4. Bariloche to El Bolson: the first leg.

After a fairly speedy-pack-up, we left Villa Maiten at 10.30am and headed south on Ave Ezequiel Bustillo along the lakeshore, past the mountain military training ground, before turning right cross-county towards Lago Gutierrez, past signs for the Cathedral Alta ski area. The road was quiet and we hummed along with a pleasant tail wind, soon arriving at a Todo supermarket for supplies heading south. This time we confined ourselves to 2 avocados, a green pepper, bread, croissants, cheese, cake, powdered pesto, etc and also found a lighter and some matches to complement our click sparker. By 12.30 we resumed the road south towards Ruta 40. 20 minutes later we made the mistake of following Google maps without checking our bicycle Patagonia guide/bible first. Maps showed an obvious and easy shortcut onto Ruta 40 cutting off the corner at the top of Lago Gutierrez. We set off downhill onto ripio without a second thought. 20 minutes later the track had dead-ended, Hannah was seeing guard dogs on every bend and we were dragging our bikes uphill through gravel to come out onto our previous road, 100m from where we started, cursing all technology for our mistake. Finally at 1.30 we emerged onto Ruta 40, the most famous road in Argentina, which runs almost the entire length of the country, crossing xx degrees of latitude. It would be our route (off and on) for the next 160 km.

After the first 10 of these we decided lunch was in order, and Hannah spotted an ideal venue halfway down the east shore of the lake. On our short walk down to the lakeshore we met three workmen starting to install signs saying “No Camping”, “No Littering” and what looked like “No Lunch Stops”. They greeted us warmly and pointed to an ideal spot for lunch on a small sheltered beach nearby. We merrily tucked into cheese, bread and prunes whilst the workmen drilled their signs into the ground behind us, and a couple of friendly dogs said hello.

Fed and watered, we pushed on slightly west of south on Ruta 40, unfortunately now into a notable headwind and gradual ascent. Fairly frequent traffic made it quite a tough afternoon and we were relieved to arrive at Camping Carpitas in Villa Mascardi, a hamlet at the end of the lake of the same name. We were greeted warmly by an old gentleman and an English-speaking couple who had also just arrived. We registered and paid 1100 pesos, and were pointed up a steep slope to various individual pitches with power and water amongst the trees. We unloaded kit and popped down for a quick beer before putting up the tent just as it started to drizzle.

After a lie down to wait out the shower we cooked surprisingly tasty tuna pepper tomato salsa pasta, had the best shower yet in Argentina, and then took shelter from more rain in the little refugio with a real log-burner, feeling very much at home. We thought better of ordering a whole bottle of local wine (hard at less than £1), and opted for a cup of tea instead (£1.50!), listening to the locals laughing and chatting. After charging battery packs we headed back up the hill to the tent and steady rain most of the night.

Wednesday morning dawned dry, bright and cold, and after a slight lie-in we made the most of some sun to dry the flysheet before setting off. We crossed a few bubbling streams and were overtaken by an array of campers, ranging from trailer tents to the most enormous camping trucks towing their own 4x4s. Many of these tooted us on the way up the hills for encouragement and we even seemed to get respect from bearded motorbikers, who waved and smiled. Buses and lorries were less happy to see us and it was clear their toots meant move off the road, which was understandable when queues of traffic were waiting to overtake them as well. We found the traffic would come in waves in either direction, with several minutes of nothing followed by a queue of 20 vehicles stuck behind something or other. Our mirrors were invaluable to help with planning when to ditch into the gravel on the hard shoulder. It was generally fine, until 2 lorries had to pass one another, or a local was desperate to overtake, when some evasive action became necessary. In any case the views were stunning, the wind had dropped away and the weather was fine. It grew quite hot up the first hill of the day and as we rose up, the vegetation changed from forest to open bushland. After a couple of hundred metres climbing we were finally rewarded with a stunning 300m descent over 10 km, with a couple of glorious hairpin bends and views for miles down the valley towards El Bolson. We arrived quite early to Rio Villegas, our camping spot for the night and turned off Ruta 40 down steep gravel to the river valley.

At the bottom we were greeted by 3 dogs charging barking towards us from their house at full speed with no fence in sight. We stopped and dismounted ready to do battle. They also stopped, 10 feet away, and we all seemed a little unsure what to do next. Hannah removed her helmet on grounds dogs don’t like them and I was more than happy to try that too. This seemed to appease them, and we slowly passed one another with our bikes as a barrier, helmets ready as shields, whilst the dogs got bored and wandered back home.

