March 2014

In our last hitch hiking journey, we traveled across Argentina from Puerto Madryn to Esquel. Jordan, always looking for a chance to use his ‘I don’t know, I’m not a gynecologist’ joke, was ecstatic that our driver actually was a gynecologist! Couldn’t quite get the joke to translate though…

Esquel reminded me of a Colorado town, which you should take with a grain of salt considering I’ve never been to Colorado. It was nestled in a valley with mountains in the distance and had a real alpine feel. We found a great city campsite during our 3 day stopover that provided us with our own parilla (BBQ grill – comes standard with any Argentinian campsite) and eerily neon sunsets. We had a leisurely ½ day hike up to Laguna Zeta, leaving directly from our campsite (La Colina). As it wasn’t quite high season, the campsite was virtually empty. We did have the pleasure of meeting a Belgian and an Aussie, a couple of over-landers (that’s travel speak for people traveling for long periods of time in camper vans) who met through their love of travel. Not just a Belgian and an Aussie, but the Belgian and the Aussie. We learned about their epic journeys while grilling together at dinner time. Having unsuccessfully tried to arrange a trip to the local national park within our budget, we experienced our first taste of camper van envy seeing how easily they could travel long distances on a whim.

The people in town were super friendly. The grocer even offered us some yerba mate which we all drank together while hanging out at the end of the checkout counter. Later on, we watched the departure of one of South America’s oldest steam engine trains called La Trochita. It reminded me of Thomas the Tank Engine chugging along, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

We had a nice rest in Esquel, but were happy to keep heading north…next stop, El Bolson!

This bit of graffiti caught our eye

My typical campsite tortilla making set up