Butch Cassidy, har har har

We broke up our journey between Perito Moreno Ciudad and Bariloche with a stop in Esquel, planning to head over to Cholila, a nearby town featuring the dilapidated remains of three cabins where Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place spent 1901 to 1905, hiding out from the law and trying their hand at a more peaceful ranching life. Our travel planning was flawless, except for our failure to take into account the fact that Esquel and Cholila are near each other only in a very general sense, somewhat like Maine is near Delaware. However, having stopped in Esquel, we felt committed to completing our excursion, and we hopped on a bus for Cholila.

We asked the driver to drop us off at the Casa de Piedras tea house in Cholila, a wily attempt to conceal our true destination. The bus driver knew what was up though, elbowing Nate as he got off the bus and chortling, “Butch Cassidy! Har har har!” Apparently it was obvious that we had not taken the five hour bus ride for a cup of tea.

After arriving, we blundered around the farms on either side of the road, hopping random fences only to find ourselves face to face with enormous steers. We finally realized we would never find the cabins by relying on blind luck alone, and walked over to the Casa de Piedras, where we wandered through a deserted tea room, and entered the kitchen looking for assistance. We found the owner, hair still in curlers, enjoying lunch in front of a blaring television. She put her arm around me and kindly (pityingly) directed us 200 meters back in the direction we had come from, to the sign clearly labelled “Butch Cassidy” with an arrow pointing towards the cabins. As we left, she wistfully asked us if we were very sure we didn’t want any tea.

We arrived at the cabins shortly after. One was partially rebuilt, while the other two were in a sadly (but authentically) decrepit state. Someone had gone to some effort to impart a creepy vibe to the site, with animal skulls nailed threateningly to the fence and skins draped from the rafters. We searched unsuccessfully for an escape tunnel the three had allegedly built and contemplated outlaw life.