El Bolson

On the Wednesday 19th morning the hotel still had no connection to Visa so I scooted round to the ATM and took out the maximum daily permitted 1000 pesos, per card ( we still only have the 1) to pay the hotel. Our ViaBariloche bus was Cama ( fully reclining seats) , and fantastically comfortable and they gave us breakfast. It is only a two hour journey. It was quite warm with sun and clouds. Maybe 23C. Our first impression of El Bolson was wall to wall people ( mainly Argentinian) and cars. The hostel was fine but the town was packed to capacity. Some of the Argentine guests at the hostel asked me if I was Sean Connery, but they had been drinking Fernet Brancas and cokes.

The owner had asked us what we thought of El Bolson (Lise had told us that this place has a "feel good" factor) and we had to explain to him what we thought, politely, of course. So the next day he took us in his car around El Boslson and showed us the sights. Beautiful valleys and lakes and a visit to a home made chocolate factory. Wonderful tasting! The feel good factor had returned in style. Apparently Sylvester Stallone has a place there.

The following day we walked up to a local hill top with a superb panorama over the town, maybe a 10 km trip.

Summary of El Bolson

The town itself is unremarkable and exhibits all the signs of unplanned growth. The countryside around is very beautiful and it would be worth staying outside El Bolson in a cabaña and hiring a car. There are many wild fruit trees growing everywhere and the town is also famous for its micro breweries. Does anybody actually like chili beer at 6.9% alcohol? The draught stout was particularly nice but at 5.8% care needed to be taken. As a young German lad said when we were in Budapest, "Ein bier ja, keine session". One beer yes, no session!