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Published: November 27th 2010
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San Rafael was to be the very last stop of our travels with Kyle and Tahlei and our last port of call in Argnetina. We had spent the last two and a half weeks exploring Argentina with them and had thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it - mostly because Kyle and Tahlei were super organised which made everything go very smoothly. We decided to spend one of our two days in San Rafael, at a nearby canyon on the Atuel River, which had an amazing River dam that when you were stood on top of it, you could see the entire Atuel River and its surrounding mountains, it was beautiful.
There was to be a reggae festival on that day near the canyon, starting after lunch. None of us were much interested in going to it, seeing as how we didnt like reggae and frankly had had enough of reggae music altogether, since thats all that everyone seemed to listen to in Argentina - that and lady gaga. Turns out not going to the festival was a good idea, as it was basically non existent. We heard a few soundchecks and some very quiet Bob Marley coming from the speakers
at around 4pm and that was about it. Pretty lame festival. There were one or two that allowed themselves to get a little lose though which made for good end of the day snaps when we were leaving to catch the bus back in to town. We were glad we didnt buy tickets and instead opted to sit beside the river and drink beer all day. We contemplated white water rafting but the cost was to high at around 100 pesos per couple (about US$25) - so beer and the view it as. We all got our fair share of sun that day as by 3pm it was difficult to escape. We still had a few hours until the public bus arrived to take us back into town and we didnt want to miss it as it was the only one. God knows how you would get back without knowing anyone or owning a car!
Back at Trotamundos hostel, where we had checked in the afternoon previously, we were met by the strange hostel owner/employee. A middle aged bald guy with little to no personality or people skills. We had woken up reasonably early to get the public bus
out to the river that morning - no breakfast was ready which we had paid for, nor was there any way to get out of the front door, we were seemingly locked in. Tahlei went to wake a drunken employee bunking in the room next to us with little to no luck. Alternatively Kyle, opted for the more in your face approach of banging on a wall until someone responded, turned out to be the personable bald guy. The ¨Staff¨ if you could call them that, were more occupied with watching Í am Sam´on youtube and most of the time they hogged the TV so the guests wouldnt hang around the common room, it was OK but not very welcoming.
Our last night, we decided to eat in and cook dinner. As Tahlei prepared her speciality, tortilla Espanol, a man appeared in the entrance of the hostel with a shabby looking woman following closely behind him. He said something quietly in Spanish to the hostel worker and then hurredly escorted the woman to the nearest hostel dorm room (we had hoped it was empty). We could only imagine the type of arrangment the woman and the man had, it
was all very suspect. The room was unfortunately right next to the kitchen, which made eating dinner and keeping it down, quite difficult. Needless to say we all slept in our sleeping bags that night for fear of what may have gone on in our own bunks on previous occasions.
San Rafael was merely a pitstop on the trip, it wasnt glamorous but the cheap public bus ride out to the dam and river was a definate highlight. Blake and I were bound for Mendoza where we were to embark on the most epic 5 days of travel ever - all by bus. Kyle and Tahlei were headed south to finish off Argentina. We said our goodbyes and made promises of a boxing day BBQ back in Newcastle to share all of our stories of our travels. Our trip had come to an end but we knew it wouldnt be the last time we would travel with these guys.
Next blog: 5 hazy days on a bus.
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