As I last mentioned, we’re currently road-tripping through the state of Chubut in Argentina for a week of small towns and beautiful hiking. We started in Esquel, a former Welsh colony, where we spent one night. There isn’t much to write home about re:Esquel, but we’ll be going back there for a few days — one of which will be spent at the very untouristy Los Alerces National Park — before we begin WWOOFing in Trevelin (30km south of Esquel) January 8, so I’ll offer a more detailed report about it then.
Now the plan was to spend two days in the hippie, organic-loving town of El Bolson before making our way a little further north to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Bariloche, the glitziest city Patagonia has to offer, relatively speaking, thanks to the droves of Argentinians who flock there around this time of the year for vacation.
We arrived in El Bolson on Wednesday without a hostel in mind. One, La Casona de Odile, was listed both on a hostel booking site but also in my book under the pricey ‘A’ listing category, so I figured it was worth a look, especially after we asked a local for directions. He said this particular hostel was more in the country and less in the downtown, a term I use lightly for El Bolson.
The country? That sounded amazing–and a perfect balance for the more “city” experience we’d have soon in Bariloche. And, as we later found out, amazing is putting it lightly.
