Hammocks, Jam and Homemade Beer

After the most horrible bus journey ever, on a road that is actually famous just because it´s so crap (it´s unpaved), we made it to El Bolson at about 5.30 in the morning. We wandered round for a bit with our Canadian friends Jackie and Adam looking for somewhere that was open, but no joy. Our last resort was to take a taxi to an HI hostel 4km out of town, in the hope that they might have a 24hr reception. Unfortunately this wasn´t the case, however the door was unlocked and on closer inspection we found seven other people asleep on the reception floor, all of whom had got off the same bus as we had, and who obviously had the same plan. The hostel owner got the shock of his life when he came in to make breakfast in the morning, but he was so nice and showed us to a huge dorm immediately and made us free breakfast! He was even apologetic that he didn´t have more!
El Bolson is supposed to be the ´hippie capital´of Patagonia, and I can see why. The hostel is brilliant, it´s so chilled out, has a great common area with a kitchen and sofas and tables where you can hang out. It has it´s own bar in a shed where everyone moves to after midnight, and you can buy homemade beer brewed by friends of the hostel owners (note: not all of it is good though - some of it tastes like sprite mixed with beer). There´s also a huge garden with hammocks hung from all the trees where you can sit and read/recover from the beer (see me in the picture below?). In the morning they give you cereal and hot rolls and the most amazing organic, homemade jams I have ever had.



The town itself is cool too, and has huge craft fayres three times a week, where I have bought an awful lot of 'gorgeous little things' (as my mum would say).
I´m loving it here, it´s so relaxed and so WARM which is a very welcome change. I could easily stay here a few weeks, but sadly we have to move on if we want to reach Mexico any time this year!