Day 10 – Bariloche

A quiet day today. Got up just before 9am – a bit of a quieter night, but still quite a bit of noise coming in through the open window. Breakfast was the same fare – toasted baguette, croissant, and corn flakes. The forecasts had said today was going to be hot – and it was warming up fast … expected to hit 32 degrees … which is hot for a town which doesn’t know what air conditioning is!

After looking at our options (many of the features around here close on Mondays), we decided to have a quiet day – avoid the worst of the heat and give me an opportunity to catch up on some work. Leanne did some postcards for a bit and then headed in to town to do some shopping. I sat in the common room and got caught up with the blog and photos and some other work stuff before heading down to meet Leanne for lunch.

We were pretty hungry by this time and so decided on a Parrilladas – grill. I ordered a steak while Leanne got some Patagonian Lamb – which came in interesting cuts, including some ribs. After lunch we wandered around a bit before buying some helados (icecream), which was delicious and wandering back up to the room for a siesta.

We took it easy for a while – then I went downstairs to do some more work while Leanne had a nap. Later she came downstairs and we relocated to the kitchen to cook some dinner – we had bought pasta-and-sauce (like the Continental brand stuff back home) the other day – this was a Penne with Broccoli and cream, which turned out to be quite nice. It was interesting watching what others were preparing too!

While in the kitchen I made a discovery about the juice we were being served for breakfast – it is made from dehydrated oranges (with added vitamin C and sugar). So I guess they can accurately claim it is was orange juice once upon a time!

After dinner we walked back to town, did a bit of browsing through some of the shops and then stopped in some of the chocolate shops (there are many here – this is one of the specialties of the area with dozens of chocolate factories and shops everywhere). We bought a sampler pack to try things and see if we liked them. After walking to the bus station office to check the timetables for tomorrow, we bought some more water and walked back to the room – enjoying the cooler weather with a cool change and threatening thunderstorms. Some rain would be nice to cool things down a bit – provided it doesn’t just make things humid instead.

One thing I bought while down the street was a camera lens cleaning kit. I have two of these at home, but decided to only bring a blower brush, soft cloth and some tissue paper. I left the cleaning liquid at home out of fear it would spill in my bags and also to save a bit of space. However, I’ve discovered the lenses getting dirty and greasy, and I just can’t get them clean enough without the liquid. I’ll have to spend some time cleaning all the lenses and filters before we head out tomorrow – don’t want to spoil the photos!