5 minutes later we arrived at a beautiful camping ground, bordered by a bubbling stream, where we hungrily tucked into a late lunch and found a good spot for our tent under small shady trees by the stream. This campsite doubled up as a rafting centre, and a group returned from rafting not long afterwards ready to head back to Bariloche. We then had the whole ground to ourselves, bar 2 friendly dogs, a large hen and a proud, grumpy and very protective rooster. The rafting centre provided cheap bottled craft beers, which we enjoyed in the sun after doing some clothes washing. That night we cooked up one of our parboiled Tesco’s mushroom risottos and did some blog-writing indoors before heading to sleep with the stream the only sound.

“There’s a chicken in the tent!” cried Robbie at 7.30am. In fact it wasn’t actually in the tent but clucking by Robbie’s head just outside, acting as a very effective alarm clock. Tripping over the hen and grumpy cockerel several times, we made breakfast in the freezing cold, including fried toast and honey, but alas no eggs. Soon after another rafting group arrived, we met a Argentinian couple who also spoke perfect English and the husband of which had cycled to Ushuaia in 1976! He was very interested in our trip and also proved to be something of a bike expert with tips for our tyre pressure, etc. We had a good chat with them for half an hour, and then set off by 11.30, passing the dogs who this time seemed too lazy to bother us. We had a 50 km day ahead, but were promised 500m descending as part of it, so not too worried. This being Patagonia we still had a hefty climb to get out the way first and half way up this we stopped for lunch at 1pm at a roadside café with a lovely shady garden and lots of flowers, 2 very silly kittens and an adorable dog. Boosted by our food we finished off the climb in good time before starting the 20 km descent. Whilst easy on the legs this proved tough concentration due to the volume of traffic, and technical challenge of moving between tarmac road and gravel verge at >15km/hour, with frequent stops needed. After 2 hours we were both exhausted mentally, and rested before the final 10km flat into the outskirts of El Bolson. At 6pm we rolled into Camping Portal Norte, 5km north of the town centre, greeted by a peacock family and friendly administrator who showed us to a spot right by two Swiss cyclists who he was sure we would like very much. We got our tent up without seeing them and Hannah fed the peacock tostatas, making him extremely friendly towards me for some reason. We left him to the tostadas and hungrily searched for food nearby, the only place open within easy reach a tiny Itallian restaurant La Trattoria, which started playing the Beatle’s Abbey Road album on perfect speakers as soon as we arrived. I had the biggest portion imaginable of beef stew with gnocchi whilst Hannah had some delicious pumpkin ravioli.

Early the next day we met our Swiss cycle amigos, a father and daughter over in Argentina for 3 weeks mountain biking. They had been sensible enough to avoid main roads altogether and stick to hiking trails and wild camping, one bike flown over and the other hired out here. The father’s three children were scattered around the world and he had enjoyed holidaying with each this last year, with Mum getting some peace and quiet at home. We told them about I overlander and they provided some recipe ideas. Eager to see El Bolson we struck camp, said our farewells and cruised the last 6 km into town to find the La Chacra campsite recommended by BP. We found this easily enough after passing through the middle of town, a heavily wooded campsite with plenty of shade. We picked a spot right at the back tucked away in some trees and then went for a wander.

El Bolson grew as a hippy community in the 1960s and 70s and people in Bariloche had good things to say about it. Hostels such as Earthship Patagonia are quite famous for growing their own vegetables and holding communal suppers, and we headed there first to see if they had any space for dinner tonight. Unfortunately not but it was just a pizza night so we weren’t too disappointed. El Bolson is also famous for its fruit growers and on the way to Earthship we passed a café fruit market selling every kind of jam imaginable, with a tasting box for each one, as well fresh blueberry juices and punnets of cherries. We ordered juice and our first delicious empanadas of the trip (cheese and chive) and sat outside in their garden by a little stream in the shade.

The rest of the day we spent doing chores and looking around town. The couple we met at the rafting centre said they knew El Bolson from the 70s, and loved it then, but now it had become very commercialised and rather soulless. We couldn’t help but agree: the town’s hippy days seemed very much behind it and now it comprises a casino, a few large beer gardens, some health food shops and a large supermarket. There are some interesting bookshops and wholefood stores, but they felt quite overwhelmed. The heat probably didn’t help but after a productive afternoon we headed back to the campsite to make dinner of pasta with spinach, peas, onion, tomato and egg. A quirk of the town is that with its dirt roads everywhere but the centre, they clearly suffer from the dust and so employ multiple tankers to drive up and down spraying water on the ground. It’s hard to see how this makes more sense than just laying some tarmac, and it also drives the local dogs wild. We had a few semi-wild ones on site who were driven loco by the trucks, passing fairly near our tent, and in the darkness their tearing about barking and howling and occasionally darting at us from the trees was quite unsettling. We packed up and went to bed as quickly as possible, and once the trucks stopped spraying, the dogs also disappeared leaving us a peaceful night’s sleep, ready to move on tomorrow.