Soggy Days

Back in November, the other volunteers (Aily, Lucy, Anna) and I were looking for weekend hikes around El Bolson. When we asked Cynthia for recommmendations, she replied that, while there were lots of hikes around the area, most of them were "nothing special." There was one place, however, that she said is "incomparable." So we set out, one Saturday, for an overnight hike to El Cajon del Azul, a refugio, or hikers' cabin, in the mountains, five hours by foot to the west of Cynthia's farm. She was right. The hike took us deep within a narrow valley between mountains, along the Rio Azul, an unimaginably clear turquoise river, to this impossibly gorgeous, isolated farm and refugio, where Atilio, a sixty-some year-old man, had lived for thirty years.

That hiking trip was beautiful, but too short. Cajon del Azul was just the first of a series of refugios, each several hours apart, that promised to be just as spectacular as the first, but we had to return to the farm the next day. So when my sister Meredith arrived on the 26th of December, and we set off to travel for a month, the kick-off trip was a no-brainer: a four-day hiking trip into that same narrow valley. Luckily, Mer was up for it, and after buying food supplies and loading up our packs, we set off around noon on Sunday, the 27th.


On Saturday, while running errands in town, we had stopped in the office of the local "Club Andino," or mountain club. There we had registered and seen a five-day forecast, which predicted cloudy but mild weather for our hike, with chances of occasional light showers, at worst, for one of the days. On our first day, the weather was windy at times, but all-in-all pleasant--we spent the afternoon shedding layers until the last half hour or so, when, with the lowering sun, the air became chilly, and it started raining lightly. We arrived at Cajon del Azul tired but content to share a liter of homemade beer and take in the beautiful scenery.


The next morning, we woke up around 9:00, among fifteen or so other bodies sleeping on foam mattresses side by side in the loft of the refugio. After an oatmeal and apple breakfast, we began to pack up and prepare to leave for a long day of hiking. One thing I had learned about Argentines is that their sense of time is a very personal thing. We had been told by different people that the next refugio on our trip, Los Laguitos, was anywhere from six to eight hours away. In any case, we expected a long day. As we packed, Meredith offered to pay for our stay, which cost about $10 per person, since she owed me money. It was then that she discovered that her envelope of money hadn't made it into her pack, and was (hopefully) still back at the farm.

Yikes. So, this changed things. The money that I had would last us two nights, but not the three nights it would take to complete the full circuit. We'd have to cut our trip short a day by taking a path through the middle of the original circuit we had planned, bypassing Los Laguitos and spending our second night at Encanto Blanco, so that we could be close enough to hike back to Cynthia's on the third day. I went to pay Nicolas, the "refugiero" and Atilio (the owner)'s son-in-law, and asked him for advice, explaining our dilemma. He showed me on the map where to go, and then disappeared for a few minutes. When he returned, he thrust a 50 peso bill in my direction--more than enough to cover our expenses for the original three-night journey. "Take this," he said. "When you get back, you can leave the money in an envelope at the store near the trailhead." I protested, incredulous of his trust and generosity. "It'd be one thing if you were staying at a hostel in town, and were just tourists passing through. But you're staying at the house of people we know. But hurry, it's getting late and you have a long walk ahead of you!"

Indeed we did. Our moods bolstered by our good fortune, we set off around 11:00am, unconcerned about the gathering wind and occasional drizzle. We stopped to take pictures at pretty spots, walking rather leisurely, knowing that the sun doesn't set until 9:30 at this time of year. However, two or three hours into the hike, the wind had good-and-gathered, and the occasional drizzle had turned into a cold, steady rain. The turquoise Rio Azul, such a picturesque companion to our left as we set off, became a menace; every fifteen minutes or so, we'd come to an arroyo, or stream, which fed into the river. While some were tiny, and easy to cross, the rain had turned many a trickle into roaring streams, requiring treacherous, barefoot crossings, numbing our bare legs and delaying us several minutes each time. The trail was increasingly muddy, and Canio de Colihue, a bamboo-like cane, grew in endless fields, soaking my leggings with icy rainwater, and threatening to poke out an eye with trimmed tips.

Utterly soaked, we forewent lunch in favor of an earlier eventual arrival, trudging on. Conversation had ceased, and, as the hours stretched, I focused my energy on avoiding the muddiest parts of the rutted-out trail and transforming my increasingly negative mood into a more positive one. "We're never going to get there," and "This is the most miserable hike of my life," became, through sheer willpower, "At least I have legs to walk on" and, "This isn't so bad--Cambodian children had to walk through worse for much longer during the Khmer Rouge."

It was a long, cold, wet day. Towards 5:00, we began waiting anxiously for an incline; Nicolas had said that the last two hours were uphill. As tired as we were from negotiating the rutted trail, every time the trail veered upward for even a few steps, our hearts leapt with the hope that we were beginning the final stretch. Eventually, we began climbing, and though the trail became even more rutted and difficult (we later found out that a group with fifteen horses had come through the day before), our spirits picked up, and I had to fight to keep from focusing too much on the eventual warm meal and fire we'd soon enjoy.

The last two hours of climbing stretched into three, but at last, the woods began to open up, and a mist-covered lake appeared to our left. Still not wanting to get my hopes up, I held out believing we had arrived until I saw the log cabin in the distance on the lake shore, chimney smoke mixing with the fog-choked air. We practically ran the last five hundred meters, bursting through the door of Los Laguitos Refugio like two drowned rats. Not having anticipated the downpour, our packs and 90% of their contents were soaked through. We stripped down, changing into whatever clothes had managed to stay dry. Lorena, the "refugiera," helped us to hang everything above the roaring wood stove and made us mate and tea. It was 8:00.

That night, we lay in the loft listening to the rain on the roof and praying that tomorrow morning would never come. Having discovered that our third destination required an even steeper climb, and would almost certainly be covered in snow from the current storm, we had decided to take the trail back the way we came. The prospect of doing it all over again, this time sliding down the two-hour incline, crossing streams even more swollen from the continued rain, was far from appealing, though it was our only option.

The next morning, after putting it off for as long as possible, we got up and began to prepare ourselves for another rainy long day. This time, we covered feet with plastic bags, and stuffed them inside our packs to keep our freshly dried clothes from getting wet again. We set off around 10:00, expecting the worst, but the rain had stopped, and miraculously, the streams that had been so formidable yesterday we crossed almost without issue (Meredith took a plunge that submerged the entire lower half of her body!). We passed the day pleasantly, enjoying sunshine and a real lunch break, and reached our destination, another cozy cabin an hour called Retamal forty minutes from Cajon del Azul, in seven hours.

The following day, we set off even earlier, and were back at Cynthia's by 2:00, spurred on by the prospect of ice cream in town later that day. Although the hiking trip hadn't gone exactly as planned, it was certainly an adventure well-worth the icy feet.