*argentinian lakes - bariloche and el bolson

the argentinian lakes district turned out to be very pleasant(photos are coming).
in bariloche we stayed with carolina and her family. carolina went to mexico for ´a while´ and ended up travelling around central and south america for 2 years. she told us most incredible stories äbout staying in a colombian jungle with a shaman who healed her from some stomach infection with the hallucinogen plants that gave her visions of her present boyfriend, about transporting clothes to cuban families in la havana and how she traveled in cargo boats in panama. from a fresh law graduate she turned into a bit of a hippie. as carrie would say ´i couldn´t help but wonder; where our trip will leave us´?
we hikked together around llao llao and nahuel huapi, she showed us the most amazing arrayán trees which only grow in patagonia and die if moved somwhere else.
we then spent two days in el bolson, a hippie town south from bariloche. apparently it is the magical energy of the mountains that attracts all the hippies here and we could really see crowds of dread-locked, long-skirted and drum-playing individualas walking around town and selling their jams, earings and scarfs at the market. we met a guy in a park who was a perfect example of the hippiessness of the town and in his slightly disturbed way lectured us on life in el bolson where you sleep where people invite you, eat what they give you and money does not seem to exist. also for the first time in argentina we saw a bigger community of the indegenious mapuche. there is only 2% of the natives living in argentina and it seems that most of them live around patagonia (and some at the north).
we then moved to the chilean side of the lakes to pucon and from there we are gonna go up north.
hope all is well with you guys, take care :)