I thought I had slept in as my phone had died so I ran in for breakfast and half way through I realised that is was half nine not half ten (blonde). Any ways after breakfast I got ready for the day ahead not knowing what I was going to do as to be honest it was mine and Darren’s first day apart during the whole trip so far so I was at a bit of a loose end. It was a lovely day out the sun was shining so I caught up on my writing and read my L.P. while I waited for Katy .

When Katy came down I had been talking to two of the guys in the hostel ( Max and Craig) who were heading to the lake for a swim. So we decided to join them and as it was Good Friday the buses weren’t running so with four of us going the taxi would work out a lot cheaper. We got off in town for something to eat so we hit the market and I got a veggie tart which was yum and then we headed to Juaja again for some ice-cream. As I couldn’t make the decision (as usual) on what to have I got the quarter of a litre bowl which gave you three different scopes of ice cream , I got choc brownie, lemon pie and strawberry and of course I ate it all.

We then got another taxi to the lake I decided then that maybe I wouldn’t go swimming as number one it was quite cold and number two which was probably more important I would probably sink after all the ice- cream. The lake was beautiful and there were loads of people there making the most of the weather, a lot of people were kayaking and windsurfing. I was quite breezy so Katy and I found a spot in the sun while the two lads went off in search off a spot to swim. We had arranged with our taxi driver to pick us up at six which gave us an hour and a half at the lake. At about ten to six Katy and I headed back to the entrance of the lake we ran into the lads along the way who did go in for a swim ( I was surprised) they said it was very cold, thank go I didn’t go in. We waited for the taxi but he never showed up but thankfully Max had really good Spanish so we had to call another taxi from the souvenir shop. We eventually got home at about half seven but Darren and Pat were still not home. I was getting a bit worried I will be honest.

That’s about it I had a pretty quite day.

Michelle


The next day we hung around the hostel waiting to get our bus. It is really chilled out there and you could spend days there with a good book in the hammocks. Our bus journey was only three hours and in Argentinean terms that means not even getting out your book or mp3 player it’s that short. Back home we would dread a three hour bus journey. Not here.

In a bit. DH

Song of the blog: Bruce Springsteen - Working on a Dream

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