El Bolson

El Bolson

We arrived in El Bolson March 16^th after driving 8 hours from the town Perito Moreno. It was a long day on the desert highway. Oh, I’m sorry, what Argentine’s call Patagonian Pampas! It’s a bad subject. With all of our research, we have come to terms with a few stretchings of the truth. First of all, of the misleading information is the pampas, the fact is that most of Patagonia is actually desert. Secondly, is that El Bolson is a quaint hippy town. Granted it was the first town to declare a nuclear free zone back in the 1970’s, but I bet the majority of those on the city government who declared the nuclear free zone are not living in El Bolson anymore.

El Bolson is truly a nice town, however, it’s a work in progress. Once again, it’s reminiscent of a beautiful town that had a lot of forethought but quickly forgot about maintenance and preventing the deterioration of their town. El Bolson resides in a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains on all four sides, which helps provide a microclimate that enables El Bolson to be a leader in fruits, vegetables and most importantly beer.

According to El Bolson’s website, they have a lot of mountain biking and trekking around and throughout the Andean mountains and the beautiful glacial river water. After speaking with the tourist office and getting a map of the area, I had Jen and Payton drop me off at the base of the Rio Azul River refugio. The biking was single track, finally, and the surrounding area was truly magnificent. The River was crystal blue and cold. The trails had a few hike-a-bike sections, but there were some good technical areas that I enjoyed. When I got to the bridge to the cross the river with my 28 lb bike it was a little sketchy. First, I forgot my helmet; second, I was by myself on a sketchy swinging bridge with quite a few support boards missing. (I’ll try to include photos when we get a decent Internet connection). I was planning on reaching the Rio Azul Refugio, but unfortunately, it was too late in the day and the majority of the sections were too steep to ride and I had to walk the bike. After climbing for nearly 1.5 hours I decided to head back because it was nearly 6:00pm and I was a at least 1 hour from town. My decent down the steep sections were quick and I had to place my hips completely behind my seat, since it was so steep. Luckily, I have a new Vanilla Fox 140mm front shock and loved it down the mountain. After a 10-12 minute decent I was back at the bridge. I crossed the bridge with some interesting wind gusts and started my return back on the trail. I reached an area on the map where it appeared that the main road was a couple hundred feet above me, which I thought would allow me to save time from hike-a-biking some of the way back to the beginning of the trail. I hopped a fence and started climbing a dirt road. After 15 minutes of climbing I could see the main road. Unfortunately, I was also on somebody’s private property. I was nearly 50 meters away from a barn and 150 meters from two different gates that accessed the main road above. As I approached the road some horses got spooked and they headed toward the barn. To my surprise, the owner of the property was in the barn yelling at the horses. As he came out, he quickly saw me. I put my hands up in the air telling him I was sorry for being on his land and that I was lost and confused from a fall on my bike. I apologized again in the best Spanish abilities I had. (I didn’t fall on the bike, but it he didn’t know that) He was pissed!!!! Yelling, in English, “this isn’t the Far West, people here are at WAR! Gaucho’s have guns and dogs. You are lucky!” He walked towards me angrily and told me to follow. I picked up the bike and walked to the gate with him. He let me out the gate and he told me if he saw me in 5 minutes he was going to call the police. I was gone! Landed in town in less than 30 minutes. So, Chris if you’re reading this, NO POACHING in Argentina!

We’ve been enjoying our down time. Went on a bike ride Saturday after visiting some cascading falls. The three of us hiked down and up the side of a mountain. Payton did great. She thought the falls were “beautiful.” Truly I think she enjoyed the picking of wishmakers and dandelions the most. My ride was not as eventful but interesting. I found another route all most all single track. Uphill with some screaming downhill options. I was climbing up the hill and there were tons of off-shoots from the primary trail, I told myself to stay on the main trail and avoid getting on other people property. When I made it to the top of the mountain I came across this old couple with a medium sized dog loading wood in the wheel barrel. I stopped and talk to them and also made sure the other trails were o.k. to ride on, I said good bye and the older man gave a weird look and I must have scowled or frowned, because the gaucho dog started barking and running towards me, the lady started yelling for the dog to come back, I decided to get the f--- out of there! I was flying down this small decline and the dog kept running at me attempting to bite at my heels and went through all my gears downshifting like crazy and flying down the now steep hill. I almost lost my helmet to a few tree branches more than once getting fleeing from the dog. In retrospect, I was glad I was going that fast, because the downhill section was so awesome and with some technical options I would probably have had tolow down if I wasn’t being chased. Therefore, slowing down wasn’t a for a possibility when I was going over 25mph. What I thought was going to take me a hour to complete, just took 25 minutes…

The next day we went to the artesian fair and Payton and I went on a run later in the afternoon. We took the chariot out and I think we received more weird (than astonishing) looks from people in town. During a section of intense starring and abrupt conversations when we ran by, I thought to myself, that Argentineans must feel the same way when we (Americans) see them driving their children through town on mopeds.