Parque Nacional Los Alerces

Matt Kelly (www.pedalpanam.com) and I met up in El Bolson, got our bikes a little tlc courtesy of Totem Bikes, drank some micro brews, shopped and packed up to get a nice 1pm start on the day. The afternoon was sunny and beautiful with a stiff tailwind as we headed to Alerces National Park and more dirt roads without fear of nukes - though Argentina has 2 nuclear power plants with a 3rd projected to be completed in September of this year.
Clouds started to build in the evening as we turned off onto the dirt road heading towards Alerces National Park. The road was a terrible soft gravel and we camped beside a stream off the road - I camped without my tent banking on the rain holding off for the next 12 hours.
I got lucky and the drizzle did not start until the next morning

while I pedaled through the small town of Cholila behind some gauchos moving a few cattle with their pit bull.
Parque Nacional Los Alerces is a gorgeous park of lakes, rivers, and glaciated mountains. The rains were heavy at times in the afternoon but never continuous and relented in the late afternoon to camp and go fishing. The park is named after the immense Alerces tree that grows there - the Alerces is the second oldest living organism on the planet with some specimens reaching 3000 years of age and many in the 1000 year old range. They made for great protection from the drizzle and shade from the sun the next day. The oldest living organism is the Bristlecone Pine reaching ages of 5000 years old.
I had no luck fishing but I saw fish . . . fishing an unfamiliar big river feels like a crap shoot. Occasionally fish surfaced all over the river but none seemed interested in what I had to offer during the evening and following morning that I fished . . . I guess I can take heart that no one else seemed to be catching fish but I am used to catching fish. I reminded myself that it took 50-60 days of fishing in my area of the Susquehanna River to become familiar with the habits of the local residents before I could consistently hook them and I am still working on it . . . or maybe I just suck at fishing.
Anyhow it was a good morning to capture images.
and fantastic afternoon for riding.
I caught up with Matt in the small town of Trevelin hanging out in the park with Santiago an Argentinian cyclist from Buenos Aires who he had met while camping the previous night. I camped 10 kilometers away to fish on the Rio Arrayanes.
We set up camp in the municipal campground with 3 other cyclists - Peter(Park City, Utah), Evan(Seattle, WA) and Robin(Edinburgh, Scotland) - we had met along the way and had an asado until turning in at 1am or so.
Santiago was a great asadero and we will be looking him up in Buenos Aires in a month and half or so to do some more grilling.
Santiago headed north with all the food we could not take into Chile and five of us headed out of Trevelin towards Chile in dribs and drabs sure to see each other again in the near future.
I am excited to be crossing over to Chile and ride the Austral Highway for 1000km of dirt road past glaciers, rivers, and fjords to Villa O'Higgins where we will cross back into Argentina by ferry and a 20+km hike a bike - but I am going to miss Argentina. I will miss the asado, the beat up Peugeots, great conversation, the people with their open enthusiasm for my trip, and travel in general - but I will be back in another 1000 km.
We headed out of Trevelin on a back route to the border that a gracious bike shop owner shared with us and then we signed his cyclist guest book.
The border crossing over the Andes was simple and beautiful with minimal climbing and an actual descent to the checkpoints along the Rio Futaleufu - though the road on the Argentinian side was a rough washboard of loose gravel that became smooth pavement in Chile - but revealed a serious bulge and wobble in my new front tire . . .