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Published: April 8th 2009
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14 - 19 Marzo 2009
In a taco shell... El Bolson - We love you! Chilled town with hippie origins, lots of local artesans, organic farms and surrounded by stunning mountains!
Bariloche- The heart of the stunning Argentinean lakes district, with lakes (honest), swiss-like hills and chocolate aplenty!
In transit... To avoid a 30 hour + bus trip from El Calafate to El Bolson, we decided to break the trip up in two fairly even parts and stay for a day in Comodoro Rivadavia between overnight long-hauls. Although the guide books do their best to dump on this city, Comodoro Rivadavia gave us a great day and one in particular cool experience (see the photos with Diego)!
The two hour bus ride from El Bolson to Bariloche must surely go down as one of the most spectacular bus trips, a must during daylight hours.
Digs... El Bolson- Albergue Pueblico- about 3km out of town amongst lush and picturesque surroundings. Travellers find this place very hard to leave, which we completely understand, due to the hamock laden backyard, fruit trees, chilled vibe of all who visit and Julian- the crazy-cool guy who runs the place. Hard to leave indeed!
Bariloche- Tango Inn Hostel- Just a few hundred metres from the bus station (although, it feels like more when you´ve got your full pack on) this place was more like a motel run by hippies than a straight out hostel - we say "motel" as we had our own tv and bathroom, with complemetary shampoo, soap and towels, which are all gold-like-luxuries to us at this point in the trip. The staff were great at letting us know the best places to go (like Cerro Concepcion) and making sure we were comfortable.
We came, we saw... El Bolson - Like so many others we met who went to El Bolson with the intention of hiking and trekking through the great outdoors, we actually did nothing much. For starters it was hard to even leave the hostel and beautiful surrounds, or to avoid simply chilling in town after the long and beautiful walk there. The most active we got in El Bolson were a few desperate hours we spent trying to secure Radiohead tickets for their Santiago show.... see below No Comprendo!
Bariloche- We took a chair lift to the top of Cerro Concepcion and enjoyed the amazing
360 degree views of the district. We were going to take a chair lift to another Cerro (hill), but dread locked Mike at the hostel advised us that Cerro Concepcion was the way to go - thanks Mike!
We scoured the famed chocolate shops - eyes wide - not quite believing that we were standing in the middle of a supermarket sized store completely FULL of hundreds of different types of chocolate delights.
City Highlights... El Bolson- there was nothing better than hanging out and relaxing, either in town or at the hostel. We met so many awesome and like minded people at the hostel, and we strongly advise that anyone passing through this wonderful part of the world pops in and pays a visit 😊
Bariloche- The views! The views! Such a visually pleasing place is always going to be a joy to just trapse around in to take it all in 😊
City Lowlights... El Bolson- Having to leave.
Bariloche- Only being able to take some of the chocolate, and not all of the chocolate...
Mental State... Chilled and relaxed- it goes with the territory... and Lazy... we were supposed to hike
all over the place, but relaxing was just so good!
Soundtrack... More Marley and Dylan, plus Seu Jorge´s tracks from the Life Aquatic soundtrack... awwww yeah...
Flavours... El Bolson- Awesome Emañadas at the hippie markets!
Bariloche- did we mention they make chocolate there?
No comprendo... How on earth a foreigner is supposed to buy tickets for concerts in Santiago easily?!?! Jon, a friend we made in El Bolson informs us that Radiohead are playing in Santiago around the time we´ll be there and that we should join him- heck yes! However, this was easier said than done... the payment link on the ticketing website was broken (no matter how many times we tried) leaving payment over the phone our next - possibly only - option. We take the 3km trek into town and Jon tries his best spanish over the phone to secure tickets. His valiant effort, however was not enough- sometimes, language barriers cannot be broken down, especially over the phone where you can´t point or wave your arms around wildly to explain what you mean. We returned to the hostel to have Julian call on our behalf- he was more than happy to help out
😊
After 2 seperate phone calls to the ticketing office (and almost a day in total trying to secure tickets), Julian is advised that there are no more tickets for non-Chileans. We could smell the bull, but there was no way around it for us... This is why you´ll see no tales of Radiohead in our Santiago blog...
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