Well-earned lazy day

I had such a good night sleep from the combination of tiredness and being back down at decently low altitude. We had a lie in, a small light breakfast ad more lazing around before venturing out around 1100 to the town square.

The archeological museum came highly recommended and it didn’t disappoint. The boy mummy there was a lot more well preserved than Juanita in Arequipa. They also had some interesting information about the ancient Inca roads and some good videos.

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It was time for us to get some local money. That turned out to be a performance:

• No ATMs were marked with the Plus or Cirrus signs.
• Banks seem to have their normal ATMs and others marked with a italicised maroon B. Only the latter seemed to work with international cards.
• Another bank with a “Link” symbol offered USD but we had no luck.
• We needed a decent amount for our stay and with the high flat fee of AR$85 per pop, we wanted to get as much as possible in one withdrawal.
• All our attempts led us to a conclusion that the limit was only $2400.

I reckon Argentina is one of those destinations where you’re better off to bring USD even though your bank may not charge overseas withdrawal fees; they certainly charge heftily from the local end.

We had lunch near the hotel. What looked like a mini pork roast in the picture turne out to be a pork steak, topped with mozarella, tomato and basil. It now made sense, the name was Caprese. We had a large salad to go with it. As we’re not big meat eaters, it became our nor to order one meat meal and have a large salad to accompany, and share both.

We returned to the hotel around 1500 and needed a rest. Kim fell asleep till 1700 when we did some planning and admin.

In our walks around the neighbourhood, we had checked out La Fiamma restaurant diagonally across the park with a characterful Jorge running it. His offering was tempting and we had dinner there. We shared a lasagne (fillet, mince and spinach), drowned in a white sauce then decorated with a splash of tomato. It was the best lasagne I had ever had. It also stayed in place beautifully as it wasn’t sauced in itself between layers.