small town living

After Bariloche, I finally fell in love with our journey. Bariloche was great, it served our purposes well. But once we landed in the much smaller town of El Bolson, I felt a weight lift. Because we were on a schedule to meet up with Liz and Alex in Chile we only stayed two days, but enjoyed the slower pace. Bolson is described as a hippie town, and certainly showed a few signs - micro breweries, a health food store, dreadlocks, vegetables laden with aphids... but it wasn't overwhelming. We did a little shopping at the famous craft fair, ate out a a few times and ran into folks we'd met on the tourist circuit in Bariloche. Ila played with Dante from Santiago and Sequoia from Cordoba. Bolson is in a small valley with impressive mountains on both sides. Bolson is warmer than Bariloche where the wind blew cold air off the lake and mountains. We took a side trip to Lago Puelo 30 minutes out of town. Once there we walked along the lake despite the loud hum of bees in the trees. Peter was very brave, even after a sign confirmed that we were in a "zona chaquete amarilla." Before long we reached a beach where we met a most incredible family and spent hours visiting while the kids waded in the lake. Jill, Paul and their son Elliot are English but worked in Africa for 12 years as photo safari guides. Now they're traveling around South America for a few YEARS in their Land Rover. They camp everywhere and, as you can see from their rig, they have it pretty well figured out. They made it clear that anything is possible when traveling with a child and while I don't expect to reach their level of cool in my lifetime, I was glad to get the perspective.


We missed our bus - they only came every two hours or so - and were invited to tea. Tea, with English people, at a campsite, in Argentina. It was just super. We got back to town late and scrambled to eat dinner, buy bus tickets, pack and prepare for the next day.

The following morning we took a two and a half hour busride to Esquel, then a 30 minute one to Trevelin. Trevelin is a tiny town known for it's Welsh heritage. After Peter dragged our luggage up a steep hill to our lovely hostel Casa Verde, we walked to town accompanied by the hostel dog Tango. We had tea at the most traditional, but very tourist oriented tea house while Tango waited outside, then spent the afternoon walking the main street and playing at the playground.

Trevelin felt good, very calm, enough basic services, but nothing like the craziness of Bariloche. We had dinner a little late and Ila fell asleep in my arms on the way to the hostel. In the morning we set out for Chile in a taxi. The ride to the border was about 45 minutes through farmland , towards mountains to two small government buildings separated by a strip of nothing. Our cab wasn't allowed to pass into Chile but our driver asked another traveler if we could catch a ride to Futaleufu with hiim and he obliged. As I mentioned in the last post, he looked familiar to me and I later confirmed with LIz that he was in her documentary about the Futaleufu river. Mario dropped us a few blocks from the plaza and we found our way (Peter dragging our luggage along the dirt roads, as usual) to a wonderful place called Sur Andes. Sur Andes is run by Monica and Maria Jose from Santiago and they make wonderful coffee and delicious food - hard to come by in these parts. Upstairs is a comfortable little apartment where we stayed with Liz that night. Liz met us in the evening and we had dinner at her friends restaurant which was closed in general, but was open for us. We ate good food, drank wine and watched the fire while Ila fell asleep on a comfy couch. The second night in a string of five where Ila would pass out before we got her to a bed.



The town of Futaleufu, in the Futaleufu river valley is a jumping off point for a lot of rafting and fishing expeditions, but despite the presence of North American tour guides and their mostly European clients, the town takes you back in time. Many people still get around on horseback and it's common to see a horse tied outside the hardware store or just munching grass in a vacant lot. The smell of burning wood is ever present because it is how they heat their stoves and do their daily baking. The people are browner, more stout and ruddy than their neighbors in Argentina. The evidence of their lives is in their strong, rough hands - men and women. Being with Liz and Alex, we were lucky enough to be invited into a few homes where we were served tea yet again, but this time with baby chicks under foot and laundry hanging over the stove.



The valley is stunningly beautiful. The rivers change their shades of blue with the weather which seems to be a constant dramatic mix of clouds, sun and rain. Liz and Alex work at a rafting camp about 30 minutes from town and we spent a very fun night there drinking wine around the fire, sleeping on a tent platform over a creek and visiting with the resident sheep. The camp was mostly closed for the season so we weren't able to sample the luxurious hot tub, sauna, yoga classes or the bar, but I think it was better that way. For the two days we were there, we accompanied Liz and Alex as they firmed up some land purchases. That meant hanging out by the side of one beautiful river or another, eating cheese sandwiches and collecting rocks while they visited with Don Moreno, Don Rene or Don Ameche. Then they'd join us, there might be some fishing, some beer drinking, then back to town. Good times except for that moment when we realized that a dog stole Alex's trout from the car. Bad dog. And there was the time that Peter and Ila saw the chicken in a bag... but that's a long story.



We drove from Futaleufu to Chaiten on the Pacific. About a three hour dirt road drive through what is essentially temperate rain forest, mountains that are sometimes covered with blue glaciers, waterfalls, azure rivers. Nothing that great. Chaiten is a lonely little outpost that is also the government hub of the district. So it feels like a nothing little town at the end of the world, but it's for residents of the region, it's where you come to register your car, confirm your land deals etc. It's also where you catch a boat or a plane to get the heck out of the cold and we'll be flying in a tiny little one tomorrow to get to Puerto Montt.

Looks like we might go to Peru and hit a sweet little beach up north near the equator. Any suggestions?