Judìos, Hippies, y la Cordillera

Things outside Osorno are happening a whole lot faster, and its going to be hard to keep up with the blogging. I´ll try my hardest.

I finally made it on the bus to el Bolson with Sandra and Bill (the older couple I met in Bariloche). It was to this point, the best bus ride I´ve ever experienced. There were incredibly large comfy chairs, fleece blankets, wonderful pillows, a full meal including mashed potatoes of course dulce de leche, little bottles of wine, a movie, a friendly argentine man and AMAZING views of tremendous snow-capped mountains. The clouds didnt even get to me-- it was beautiful all the same. Then we arrived in the cutest little town in time for the saturday fair. It was full of interesting crafts (Amy would have been in heaven), lots of slow-talking, long-haired hippies (Noah would have been in heaven) and cheap homemade beer (we were in heaven). I of course ran into Bobby (the guy from Albany who I met in the BA airport and then again in Barioche) and we were happy to see each other. We had some cerveca artesenal and recapped the 24 hours we had spent apart.

He brought me back to the hostel where he was staying. On the way he explained that the hostel was not much cheaper than the ones in Bariloche, didn`t come with breakfast, didn`t have internet, was a bitchy 25 minute walk from town and only provided cheap mattresses on the floor. But its amaaazing, he asssured me. Turns out he was right. I stayed two nights at La Casa de Viajero, a charming ranch owned by a hippie argetine named Augustine and his wife Laura. During those two days we built a family with all the people staying at the hostel (including Bill and Sandra), had a delicious asado that we excecuted ourselves, took a few beautiful hikes and drank a lot of mate. On Monday it was time for me to move on. Chris, an austrailian who has spent 4 months working at jiminy peak and was also living in Chile, traveled with me to back to the touristy mess of Bariloche. We were sad to say goodbye to all our friends. Bobby and I said goodbye (once again) and promised we´d hang out back in the capital region.

On Tuesday the weather was beautiful, as we had expected. Chris and I climbed to the top of the same mountain that Victor and I got blown off of, but this time it was sun and warm. It was a pretty steep hike but we thankfully had an Austrian hiker with us who kept us on our toes (COME ON! ITS GETTING DARK!). We landed back at our hostel exhausted and spent the next day whining about our soreness. After I dropped Chris off at the bus station I walked back into town along the lake and did some thinking. I was invited to an Argentine seder for Thursday night, but passover started that night. Bariloche is absolutely craaawling with israelis, so I decided I was determined to find out what they were up to.

On my way back to my hostel I saw a fast food joint that had hebrew lettering on it. Of course I went in and ordered an empanada and everyone inside was speaking hebrew. I chatted with the israelis to find that there was a chabad house in town giving a seder that night. I decided that even though I wasnt Israeli and hadn`t registered, I was going to work my way into the joint. After a bit of searching and admitting despite my curls and dark skin that I dont speak hebrew, I made it. I arrived to a sports stadium full of hundreds of israelis. Alone, of course. I walked up and down the aisles realizing I had no idea what to do and who to talk to. I detected not a bit of english but recognized a bunch of isrealis I had seen in my travels. They all spoke to me in hebrew, forgetting I was the American one. I finally grabbed a seat with probably the weirdest guy I could find, who I had met in the restaurant earlier. While everyone else is around 22 and just out of the army, my friend was 40 and has been traveling every other year for his entire life. He translated all of the instructions that I couldn`t understand and entertained me during the chaos that was the seder (paradox anyone?). It was really just a lot of screaming and jumping, and ocasionally some bad food that came from large buckets. It was by far the most expensive meal I´ve bought in my travels. It was all a bit overwhelming, but the four glasses of wine helped me relax. I did find a few Argetines who I talked to who were even more lost than me because they didnt even speak english.

I said goodbye to my friends and escaped back to the normal spanish speaking (and english speaking) world of Bariloche. I got back to my hostel only to discover that Bobby and I had not seen the last of each other. He sent me a facebook message saying he was back in town and I ran over to meet him. Today we`ll be doing a mountain biking trip together in Bariloche and talking a lot about the egg, bombers and all the friends in common we have on facebook. Ohhh Albany.