El Bolsón and Esquel

I normally avoid hippies like the plague, partly because I'm disturbed that they think sitting around singing in high voices and a-rhythmically patting a bongo drum is in some way profound, but mainly because I don't have the immune system for prolonged exposure. Although my Lonely Planet had somewhat skirted around the issue, omitting the term: "basically a captive breeding program for decorative wirebenders and hair lice"; I had a feeling that my successful hippy avoidance program (mainly comprising leaving Tasmania) would come to an end in El Bolson.

Smatterings of wire and other crap craft aside, the El Bolson hippies rather agreeably focused much of their attention on making beer, cheese and uncomfortably scratchy knitwear; so I quite enjoyed myself for the couple of days I spent there (despite the itching). This was helped in no small part by the striking scenery, which reminded me a little of my home town (Hobart), also at 42°S. Despite all this pleasantness, I still felt a general malaise while there - it may have been the hippies, but probably was just an extended hangover from Bariloche - so I decided to head further South and away from the two most probable causes of my ill-health. Arriving in Esquel and booking on a couple of tours that night proved to be the magic bullet. I tend to cheer up when I have plans.

Esquel got a bit of a bad rap from my Lonely Planet and, to be fair, it is a little bit shit. While I wouldn't recommend it as a ski-town over Bariloche (despite it being much cheaper); they have much better empanadas there (pasties without the floury texture - more like a gourmet meat pie) and the scenery out of town is about as nice, so is probably the only reason you'd go there. Though the empanadas are good.

As much as it pains me to do so (because I know this will make Jimbo happy); I have to admit that my first tour in an old Land Rover with cat-tracks wasn't quite as cool as I'd hoped. Our 20km/h rumble over 5cm deep ice and snow was barely enough to keep the blood - let alone get the adrenaline - pumping. Fortunately our host sensed my imminent death and unleased us upon a snow covered (ish) slope armed with toboggans (more like a plastic container lid with a handle designed to remove testicles) and a kids' sized snow bike. After quickly tiring of my ball-jarring lid, I wrested control of the bike from the only suitably sized rider in the group and hammered down the slope. Regardless of the fact that I couldn't navigate my man-hoof amongst the bright red tubulars to apply the brake; I'm convinced that these things are death machines on planks. A word of caution to anyone thinking of riding one of these monsters: Don't. Though if you're like me and don't really listen to advice, try this bit: if you feel like you're maybe starting to get a little sideways, you can't steer out of it. You're screwed.

At least my misfortune gave me the opportunity try out my new-found eh-Spanish skills, though trying to explain that: "I hit an icy patch and tried to ride it out so broke my fall with my head while still vainly gripping the handlebars, providing quite convincing proof that I will never become a forehead model or Nobel Laureate." was a little beyond me, so I settled for "I went in ice and broke my head." I still haven't worked out if my Spanish is more amusing than my English.

The next day I went to Parque Nacional Los Alerces - named after a type of tree that grows at a rate of a coat of paint each year - probably explaining a previous generation's impulse to speed things up a bit by chopping them down, then painting them. The park's other poster boy is the "huemul", which is not - as the name might suggest - the offspring of a human and an emu; but kind of like an ungainly deer with a more ungainly cow's head. They're also every bit as elusive as the out-of-focus poster photos suggested. Perhaps this was because the animals I did see in the park read more like a roll-call at Old McDonald's farm than a national park: cat, dog, horse, cow and fish. This led me to believe that the huemul has been slowly out-competing these animals in their native living rooms, backyards and farms; forcing them up into the highlands to eke out an existence. So sad.

Not one to become overly emotional about the extinction of cats, the next day I headed to a Welsh enclave called Trevelin for high tea. An enclave it may be, but with all the streets still named San Martin or a random date and a decided lack of Englishmen roaming the streets with longbows trying to pick a fight; it just didn't seem particularly Welsh. I did, however, manage to find a Welsh teahouse called Nain Maggie (Grandma Maggie), where I ate two plates of cakes and drank about a litre of very nice tea. My bus back to Esquel was notable because of a rather unusual resonance thing it had with the suspension that caused us all to bounce up and down like the days before the Wonderbra; amusing at first, until my high tea threatened to ascend to loftier heights. Despite irreparable damage to my breast tissue (I believe the ads), I managed to keep it all down and force in one last meal of empanadas; and with that I bade farewell to the Argentine Lake District; next stop, somewhere in Patagonia!