The lost Weeks

El Bolson

I returned to Bariloche after my adventure in Nahuel Haupi, and decided to aid my impending cold by going out and smoking cigarettes and getting drunk until 8 the next morning...is this a normal reaction to sitting alone on the frozen grey edge of the world?

Looks like rain

Yes, I got sick, and yes, I lost my bank card. But I didn´t realize either of these things until I had pitched my tent in the friendliest camping (that´s how they call it, and that's how I'm going to call it) in the friendliest town: Ni Nada of El Bolsòn. The smiling proprieters had just been married on New Years Day, and opened the camping only two days before I arrived. After I had chosen the perfect, shady, flat, windless spot, the water polo players at the site next to mine offered to set my tent up and then invited me to their delicious asado. Then we all mosied on over to the fogón, where the boss (who was also the tallest man in Argentina) threw logs onto a comfortable bonfire and we passed around bottles of wine, home made beer and Fernet mixed with Coke (in cups made of the bottom half of the litre coke bottle, with the edges melted to avoid cutting your mouth) and sang songs to multiple guitars and chatted aimlessly. Lovely.The constant El Bolson Artisinal Fair

Three weeks of even that can get tedious, especially when every day revolves around trying to get money from paranoid US banks in cash-defunct Argentina. Me and my North American partner in crime, Sarah, tried to mix things up by going on hikes and never missing the tri-weekly artisinal fair. We did one real hike up to the refugio at Hielo Azul, which brought us through wild rose pastures and forests of moss polka dots. The next day, (after sleeping in the refugio, three wet snoring strangers to a mattress!) we climbed higher (again, past the tree line into snow fields) to the glacier, which shined blue even when covered with snow. At the top, three Israeli guys invited us to coffee spiced with cardomom, made fresh with their little stove.Hielo Azul Base Camp

Coffee at the top

We also camped at Parque Nacional Los Alerces, after a long night of being at a party I didn´t like (electronic music is not really my thing, I guess). We didn´t see much of it, but what we did see makes me want to recommend this park to everyone-more flowers, more lakes, more ancient trees that grow so slowly and have the indestructible wood that still shingles 100-year-old houses. Here, we were lucky to have the company of four girls who we met at Ni Nada, four girls with an old, enourmous and heavy tent, and who played beautiful music. So much music, so many new friends, and beautiful places. Three weeks without a roof can be ok!

Me ("Lil' PinPin") and the Ni Nada gang