Advertisement
Published: January 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
The X-mas photo
From the left, Ian, me, Martin, Aldana and Cori, Igal, Melanie, Marcelo, Sam and Guarry the dog. ....in El Bolson.
I arrived in this small town, located just 2 hours from Bariloche, on a rainy afternoon. All I knew about this place was what a Columbian tourist from the last hostel had told me, that it´s a hippy little town with a nice arts and crafts market. At the bus station I´d made a last minute decision to take a chance and stop here prior to making my way to Bariloche for Christmas. Little did I know that I would spend a lot longer than a day here.
I hopped off the bus and stood at the side of the road, somewhere, with no idea where I was and where to go next. I took out my guide book and flipped through the pages, there was very little information on El Bolson, but I made my choice and headed out in the rain to look for what sounded like a nice hostel. It was located on a street with no name, lucky me.
I walked for a while and decided it was wise to ask for directions at this point. I felt proud when I was able to express my question in Spanish to the
La Familia
.... and Uri (right), who didn´t make it in the first X-mas photo.... but a very important member of The Family. shop lady, who pointed the way.... but apart from the odd word and hand gesture, I failed to understand much more. I started in that direction and half way up a hill, walking on a dirt track, I was greeted by a couple of friendly dogs. I´m scared of dogs, this was a german shephard and her pup. The mum kept jumping up and balancing on my small backpack, strapped to my front, and she left her muddy paw prints on my jacket. I´d been walking for some time when I realised that I must be on the wrong road. I turned around and walked back downhill, cursing my backpack. I´d given up on the idea of finding this hostel and planned to make my way into the centre of town, when I unexpectedly stumbled upon what I´d been looking for..... Refugio Patagonico. Brilliant!
As I knew nothing of El Bolson, I was expecting to be the only tourist in town and possibly the only tourist who´d be staying at the hostel. I walked up and was greeted by friendly Marcelo. I walked in and was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of tourists inside very friendly and warm
Lots of characters here
....this was hung in the Kitchen / common area of the hostel. Brilliant. surroundings. They all said hello to me and a little later I met Igal. He escorted me to the supermarket to buy food.
That day I also met Ian, who laughed at me when I told him I had the intention of going to Bariloche in a couple of days. He said ´No, you´re not....... nobody leaves this place quickly.... You´ll stay a couple of weeks.´ Hmm.... we´ll see about that, I thought.
After a couple of days chilling out at the hostel, I felt quite at home. The weather had turned dreadful and I didn´t even have to feel guilty for staying indoors and doing nothing. By then I´d met Igal, Marcelo, Ian and Uri. Over the next few days more and more people came and stayed. It was clear that I wasn´t going anywhere any time soon. I was having way too much fun right here. I decided to go with the flow and stay as long as there was magic in the air.
We spent many rainy days inside, there was always somebody on the guitar and sometimes Ian and Marcelo would sing for us. Marcelo has the most amazing voice. I´ve been recording
lots of stuff on my i-pod and will put it together on an Audio album of my travels.
My only adventure in the woods around El Bolson was a day hike to a nearby waterfall called Cascada Encondido (the Hidden waterfall.... Funny that!). An Austrian guy, a guy from Buenos Aires and I started on the trail around midday. We kept walking, walking and walking for hours, much longer than what was supposed to be a 2hour trek. We felt like we´d walked around in circles, sometimes finding yellow signs on trees to direct us, but somehow there was always a new trail going off in some different direction or we´d come at a cross-road and have to choose a way, not knowing the way. Around 7 o´clock in the afternoon (it gets dark around 9pm) we started to panic a little and thought ´the hell with the waterfall´, we should just start heading back before darkness unfolds all around us... We started thinking about what it would be like to spend a night in the forest with no food, (we had cigarettes), and no way of keeping warm. We started to walk in the general direction of the
town, but we came across a new cross-road with yet another sign pointing to the wretched waterfall. It was a much bigger sign than any of the others we´d found so far, so I suggested we give it a last go (better than going back with our tails between our legs, right) and if it started to look like we were gettting lost again to backtrack to this point and follow the trail back. We took the new trail and after half an hour we were at the waterfall, what a relief.... It wasn´t even that great a waterfall but its name was certainly befitting. (We had a discussion about the signage in the forest, and whether the locals were playing a trick on the tourists.... with so many trails and signs all poing in different directions, and with the name of the waterfall being ´the hidden waterfall´.... all too convenient somehow. What a trip.) Near the waterfall there was a Kiosk and someone attending it, we asked for directions and the man told us of a shortcut back into town. Nice one. We started walking again, downhill, but with a bit of luck we made it back alright and
Backyard bliss
Hmmmmm, yummy smells... by the time the food was ready it had got dark, there were 43 very hungry mouths waiting impatiently around the fire. quite quickly. We were home by 8.30pm.
Christmas was approaching but I´d found a home and a family to spend it with..... right here in El Bolson with my new friends. I was nicely surprised.
Meet La Familia.......... Ian, Igal, Sam and Uri, Marcelo, Elisa, Me and Guarry the dog.............
Advertisement
Tot: 0.32s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 78; dbt: 0.0855s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb