Gearing up for the long bus ride...
Sometimes it´s the little things that make trips like this the best. I got here to El Bolsón on Tuesday and met a fellow Canadian in transit to El Calafate. We wandered around the town together, chatting and just chilling. We couldn´t find anywhere to have a beer in the late afternoon, so we stopped at a corner store and bought a litre bottle of Quilmes (the local pilsner). The proprietor of the store gave us some cups to drink out of and we used the little table set up outside and just enjoyed the lovely weather and the company. Fun! El Bolsón is significantly warmer than Bariloche -- it has a microclimate that allows soft fruit cultivation and warmer than average temps for Patagonia. Nice break before I head down south into winter on the night bus tonight.
Yesterday it turned out that John´s bus had broken down between Bariloche and here so he had another day to kick around in El Bolsón before catching a bus yesterday afternoon. We were having coffee in a great panaderia here (the medialunas were to die for!!) when John struck up a conversation with a fellow wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey. Silvio ended up driving us and a Dutch girl I met briefly yesterday morning all over the area -- up to local attractions like the Cabeza del Indio (a rock formation that looks like a head in profile (though really just a generic head, despite the name) and the local waterfalls. He was a good tour guide too -- had the local legends and stories and geography down pat. It turns out that Silvio has travelled around the world and been welcomed by local folk everywhere he´s been (and used to live in Canada for about a decade) and has decided to pay it forward by playing host to people like me, here in Argentina. Things you can´t plan!
Today I packed up my stuff and dropped my big bag off at the bus station in preparation for tonight´s bus ride to El Calafate. I did some mending in the park (the laundromat was hard on my clothes) and then the local arts and crafts market had started up so I did some shopping. Fun -- the stuff here is almost all locally made, so I got to speak with the artisans who made arts and crafts, which was great. I had a picnic lunch in the park and read a book for a while and then decided it was time to go online for a bit. I have to do some job application work today because I´m out of contact for the next 36 hours on the bus, and the coming week is going to be busy with a lot of bus travel (and therefore no internet access). Unfortunately I forgot to upload the pics of my recent destinations, so I don´t have any new pictures to add today :(
Yesterday it turned out that John´s bus had broken down between Bariloche and here so he had another day to kick around in El Bolsón before catching a bus yesterday afternoon. We were having coffee in a great panaderia here (the medialunas were to die for!!) when John struck up a conversation with a fellow wearing a Team Canada hockey jersey. Silvio ended up driving us and a Dutch girl I met briefly yesterday morning all over the area -- up to local attractions like the Cabeza del Indio (a rock formation that looks like a head in profile (though really just a generic head, despite the name) and the local waterfalls. He was a good tour guide too -- had the local legends and stories and geography down pat. It turns out that Silvio has travelled around the world and been welcomed by local folk everywhere he´s been (and used to live in Canada for about a decade) and has decided to pay it forward by playing host to people like me, here in Argentina. Things you can´t plan!
Today I packed up my stuff and dropped my big bag off at the bus station in preparation for tonight´s bus ride to El Calafate. I did some mending in the park (the laundromat was hard on my clothes) and then the local arts and crafts market had started up so I did some shopping. Fun -- the stuff here is almost all locally made, so I got to speak with the artisans who made arts and crafts, which was great. I had a picnic lunch in the park and read a book for a while and then decided it was time to go online for a bit. I have to do some job application work today because I´m out of contact for the next 36 hours on the bus, and the coming week is going to be busy with a lot of bus travel (and therefore no internet access). Unfortunately I forgot to upload the pics of my recent destinations, so I don´t have any new pictures to add today :(
Comments