El Bolsón, Argentina - Polarsteps

Self-proclaimed first nuclear free zone in the world: we are in El Bolsón! The city known for its hop and hippies! Perfect combination for some relaxing! In between some chill days we headed out to the mountains to do some trekking. But things never turn out as planned... Day #1: Things already started when we left the camping a little late. After an hour walking we spotted a beautiful panorama terrace and couldn't resist their lunch (wentelteefjes!). The waitress said something about a time limit, but we shrugged it off. Not knowing their would be a long, swinging and unstable suspension bridge. We had to cross it one-by-one. And some took their time... So we waited in a line with around 30/40 people. And waited. It was already 3 o'clock, after waiting 1.5 hours and an hour past the time limit when we crossed. That's when we made the wise decision to stay at the nearby campspot. And only a bit later we found a way to wade through the river -.- However we did not regret this decision (maybe a bit the morning after) because we spend the evening drinking wine with four awesome Dutch people (one of them celebrating his b'day). Day #2 With a bit of a hangover we started the next hike. 'Fortunately' the path went up right after the start and due to sweating the wine got expelled from every pore of our body. At 3/4 of the hike we made another wise decision to not continue to our initial destination, but to pitch our tent at yesterday's goal. A beautiful place in the mountains, surrounded by stunning mountains! Due to this decision we had some time to relax and read a book in the meadow fields! Day #3 On paper a trip of 3.5 hours, but it took us some more frustrating time because of some very slow, inexperienced people who not let us pass (okay, we have to admit it was steep!). Arriving at the campsite we were surrounded with more inexperienced people that only seem to come here for a perfect Instagram picture, but in the meantime do not have any clue how to behave in the mountains. We had a laugh with the guard when he told us of people asking for wifi and he would point at the top of the mountains: "search over there". For lunch we got to the refugio for some pizza, something Frank had in mind since the first day. In the evening we got in touch with two of the Dutchies again and instead of wine shared some tea together :) On day #4 we headed back to society. Not a long hike, but the path is also used by horses which means a lot of erosion and dirt! Did we already said dirt? All the roads in Argentina are really dusty due to being on the dry side of the Andes. And besides the dust: the hike ended with an extremely evil climb up (almost there they say...) After this trip we took some days in El Bolsón to relax before the next destination: Esquel!

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Argentina