Time for a little update before we head back up into the mountains for some more playtime! We left you last time in Esquel, having hung up the tent for a night and 'splashed out' on a real hostel room; hot showers, kitchen, bed!! Luxury some might say! We spent a lovely relaxing day walking around Esquel looking for a nice lake to eat our lunch by, that we never found it didn't really phase us, then headed back to the hostel to cook ourselves a nice one-pot dinner, just for a change. Little did we know that this kitchen was not for cooking in, a show kitchen I presume, as cooking makes smells. After a brief argument with the lady that ran the hostel we slunk off back to our room for a sneaky cup of soup and some crusty bread which we made have made a bit of a mess with.... oops! Though we did stop short of cracking out the camping stove in the bedroom as we didn't fancy finding another place to stay that late in the day!
We awoke bright and early the next day and headed out to Parque Nacional Los Alerces for a nice few days trek, along beautiful footpaths through stunning scenary on our way up to Cholila. Well we nearly got a full house, the trek certainly was long, and the scenery was beautiful, however it turned out that the footpaths only went on short routes and so we were stuck walking along the side of the main road. Fun! Our first evening left us quite broken at a cute little lakeside camping spot (Free!! Woo!!). So we thought, tent up, dinner, bed! Tent went up to reveal our first hole.... Good start! Gaffa came out and saved the day so we moved on to cooking! Stove came out, not working! Great! So Lucy 'Ray Mears' Allman collected up some driftwood and soon had a roaring fire going to cook our dinner on, with only the smallest of help from excess stove fuel (who needs eyebrows anyway!).
Day 2 left us not able to face another full day trek so we headed up to the road and stuck out our thumbs! Luckily within the hour we had been picked up by a lovely Argentine family (who it turned out were Jehovas Witnesses) and their friend Nelson! Well I never though I'd be driving round mountain roads in an old yellow school bus sat on plastic patio chairs but it certainly saved us a hell of a walk! More camping, paths that weren't paths and old trees followed before we found ourselves on the morning of the 2nd taking a bus to Cholila. I tell you British bus drivers are missing a trick, apparently all you need is a camping stove and you can drive with one hand and boil water with the other, Brilliant!
Quick stop in Cholila, not much to say about that, then on to El Bolson to gear ourselves up for some serious hiking! Next update soon!
