With the rain and bad forecast, we decided to sleep in a hostel. Since it was the last night we would be all together, we also treated ourselves to supper at a restaurant. We all had seafood and the prices were quite reasonable. It was a good way to finish the day.
The next day we said goodbye to Devon and Eric. It was great to have people to share our journey with even though it doubled the amount of stinky people in the vehicle.👍 We welcome others to come join at any time.
It was a later start, so we didn't make it that far but did catch the vehicle ferry to the mainland and crossed into Argentina once again in the morning.
The next few days mostly involved driving and were pretty uneventful. We went out our way one day down a terrible road to see like 200 000 penguins, but we were too late in the season.
It would be a really cool place when all the penguins are there as the paths cross right beside the nests.
One of the abandoned chicks😞
Nice sunset on the ocean
We did manage to come across a sea lion colony the two days later. It was quite the smelly adventure when the wind swirled as they were passing a lot of gas from both ends.
We kept heading north through the pampas and oil pumps which at times reminded us of Alberta.
We did some firsts like literally camping under a bridge. It was a large bridge and it was the only place that we could get out of the wind, so that settled that. After a night of living like trolls, we headed further.
Our next stop where we actually did anything was the small town of Trevelin. We started off the morning heading to a Welsh Tea House. The area had been settled back in the day by the Welsh and some traditions have stood the test of time. Roberta was in her glory. Drinking tea and eating all kinds of tasty pastries, to which I was obliged to help her out with.👌She mentioned how her mom and Grammie would have really enjoyed this place to which I would have to agree.
Next we headed to the regional museum which was in the old grain mill. We learned how the area was settled in the mid 1800s by the Welsh and so on and so forth. Roberta was also informed that we had came on the day a yearly Welsh festival called an Eidstadfodd, was to begin. There was a tent with people selling trinkets, jams and that sort of stuff. Then there were performances with people in traditional Welsh dress reciting poems, singing songs and that sort of thing. I would go into detail for you but I was napping in the car while
Roberta checked this out. Haha. It was long past her turn to have a day full of things she loves. She did mention how incredibly cute some of the kids were.
The next day we headed for El Bolson which we had been through on the way South, but didn't explore. This was definitely the most beautiful stretch of "the famous Route 40" in Argentina. Roberta found out on our iOverlander app that one of the cabins that Butch Cassidy stayed at when he was on the run from the law was close by. She talked about having the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid VHS when she was young and how they watched it many times, so we had to go check this place out.
It ended up being quite cool as it hadn't really been turned into a touristy gimmick. We parked the vehicle outside the gate and walked to the old buildings through the pasture.
We had the place to ourselves to explore which made it easy to imagine how he lived in this place back in the day.
Horse through the peep hole.
Not long later, we were in El Bolson. It is known for its great hiking trails with many cabins you can stay at in the mountains for multiday hikes and it's hippie vibe. It was a Saturday when we got there, so the street market was in full swing. People selling all kinds of things:matè cups, jewellery, paintings, homemade knives, house decorations, you name it. We grabbed ourselves a couple trinkets and found ourselves a nice camping spot by the river.
The next day we got up fairly early to do a hike. We bounced around our vehicle on a typical terrible Patagonian gravel road for a bit to get to the trailhead. Like many of the Patagonian hikes, it was straight uphill and it didn't take long to get warmed up. After 45 mins or so we got to Bosque Tallido (the Carved Forest).
Basically a bunch of large dead trees have been carved into various things over the years.
There are probably over 50 of them. It was quite cool and we were able to enjoy it to ourselves.
We continued up to the Refugio (a cabin in the mountains where you can stay and eat), had a look around, and continued on to the lookout.
It was a beautiful view down the valley.
We decided that we weren't really in the mood to summit the mountain, so we headed down after that to our camp spot at the river. The next day we did something we hardly ever do. We didn't move a tire and just sat around at the camp spot. We read, I collected wood, we played cards, and made ourselves some great meals. It was nice to just have a chill day.
Next stop: Bariloche.
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