05:44 p.m. 10/12/02
Now we are in El Bolson - a tiny town in the Andes - well in a very flat valley on a river with gray and brown volcanic mountains on either side. We are at the 42nd parallel at some cosmic convergence place. There are Argentine new age places here. Backing up, however, I will recount our exciting water adventure.

In Barlioche, we signed up for a river rafting trip on the Manso river. Its early spring and the river is about 2 ft higher than usual. The van picked us up at the hotel with a big patched raft on a trailer. We proceeded to pick up the next client - a vivacious Brazilian young woman, Marianna. She spoke Portuguese as her first language, but also a little Spanish and English. Inside the van were the driver, Nicolas, the raft guide trainee, Alexandro, the chief guide, Christian, a photographer, and another young man, a kayaker. They spoke no English. We rode 2 hours through a valley, along a very blue lake, the valley surrounded by gray, sharply spiked peaks topped with snow. Fields of pink, purple and white lupine lined the road. Finally we arrived at the river and the guides set out croissants and coffee. They instructed us thoroughly and we put on our wet suits, helmets and life jackets. Nicolas, the trainee, ordered us to paddle strongly, because the raft usually had 9 people instead of 7. We drifted into our first huge class 4 rapid. There were enormous waves crashing on the raft. We were deep in a trough when suddenly I was in the water. When I surfaced, I saw the raft upside down. I grabbed onto it and Nicolas was standing on top of it and flipped it over. We collected the others, pulling them by their life jacket straps - uno, dos, tres and then body slam to the opposite side of the raft pulling the person with us into the raft. The paddles were collected. Nicolas seemed very depressed that we flipped while he was directing and Alexandro took over as guide. Alex had us all put our paddles to the center of the raft overlapping and then yell - "¡¡¡Uno por todo: Todo por uno!!!" We proceeded through several more class 3 rapids - espècially exciting were narrow gorges. 1000 ft waterfalls cascaded off high mountains into the river. Alexandro pulled us over and said the next rapids were ¨"muy forte!" and we yelled our unity call again. John was at the front of the raft and later said he saw a huge hole in the water open up and we slid down into it. The last I heard was "high side" - which meant we were to all throw ourselves to the high side of the raft. Then I was aware of the raft turning on its side and us all tumbling again into the water. This time we rode the rapids outside the raft. I came up for air and each time saw a water ready to envelop me then I was underwater again. Finally, I oriented myself to where was downstream and floated down to see Nicolas and Marianne on the side holding a paddle out to me. I grabbed it and then floated down some way to where John was perched on a rock. Eventually the boat floated down to us and we all pulled eachother in again. Nicolas was in the water trying to collect the paddles and we proceeded without him after once again giving our "todo por uno" cheer, Marianne and I without paddles. We waited and he never came floating down so we continued through more rapids. Finally we reached the Chilean border, marked by a foot-horse bridge and pulled out. Nicolas eventually walked into the area - having climbed the bank and walked down a road. The guides and kayaker were very good and there were all kinds of safety provisions, but the photographer said it was the only time he had flipped twice. He thought because there were only (kind of weak) 3 clients and the river was very high. John said the best parts were the flips.
After loading up the stuff, minus 3 paddles lost, we proceeded to an idyllic ravine with small stream running through it. There Alex had built a fire, put a grill on it, and was cooking chicken, ribs and chorizo. Nicolas and the kayaker chopped lettuce and tomatoes, and we had peaches for dessert. Local cows and bulls looked down on us from the top of the ravine as we ate their hermanos. We laid back on the grass and looked up at the trees, blue sky and white clouds.

The next day Marianne came with us to El Bolson - she for the day, us to stay. She works for her father as a graphic designer and was delightful to have with us. She enabled me to learn about middle class life in Rio. She loved taking photos - especially of designs on church stained glass. She took photos of polical slogans in Barlioche for her mother who she said was ¨very political¨and she said she wished she were more political. The slogans said "We have not received salaries for 3 months - our families are hungry"; "without workers this hotel will close". These were spray painted on several large closed hotels.

El Bolson is a small poor town. The attraction is that it is a haven for artists and there is a regional crafts center here. The Lonely Planet rates El Bolson as having the best ice cream in Argentina and we ate some. Marianne, John and I walked into one store and found it was a workshop. A very cordial man showed us where Mapuche Indians do weaving and a woman demonstrated spinning wool by hand onto a spindle. The man explained (with Marianne translating) that this is funded by the government to help Indian people make money. He is paid in a government scrip (IOU) which was issued because of the economic crisis here. There is not enough dollars or gold to back the currency so this temporary money is printed for use in the country. The people have suffered freezing of their savings and wild fluctuations in the value of their money. However, the quality of life appears good. People appear to be in good health.

Tomorrow we are taking the bus to the Parque National Los Alerces. Alerces are huge trees like redwoods which have been logged almost to extinction here.