2/26  We are now 2 hours into our 26 hour bus ride. So far so good. They served us lunch and there are non stop movies. Some are english with spanish sub titles, the others are the other way around. I didn't write yesterday since I was going to have so much down time today.
First off, some more observations
1.  The kids wear uniforms to school, but all they are , are white lab coats over whatever else they want to wear. Pretty smart.
2.   Everyone kisses everyone on both cheeks to say hola and adios.
3.  There are stray dogs everywhere, but they are really not annoying. They don't bark or bother you.
4.  90% of the cars are old clunkers.  Terry says they are from the 1950s.
5.  Even the large grocery stores have maybe a third of the choices we have. So far we have only seen 6 different types of cereal.
6.  Not much attention is paid to landscaping by home owners. The little towns do along the roads, but that is it.
7.  Patagonia is a haven for hippies. Dreadlocks, backpacks, some marijuana and lots of stories is all it takes. I guess the four of us aren't quite there yet.
8.  Don't believe whatever a trekker tells you about the length, distance or grade of the trek. They soooooo under estimate!

Yesterday's destination was el Bosque Tallado -the carved forest. High up on this mountain (1600 meters) there was a forest fire. The dead trees that remained are being carved into art pieces by artists from all over. Really impressive. We took a cab to the beginning of the trail, which we had no idea , began at 1200 meters. What a ride up there. A gravel road does not come close to describing it...more like a riverbed. We couldn't believe they would even take a car up there, but thankfully they did. It was 13km to the beginning. Lots of cliff hugging and switchbacks. Once there, no surprise,  the very steep climb up started. But as i got out of the cab, something must have bit me in my upper thigh.  I didn't feel anything, but it itched. Very quickly it became red, hot and about a 6" diameter welt.  Oh well!  Huffing and puffing we hiked up the 1 hour trek to the forest. Thankfully this part was nice and level and we walked around looking at them all for about 45 minutes. My bite thing was really itching so I took an allergy pill just in case.Then Billy Goat Bob made us go higher. Another 20 minutes straight up to the el refugio Piltriquitron..reststop.  So glad we did. As you come out of the treed area, since we were now high enough to be out of the treeline, the view was like out of the movie Heidi. There was a cute little hut that served beer and pizza and some homemade sweets. We., however, had packed a picnic lunch, but did sample one treat each. Yummy!  We sat on the grassy slope and took in the view. We weren't just looking at the mountains, we were in them. The air was that fresh, cool mountain air. We could see all of el Bolson, some snow covered mountains and the lake in the National Park.  B and G decided to try and go to the lookout. Another 20 minutes up. T and I stayed right where we were. So glad, because they never made it there.
On the way down, which is so hard on your knees, thighs  and toes, we passed a woman carrying a child on her back and a man carrying a lap dog of some kind going up.  NO WAY!  All in all a 5hr trip. While waiting for the pre arranged cab to pick us up, we took off our hiking boots to put our sandals on.  I had a blister on my big toe the whole length of it. Got out the pocket knife, drained it and put some neosporin and a bandaid on it. It comes from walking downhill at such a steep angle. It didn't hurt and doesn't today either.
The cab dropped us off in the center of town. We got another yummy ice cream cone, checked out the post office to see how much to mail a package home and got groceries for supper. The post office was a little challenging. No english again, but I figured it out. We could not go back until 6pm. They were fumigating the whole hostel to keep bugs away. Guess they do it every 3 monhs.  Perfect timing for us. The little town has a large germa.n influence. They have the little elephant slides that I remember Germany having when we were kids. They are out on the sidewalks outside the stores.
Back at the hostel, we sat in the garden area with a glass of wine. I sat in a hanging hammock chair, listening to the creek. At 7pm, G and I did yoga with Tarin. She did a 2 yr. training in India. She is from South Africa and I love her accent. The class was in the garden, near the creek and perfect after a day of trekking. Her plan is to start a yoga retreat on this property. The owners feel it will mesh nicely with the atmosphere they have created.  I agree.
B and T made dinner. I feel so spoiled having Bob cook all the time, but he likes to do it. So........  We spent some time talking to Javier. He is 27 and speaks french, italian, potrugese, english, spanish. He has worked in the computer field, raced sled dogs in northern Canada, was a trekking guide out on the glacier ice fields, went to college in France and Buenos Aires for theater, and the list goes on and on.  And I thought Nikki has done a lot.  We are realizing that not many americans do this kind of traveling.  It is mostly europeans, canadians and south americans.  Not too many asians either. We believe it has to do with our work schedules. Most of the other countries all have at least 4 to 6 weeks of vacation. They also say americans are too concerned with material things.  Bigger, better or more of them.  Maybe that is evident in the grocery stores.  Do we really need a whole aisle of cereals?
We spent last night in a different room. It was Marcel's little cottage. T and I slept up in the loft, just like the one Mary and Laura from Little House on the Prairie slept in.  There was a ladder up and we could not stand up. But it was one of the best mattresses so far.  The little, and I mean little bathroom was different. The shower was tucked between the sink and toilet. You had to draw a curtain on both sides, shower and then squeegy the floor towards the toilet. All the walls were tile, so no problem there. A little cramped and awkward, but the water was really nice and hot. The whole thing was no bigger than 3 ft by 5 ft.
We left this morning about 9am. Marcel and Tarin came out to hug and kiss us goodbye.  People,  in this hostel world, are so friendly and helpful. Way better than our past experience in the hotel world.  The bus was scheduled to leave at 11am but we had a couple of errands.  Stopped at the post office to mail some stuff home. (Skirt and top, hair dryer, another shirt, all our accumulated maps and pamphlets and the 3 little souvenirs that were carved out of wood). Seems you can't bring anything wooden into Chile. We did really good packing.  A quick trip to the market for some extra water for the trip. They don't give you anything extra and to buy it along the way when they stop for 10 minutes, is very expensive.
We quickly left the mountainous area and are now in the vast area of nothingness.  There was a small town that we went through, but it looked quite poor and certainly not a tourist place.
It is 4:15 pm now and depending on what happens on the rest of this ride, I will be sure to let you know how it went.

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