El Bolsón

Our trip to Argentina's lakes district ended in El Bolsón, which was a 2 hour bus ride from Bariloche. We hadn't planned to stay so long, but we were both so enamored by the small town (populated by 30,000 hippies) that we kept extending our stay. El Bolsón has amazing artisans, craft breweries, an incredibly clear river, lakes and waterfalls, and the town is nestled between the Andes that border Chile and the mountain Piltriquitron (pronounced pill-tree-key-tron). After visiting, we'd both rather live there than Buenos Aires, but unfortunately unemployment is very high.

When our bus arrived in town on Tuesday (Dec. 8), the two owners of the hostel we had booked generously picked us up and gave us a mini-tour of their town. They run a cute hostel called "Pehuenia," out of the house they live in with their two children. The hostel had a very friendly, laid-back vibe, which definitely contributed to our enjoyment of El Bolsón. The day we arrived, the hostel was hosting an asado, a traditional Argentine barbecue. We gorged ourselves with loads of steak, sausages, lamb ribs, blood sausages, bread with chimichurri sauce, and wine for less than $5 USD a person. The hostel owners hold an asado every three days, and we stayed there so long we participated in another one. For that asado, we were able to go to the butcher shops to learn about how to buy the right meat.

On our second day, we shared a remise up part of Piltriquitron mountain with a woman from Israel that we had met at the hostel. We hiked up the rest of the way to Bosque Tallado, which is a collection of more than 30 sculptures that were carved into trees that remained from a forest fire in 1978.

Four times a week, El Bolsón has a Feria artesanal, where all kinds of locally produced arts and goods are sold. Compared to the various ferias we went to in Buenos Aires, this feria had better quality goods and a greater variety of things for sale. Local artists were selling glass jewelry; art; puppets; homemade soaps; woodcarved housewares; hand carved mates; hand carved pipes and hookahs; shawls, scarves, hats and vests woven from sheep's wool; homemade soaps; regional foods; microbrews (with samples!) and homemade jams. El Bolsón is also crazy for organic foods--so almost every kind of food there was fresh and organic. We enjoyed the feria so much, we made it there everyday it was open and managed to buy all of our christmas gifts for our families there!

75% of Argentina's hops are grown in this tiny town, which has resulted in numerous breweries. We visited the El Bolsón Brewery with some beer-loving Americans from San Diego who we had met at our hostel. This brewery is the largest craft brewery in the area, and we were able to try several unique beers there including a hot pepper beer that literally includes a pepper in the bottle, a honey beer that really tastes like honey (kind of gross), a raspberry beer, and gluten-free beer brewed from corn.

One afternoon, we went rafting on the Rio Azul (blue river) in duckies. Duckies are smaller rafts that only hold 1-3 people--they seem more like inflatable kayaks. Because of their size they are much more agile on the water, and you can "play" around with them on the water. We were on an excursion of 6 people (including 3 instructors) so we got plenty of time to play on the rapids. Jill was pretty nervous at the outset, as she had never been rafting before, but felt fine after the first few minutes. She only fell in once, and was the only one to fall in. The water was so fresh and clear that when we were thirsty we would just lean over the side and drink.

At the end of our week in town, we decided to visit Refugio Cajon del Azul, a large cabin up in the mountains where you can eat fresh lamb and vegetables from an organic garden, drink homemade beer, and relax. We were a little sketched out when our taxi that was supposed to take us to the base of the Warton hiking area broke down about 2 kilometers from the base, but it worked out well since we ended up getting half our money back. From there, we hiked 4 hours to the refugio. We ran into some gauchos taking the route on horseback and some other hikers, but most of the time we were completely alone with nature. There were some parts that were a little scary, like the rickety footbridge that really looked like something out of Indiana Jones, strung across the rushing river with wooden slats falling off of it. There was also a part where we had to climb up ladders over rocks because it was so steep. When we arrived we found a completely self-sufficient farmhouse with sheep, horses, and organic garden. The refugio used only a small amount of electricity in the evening from sunset until midnight. We ate and drank well, played scrabble in Spanish, spent the night on the cabin floors and hiked back the next day, stopping to take a swim in the river.

We were sad to leave for BA at the end of the week since we loved El Bolsón so much, but our one solace was that we decided to upgrade our bus ride class for the 24 hour ride home--and it made quite a difference. The seats were wide and plush, we got pillows and blankets (the blankets we're big enough to cover us head to toe), the food was plentiful and the free booze was wonderful. Two out of three of the movies shown were decent, but the first of one was a voiced over Disney original movie called the "Princess Protection Program" where they also decided to play all of the extra specials features on the DVD, including interviews with all cast members, a music video, and a segment on what it's like to be a real modern princess. The whole time we were really wondering what kind of audience they were going for because there wasn't anyone on the bus who fit the demographic of 12 and under. We were surprised after having wine with dinner that we were also offered the option of champagne or whiskey as a nightcap. When the waiter came around to ask what we wanted we both said whiskey and he laughed a little and said "wow" as he poured our glasses. We slept very well.