March 8th, 2013
Hipitty Hoppity Squishy
We like to travel the world in the fall because the tourist season is usually starting to wind down and the weather tends to be much more stable and comfortable. When we went to New Zealand, this plan worked to perfection. Thus far, the plan worked on the “tourist season winding down”, but has failed on the “stable weather” trend. Can’t plan the weather.
The weather continued to be less than favorable for us. It was pretty grey and dreary when we got up in the morning, so we were extra slow. We didn’t manage to get out of camp until 11:30. Ok, we were really slow.
The plan was to head up to El Bolson, which is the hippie capital of Argentina and is also know for its microbrews. They even have a big hops festival every year, although we missed it by a few weeks. There were a couple really cool-looking hikes that I had scoped and was looking forward to doing.
It was an easy drive and we only got lost once. We stopped in at this restaurant, Jauja, and had lunch and an ice cream. They are famous for their ice cream and there was nothing that I tasted that would suggest that the reputation is not well-deserved. It was annoying because my computer couldn’t recognize their WiFi router for some reason. Scary how connected the world is and how dependent upon the connection we have all become….but it does allow me to upload my ridiculously funny blog J
It kept raining off and on, but for a little while seemed like it was going to clear. We got a brief glimpse of Cerro Piltriquitron, then it disappeared into the clouds and the rain started in earnest. Bummer.
We headed south to a Lago Puelo as the road was paved and it looked like a nice place to camp for the night. There were two campgrounds. The agreste (“wild”) one looked awful so we went over to the other. It looked completely empty. We tracked down that caretaker and we headed to a spot near the lake. He was worried because he had shut the power down to those sites, but we said no worries.
I pulled into site 18 and nearly got us stuck in the sand. I was glad I didn’t have to pull out the trusty ice axe again as Susanne has still not found any great amusement in the last “getting the Sprinter van stuck” incident.
Susanne mounted a big rally in rummy and took the lead. Gak. We decided if it was raining when we got up we would continue to move on. It rained hard all night.
I didn’t end up taking a single picture. Gray on gray is just a tad boring.
The tape job on the roof held.
Ciao for now.
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