Argentina: Parque Nacional Los Alerces

Route: El Bolson – Cholila – Trevelin

South of El Bolson is a national park I was really looking forward to ride through, the ‘Parque Nacional Los Alerces’.
Alerces are trees, upto 4000 years old and the oldest living creatures on this planet.
WWO 1 just happened recently for them.
Christoffel Columbus you say ?
7/8 of these trees life time happened before he discovered America.
Julius Ceasar or Jesus Christ ?
These trees lived half of their life before that.
Than, 20th century. An idiot with a chain saw comes along. One minute later, the tree is gone.
4000 years it’s standing there, we mow it away in a blink of an eye.
Progress and $$$.
So the few that are left are now protected in a national park.
Lets hope they don’t fall victim to pollution if it isn’t for the chain saw.

I camped two nights in the national park on designated camp grounds. Both nights I had mice in my tent. I never had that before, and now two nights in a row. The park must be infested with them. But is is a very beautiful ride.
What a shame preparations seem to be under way to pave the road through the park.

I met another Argentinian biker in the park who took me to the top of a spectacular waterfall.
He explained me all the fallen trees in the park weren’t caused by storms but by the exceptional heavy snow load they had to endure last winter.