It’s rare to find a hostel that makes you feel so at home and so personalised. I have stayed in probably well over 100 hostels around the world and La Casona de Odile, just outside the town of El Bolsón in Argentinian Patagonia is my favourite of them all. A taxi drive from El Bolson town is a dirt road that leads you to a beautiful wooden house surrounded by hundreds of trees, a garden alive with colour, and cute dogs to greet you.
Unlike many hostels where you’re just passing through, this one feels lived-in, more like a homestay. The season had only just begun for tourism so the hostel only opened a few weeks before our arrival, meaning it was only myself, my partner and the staff that work there. Upon enterance you notice a cosy fireplace with a conversation pit, a yoga platform, hammocks and streams of rivers. We booked a private room fit for a family of 4 attached to the back of the main house for only £10 each a night with breakfast included! We were originally staying for 2 nights and ended up staying for 4.
Coming from Buenos Aires where we stayed in a hostel filled with mould, this was heaven! I noticed a sign for massages and without hesitation booked in. The next day a woman named Roxana set up her massage table in my room. What I didn’t realise was that this massage was also reiki. For the next hour she burped and yawned rhythmically over me, releasing what she explained as trapped energy. It was one of the strangest experiences I had ever known but I felt like a new woman after.
A short taxi ride away was the town, famously known as the hippie haven of Patagonia since the 1960s. With hippies comes artisan markets and this one was a gem filled with unique art and local food. But the real magic in El Bolson is visiting the bright blue rivers! One of my favourite hikes in all of Patagonia was El Paraíso, along the Río Azul. We barely saw another soul on the trail; it was peaceful, green, and endlessly scenic. There was a fire a year before that devastated parts of El Bolson which you could see parts of on the trail, including rickety bridges to get from one side of the river to the other. When we finally reached the bluest part, it was picture perfect, although freezing I went up to my hips in the ice cold bright blue water.
In the evenings, we’d lounge in the hammocks until it was cold enough to light the fire. We played card games with the volunteers and one evening, we were invited to have dinner with the owner and her family. A true Argentinian-style gathering, full of warmth, food, and conversations. It was the kind of simple, grounding experience that’s easy to forget while travelling. A reminder to slow down, rest, and to really enjoy being present.
With a 25 hour bus booked to Chile at 7am, we woke at 6 and noticed the door to the outside world was jammed shut, we couldn’t open it so had to slide out of the window with our backpacks to make it in time. The taxi driver who became our friend for the week arrived to help us but mostly took pictures of us for memories. We made the bus and headed to Chile!
Bevs Backpacking📍 