MUNGO EATS Latin America

Remember I told you that I was expecting Bariloche to be a “Banff-Like” town?  Well, I was wrong.  It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment actually.  The scenery was quite nice.  There were a number of campgrounds to choose from, but unfortuantely, the two that were right “in” town were closed for the season.  This left only the campgrounds on the edge of town available.  Even though we have a vehicle, once we are all set up for camping, we really don’t want to “unset” up, so basically, once we have the camper at a campsite, we are vehicle-less.  That makes it harder to be out of town.  Even as we drove through town to get to the campground, we did not see a lot that we would have stopped to check out.  I told you that this town is very popular with Argentinean tourists, especially those with a lot of cash, but I think they come with boats or skis and spend their time on the slopes or on the lake.  These is also restaurant after restaurant to visit. 

The campground we ended up at was quite nice.  It was right on the lake, so we pulled out the inflatable kayaks for the first time since Nicaragua and the kids floated around for a while.  Actually, they spent most of their time on a small island just off the shore of the lake.  They enjoyed this island so much, that they decided that they would like to sleep on it for the night.  We couldn’t really think of a good reason for them not to, so we said okay.  We knew it would be chilly, so we got them dressed up in their long underwear.  They had fuzzy slippers and woolen hats to wear.  They were equipped with down sleeping bags, thermarest mattresses and tarps (to keep off the dew and rain).  At 10pm, by light of their headlamps, they set up camp on the island.  We said goodnight and went back to the camper.  By 11pm, they were back.  Seems Sean got a little “camper sick” and needed to be back “home”.  Sara was more than a little upset.  You see, we had made the deal with them before they set out, that they either both sleep out on the island, or they both came back.  they only had one boat out there with them, in case we needed to mount an emergency rescue.  So, even though Sara was ready to stick it out, the dream  came to an end.  Maybe some other time. 

We were hoping to get laundry done in Bariloche, but that did not happen.  Also, we were hoping to get a little shopping done.  I am finding it cooler here than I expected and I was hoping to pick up another pair of long pants.  However, we didn’t end up in town at all really, so no new clothes were purchased. 

Today, we are a little further south, in the town of El Bolson.  It seems like a nicer little town.  We may need to explore it a bit more tomorrow.  Today, we hunkered down to do laundry, a sometimes daunting task.  We got to use a real washing machine though, so that was good. 

today is the first day of fall here, and it is a brisk day.  We are hoping that it is not too cold as we journey south.  Actually, shortly we will switch directions to east as we make our way to the Atlantic coast, to go penguin spotting.  I don’t know what the coast will be like, temperature-wise.  Guess we will see.