Comida Comida

My Door Step

Creative Repairs

The Local Watering Hole

Mañana

The past few days have provided some much needed rest and recovery. Using the mule barrel scale at the warehouse in Penetentes (where we left from for the mountains) we discovered just how much weight we all lost.

Before Leaving we had a celebratory dinner at the Hotel Anyelleen and enjoyed their breakfast including the so called famous eggs. Breakfast is not a happening meal here quite sad. So the fact that this place serves scrambled eggs makes them famous for their mere existence and not quality.

From wearing multiple layers of clothes for 24 days straight I forgot I actually had limbs and didn´t realize that they were getting a bit thin other than tightening the belt ony pack. I lost a total of 4kg (about 10lbs). The Mendoza diet has thus consisted of ice cream several times a day and meat. Lots of meat.

I don´t think I have ever seen so many ice cream shops before in my life as I have here in Argentina. There is literally at least one and usually more in each downtown block. I wonder what the ratio is of population to ice cream shop? 100:1? or how many gallons are consumed annualy on average? I don´t think that 50 would be to high.

Yestday was mission "comida" for the next twelve days. Group food shopping always brings me back to shopping for retreat and outdoor trips in high school. Tear the list and go. Here it is not quite as efficient due to needing to make more adjustments and making multiple stops. To try and eliminate the running around we went to, wait for it. walmart. Yep not only is there one, there are two here in Mendoza. But being walmart it did have the majority of what we needed including peanut butter in the international foods isle. Peanut butter here for some reason is an extreme rairity which I find kind of funny because near any candy bar or chocolate you can has mani/peanuts in it. It is also a very tasty addition to dulce de leche the national snack. This mornng I made a trip to the mercado central (sigh of relief) for bulk nuts and fruta demasecado or dried to go with our breakfast oats rather than cry around a zillion little 100g packets.

Random observations from here and around of things that I think the States needs to get on are marcado centrals, the metric system, siesta, and using our public parks and squares. To me these make much more sense and are generally much more enjoyable that the American equivilant.

ATMs are funny thing here. Follow the lines to get cash. No linea hay una problema. There is a limit to how much you can withdraw that seems to come and go. There is also little to no coin change anywhere. The local busses almost only take change and then instead of depositing it apparently sell it on a black market. Rather odd. So often prices are rounded including bus fairs.

Off in the morning for Arenales the Argentine Yosemite. With my last scoop of ice cream before I go.