It has been a great experience fishing in National Park Los Alerces after an inauspicious start. Esquel is an offshoot of the welsh settlments at Puerto Madryn and Esquel, and is a sprawling town overlooked by mountains in every direction, mountains that look as if they could be in the highlands except that they are higher and less rounded. Pine trees give it an alpine feel, and the temperature is perfect with cool, crisp mornings succeeded by warm, sunny days when there is not a cloud in the sky. Immediatly after arriving, I realised that the bus to Lago Verde had already left and so I tried to hitchike, but to no avail. Perhaps I didn´t look dirty enough. In the space of an hour, only one man stopped and he couldn´t take me far enough.

After dining on local trout, I set off on the bus the following day for Lago Verde passing towering hills, huge lakes teeming with fish and a receding glacier that looked impressive nonetheless. The accomodation I secured through Pablo was basic (my fishing contact), but the location was stunning. Perched on the edge of the brilliant turquoise blue waters of Lago Verde, the cabanas looked up the valley to huge soaring mountains and down it to Rio Rivadavia and beyond. Outside, children practised with the lazo and huge, perfectly groomed horses trotted around listlessly. After lazing around on the side of the lake reading my book, Pablo called off the fishing excursion because of "terrible toothache", and I was left alone with a rod a huge monster of a fly, called a "tarantula". Thus armed, I ventured to cast into the brilliant waters looking for unsuspecting prey. The brilliant thing about this lake is that (weather conditions permitting), you can see the fish rise to take your fly. The first time this happened, I was so startled that I raised my rod tip and pulled the fly out of the fish´s mouth. Frustrated, I headed down the lake to the next bay where I took off my trainers, rolled my trousers up to my thighs and began to wade into a weedy mudbed. Bad idea; the mud suddenly sucked my leg down . I clambered out and waded into sandy shallows this time. After about twenty minutes of casting, a huge silver fish suddenly leapt at the fly, missed it and foul hooked itself on the way down. Caught by the dorsal fin, the fish struggled for a good half hour, repeatedly pulling line of the reel, before I could lay my hands on its silver sides. It must have been at least five times bigger than the biggest fish I have ever caught in Scotland, probably weighing ten pounds. (No scales were at hand, so you can forgive a little exageration). A smaller rainbow trout that I caught an hour later provoked the scorn of a native who called it a "chicitito", or tiddler. It was around six pounds. There are obviously monsters out there to be caught.

Inspired by the previous day´s efforts I set out on Sunday to the sound of a cock crowing next to my cabana. But where the previous day had been exhilerating, Sunday was frustrating, with only one rise to my fly. This did give me the opportunity, though, to explore the River Rivadavia that flows into Lago Verde. With more water, this could be a good bet for hooking some large fish.

Today, I´m preparing to travel to El Calafate where you can see the Perito Moreno glacier and many other attractions. A twenty hour bus journey awaits, so you´ll forgive me if I sign off and go and get a cold beer.