Futaleufú and a lot of water

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Wednesday saw me and my Swiss-Israeli companions getting stuck in La Junta - no bus connections, of course -, a very sleepy town. We walked through the night in a slight drizzle, needing about an hour to find a hostel that had free rooms. Luckily, the lady of the house was more than friendly. I made an unimaginably great breakfast, which cheered me up to quite the extent. Scrambled eggs made love to avocado and a fine regional cheese, and all of this in tasty chilean bread. Nice.
The 'bus' we took the next day most likely broke my arse and knees, but the scenery was more than worth it. Upon arrival in Futaleufú, I bargained half an hour over the price of my spot on camping Laguna Espero: the owner and me got to like each other a fair lot, i could use his tool shed for cooking, and even got a hot shower once. In itself, Futaleufú is a pretty boring town, there's more or less nothing to do. Luckily, the fun starts out of town. Friday saw me hiking 20kms past the wild Rio Futaleufú and it's surrounding mountains, reaching grassy valleys with poplars, flocks of sheep and small farms. It was very cosy, even though i was near soaking wet because of the neverending rain.
To take the soaking wetness a step further, me, Elad and Daniel went rafting the day after. The Rio Futaleufú is one of the world's top three rafting locations, and though taking to it is not cheap, it's worth every peso. After decent instructions, we tackled the class 4 and 5 rapids, amongst beautiful rocks and forests, with a menacing sky above us. The feeling of being one with the water and fighting it at the same time, trying to stay inside your raft while swallowing the waves, is indescribeably impressive and a massive amount of fun. I need to do more of this. The only feeling afterwards was a solid longing for more.
Today, I stayed in my cold sleeping bag for quite a while, with the wind throwing pears and walnuts on my tent. As the next bus out of town was due for Monday, i intended to just go hiking. With good weather for the first time in a week, conditions were perfect. Sadly, hiking options are fairly limited in Futaleufú, so in the end i decided to just walk to the Argentine border, and see where i could get. The walk was pretty damn sweet: mountains, meadows, sheep, berries, poplars... So it was quite the pleasure. At the border, i met the most friendly customs officers ever, and we had a good laugh over my drinking bottle:
-(officer) What's that in there?
-(me) Wine
-(officer) In your drinking bottle?
-(me) Man, it's the best for walking
(laughter reigns)
And things got even better when i caught a ride with an old Chilean couple at the border. An hour of cruising through this wonderful land has left me in Esquel now, with more explorations for tomorrow.

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