El Bolson to Esquel, Trevelin

By the time we reached El Bolson, San Martin seemed a long way off even though we had only just left there six hours earlier. The change in terrain has this effect.

We were exhuasted, but somehow, stumbling into the first restaurant rewarded us with the best meal of the trip so far. Ebeneezer's is a Parilla frequented by locals and truckers on their way north or south. They brew their own beer (hops is one of El Bolson's main exports) and only have one thing worth looking at on the entirely Spanish menu: PARILLA. It means barbecue meat feast. For 100 pesos (HK$200), it is exceptional value for two people to share. Steak, lamb, pork, chorizo sausages, lamb sausages, pork sausages, and even some chicken. Instead of asking you whether you want your steak rare, medium rare or well done, they simply serve up a sample while you're drinking beer. I doubt many people tell them to go back and make it differently.

Three hours south of El Bolson is the pleasant but unremarkable town of Esquel, and further still, Trevelin, where the Welsh contingent famously settled at years ago. The guide books make a great deal of this fact, but it came to me as no surprise that this would be a crashing anti-climax. I mean, if a place's reason to exist hangs solely on that one fact, what's the point? You may as well kill yourself. Anyway the local population, as Graham observed upon entering the town, is about as Welsh as it is Chinese. The no. 1 tourist attraction is the tea shop, where you can have scones and cakes and listen to Irish folk music which they probably switch off the minute you leave, otherwise the staff would go mental. Sitting there, we really thought we were on LSD.


We never ended up seeing the famous 2,000 year old, 60-metre high Alerces trees. Los Alerces national park itself is easy enough to drive to, but it's a five hour boat ride to reach the actual spot where the trees are located and protected. Seeing the sun on its way down, a 5-second cost/benefit analysis deterred us from this route and we pushed on.

I would like to re-write the tourist guidebooks. Trevelin's no. 1 draw should be the very charming, family-run Casa de Piedra. For 200 pesos (HK$400) a night, I challenge anyone to find better place lay back after a long day, read a book, and knock back a bottle of red wine.