Had a relaxing morning walking about town. The bookshop had a book I want: Los Banditos Norte Americanos. And another shop had a wide choice of watches. I managed after many attempts to take a decent photo of the wood scrupture: El Indio, with the Martin Sheffield building in the background; then while looking through my photos on the back of the camera, along came my American friend from Cholila on Sunday. "El Bolson is just nice. The hippy town" he said by way of recognition and continued on along the street.

This afternoon after doing much washing of clothes and cleaning the bike, I took the bike to the bike-shop for repair. Everything went well until I rode away when, I could still hear the hub making the terible clicking noise. Furthermore when I got off and checked, there was a lot of play. I could rock the rear wheel freely from side to side, so I returned to the bike-shop. The mechanic didn't quite understand. It seemed OK with him when it left the shop. But he offered to change the races. He went into the rear room and returned out after a minute, nodding his head and said they didn't have the right races; so he spent a while looking at the wheel and turning it round. He eventually un-screwed everything off the axle, and screwed it all together again with the races swapped round on opposite sides. It seemed he was up against it as I looked on feeling despondant. However, in the end he got everything on the axle to tighten up in a way that the wheel spun smoothly without the hint of play. It seemed too good to be true as I rode away and I hoped the hub would remain sound.

Nov 20, Friday: Returned to bookshop and bought book: Los Banditos Americanos. The author is a Buenos Aires historian and together with lots of old black and white photographs and reproduced documents, it tracks the legenary outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid who after being hunted out of the United States, came south and ended up living incognito in Cholila from 1902 to 1907; then they fled again as it was believed that they were involved in a series of bank robberies in Argentina and their real identity and past was catching up with them when an agent from the Pinkerton Detective Agency arrived in Buenos Aires. It's not known for certain what became of them after Cholila, though many theories exist; lease not, that they were surrounded by the military and shot dead in the village of San Vincente, south west Bolivia in November 1908, after a mine pay-roll robbery which went wrong. But DNA tests on their exhumed remains done in 1992 disprove this theory. The gang that robbed the mine pay-roll were not Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid.

I climbed up the steep track through the wooded hills to the west of town and crossed into the next valley; where I passed by the rock face called: Cabeza de Indio; thence, down to Rio Azul where I crossed a wobbly cable bridge to the foot of the climb up Cerro Linda, and decided I'd gone far enough. Returning in the afternoon I got caught in the rain and became miserable cold as the rain satuated my trousers. Luckily though, the rain stopped and the sun came out long enough as I approached El Bolson that my clothes dried out before arriving back at the hostel, Refugio Patagonia. Then the rain came on again, very intense and lasted the rest of the afternoon.. The kitchen and seating area was full and everyboby seemed edgy because of the rain. There was a touring bike inside the door which I hadn't seen in the morning. It belonged to an elderly Swiss man, who told me he'd cycled from Rio and would finish this tour in the Chilean port, Puerto Montt; and return next year to ride the remainder of his journey down to Ushuaia at the end of the world.

Nov 21, Saturday: I'd had enough of walking, so took the bike out today; both to see that all remained well with the rear hub and to loosen up musles. I cycled a circuit on a woodland track above Rio Azul, pausing to look at the waterfalls, Casadas Ensconcido. Then uphill and along past Cabeza de Indio, with a vista down the valley of Rio Azul, before returning to town. The main open area in the centre was taken up with rows of stalls of the Saturday market. Artisans with hand crafted articals; such as the beautiful chess boards with Indian pieces, or Patagonian landscapes on wood frames. Also ateables such as Patagonian friut composes. But my favourite thing was the Artisan beer as it would require no carrying, instead being served in clear plastic beakers and enjoyed on the spot. I tried a white beer, then a dark beer. When I got back to the hostel, Vicka had her backpack at the door and was leaving for the bus-station, to catch a bus for Bariloche. She's German and we spent yesterday evening in El Bolson micro brewery and tasted the various flavoured beers.

Nov 22, Sunday: Sad to leave El Bolson, though happy to be back on the road again. It was a fine sunny morning which clouded over round noon and got duller and more like rain the more the afternoon went on.