Eric and I went biking around the Chico circuit today. Kinda touristy and overblown, but a cheap, active way to blow a day. It looked like a decent distance on the map even though we knew it was in km, but it still only took 4 hrs with a stop at the Berliner to pick up some bebidas para llevar and another to eat lunch and chill the drinks in the lago Nahuel Huapi. We missed most of the rain and got back just in time to bid farewell to our Israeli friends who introduced us to some food called shakshuka or something like that. I'll have to research it more at J-garden when I get back.
The bigger news of the day was that we finally broke the chains of our white box! In Calafate, on our second day there we decided to buy a couple things and send home some others that we didn't feel were necessary to carry around. Well that day the post office (correo) closed before it's posted hours so we had to bus it up to Chalten. No big deal right? The next day we take it to the Chalten correo only to be told that 6kg is too heavy to send - but they can do it in Calafate. Ugh. So we have to pay to store it at the campsite while we hike, we're forced to come back to the site to pick it up, and have to bus it up Ruta 40 to Bolson. Of course when we get there they tell us it's too big but they can help us out in Bariloche. So we cart it around all over Bolson including the long walk to our campsite out of town. Finally we arrive in Bariloche and are sure our troubles are over. Run by the post but it looks closed for siesta. We return again 2 hr later only to realize that we misread and on Saturdays they close for good at 1. And of course they are closed on Sundays. I'm not even convinced there really is a post office - just an elaborate network of correo fronts to promote job creation. But then finally after putting off hiking till it's gone the box was mailed for an obscene rate today...but I think they could have named their price we were so happy to be rid of it.
Hiking starts again tomorrow - back in the countryside for 5 days.
The bigger news of the day was that we finally broke the chains of our white box! In Calafate, on our second day there we decided to buy a couple things and send home some others that we didn't feel were necessary to carry around. Well that day the post office (correo) closed before it's posted hours so we had to bus it up to Chalten. No big deal right? The next day we take it to the Chalten correo only to be told that 6kg is too heavy to send - but they can do it in Calafate. Ugh. So we have to pay to store it at the campsite while we hike, we're forced to come back to the site to pick it up, and have to bus it up Ruta 40 to Bolson. Of course when we get there they tell us it's too big but they can help us out in Bariloche. So we cart it around all over Bolson including the long walk to our campsite out of town. Finally we arrive in Bariloche and are sure our troubles are over. Run by the post but it looks closed for siesta. We return again 2 hr later only to realize that we misread and on Saturdays they close for good at 1. And of course they are closed on Sundays. I'm not even convinced there really is a post office - just an elaborate network of correo fronts to promote job creation. But then finally after putting off hiking till it's gone the box was mailed for an obscene rate today...but I think they could have named their price we were so happy to be rid of it.
Hiking starts again tomorrow - back in the countryside for 5 days.
Darren your trip sounds awesome so far, have a great second half, be safe!
ReplyDeleteJess