National Parks and FISH!!!

After one national park, we decided to head north to another. After a 26 hour bus ride, we arrived in Esquel, a very small town on the edge of the Los Alerces National park. We left some stuff at the hotel, and headed out to the park for 6 days of camping and fishing. We camped the first two days at a campsite that we thought was free, but later turned out to be the pay site. It wasn´t much money, and it was very pretty, and right on the lake. We had a nice campsite right by the lake, with a fire pit, and had access to a shower, so it worked out nicely. We had a good fire, and drank some ¨wonderful¨ boxed wine! We hiked along the river and fished for a day and a half, and caught a couple very little trout. The next day we got back on the bus for an hour and a half, to go up to another part of the park, with bigger rivers...and fish! We ended up getting dropped off at the wrong area, that only had a pay campsite, but it was closed for the season, and we just found a little site towards the back, and camped for free for 4 days. It was pretty funny, as this was the exact campsite that me (Ben) and our friend Harvey stayed at 5 years ago when they were in the park, we didn´t pay that time either. The first day was pretty nasty, and we just hung around the campsite and fished the lake a little, with no luck. The next day was very nice and we hiked along the road to a lookout point, and then tried to find our way down the mountain to the river.

It was awful, as there was no real path, and it was as thick as a jungle, not to mention almost stepping on several huge yellow jacket nests. We finally found the river after about 2 hours of bushwhacking, and started fishing. We had a couple bites, and caught a few right towards the end of the day, but not the big ones we were looking for. We decided there was no way we could go back up the way we came down, and decided we would go around the lake, and swim if we had to. Luckily we found a little path, and with a little wading, and fence jumping, we made it back on a much quicker route. The next day was very rainy, and we got poured on all day, but we were determined to catch some fish anyway, so we went back by the quicker route, and found the second smaller river that Ben remembered from his previous time in the park. The river was full of big trout that you could see everywhere. We caught several large brown and rainbow trout, and even brought one back to cook for dinner. The fishing was great, but difficult, as there were downed trees all along the bank, and once you hooked up with a fish, you had to maneuver them around the trees to land them. We lost a few fish, and a lot of lures, but still caught some great ones. That about did it for that national park, but now that we have got the fishing bug, we are heading to another for some more fishing!