As our time at NOLS was coming to a close, we made the decision to head back into Argentina for the last week and a half of our trip. We didn’t get to spend as much time on and around the Carretera Austral as we’d have liked to, but with an impending plane flight we didn’t want to risk pushing our time limits. Travel is difficult in Chilean Patagonia- irregular bus schedules and common itineraries make for tricky reservations, and the more deadlines you have, the more time you’re wasting. So, we hope to re-visit this area in the future with a vehicle (that way Hollis can fish all he wants!).
We hopped on a mini-bus for what turned out to be a twelve-hour ride North to Chaiten. Our night in Chaiten was spent on the kitchen floor of an incredibly generous tour guide, and then we were headed for Futaleufu for a night before crossing over to Argentina. Futa is a beautiful little town with world-class river rafting that bustles in the summer season with tourists.
A day later, we arrived in El Bolson, the hippy capital of Argentina. We hopped off the bus and enjoyed our first hoppy beer of the entire trip with two other travelers, John and Andy, that we met in Futa. El Bolson is also the hops capital of Argentina and has a huge homebrewing culture. We then made our way to one of the coolest hostels I’ve ever stayed in, Casona de Odile. It’s a bit out of town, so most of our time was spent hanging round and socializing with a few new friends, Kristin and Marcus, who spent time with Phillipe and Christina on their way through El Bolson.
We’d made plans to go hiking, but those were quickly ditched for some yoga time for me and fishing time for Hollis. The trip was coming to a close, and we were definitely feeling pretty sad about it- so we turned to our comforts and just tried to enjoy the time we had left. It worked- I spent a few days reading, Hollis spent a few days fishing, and other than that we just enjoyed the company of everyone at the hostel and the beautiful scenery. El Bolson is another pretty magical place that we’d like to come back to (see a theme here?) and it represented another beautiful experience with people in Patagonia. As the birch leaves turned gold, we made our departure, only leaving out of necessity as our plane departed two days later.
chilean wanderings 