Labyrinth and Planetarium

Since in Argentina the saying goes "cash is king", we had to get cash again. Since our previous payment service provider did not have a branch in the city, we switched to Western Union. Because there were also few branches further south, we wanted to withdraw more money. So we transferred around €500 for cash withdrawal. As an experienced professional, Christian went to the office to withdraw money. The two cashiers just looked at him and shook their heads when he told them how much money he wanted to withdraw. The €500 I wanted to withdraw corresponds to about one third of the population's monthly salary.

Then we were sent to another branch. There we were also met with shaking heads. However, they also gave us hope. Because the branch was attached to a supermarket that was quite busy. We were told to try again in the evening, maybe the daily earnings would be sufficient then. So we spent another day in Malargüe.

We found a new accommodation, as our old one was already occupied. We quickly found a brand new cabin, in which we were the second ones to inhabit it. For a brand new cabin, it already had some cracks in the wall and floor. But quality is probably only important for meat.

We negotiated a price with the manager. But we wanted to negotiate again and asked him to call the owner once more. He did so and we were able to reduce the price even more. Unfortunately, it seems that the owner did not understand his manager properly, because the manager assumed that only two adults would stay in the cabin. When he came to bring us barbecue utensils, he also saw our children. After that, the owner admonished the manager with unfriendly words. Fortunately, we have not yet acquired this vocabulary in Spanish. Only the fact that the manager, who was supposed to bring us breakfast in the morning, was no longer there and instead the owner himself brought breakfast, led us to the conclusion that the relationship between the two was no longer the best.

After unloading our luggage, we went to one of the village's attractions: a maze.

We parked our car next to a small barbecue area. Argentinians were making empanadas there. Since we were very interested, we joined them and watched how the empanadas were made. They kindly invited us to taste them later. In between, we wandered through the maze. When we were invited to taste them, we ate the most delicious empanadas we had tried up to that point. So we decided to buy the ingredients and make empanadas ourselves in the evening. But before that, we wanted to visit the second major attraction: the planetarium.

The visit consisted of a one-hour guided tour and another one-hour presentation at the planetarium. When we asked about the price, we couldn't believe it and thought we had misheard and accidentally gave too much admission money. But actually, the tour for the four of us should only cost three euros.

In the first 20 minutes, the visitors were very interested, but then it became chaotic. Everyone did as they pleased, and even when the guide started shouting, she couldn't drown out the noise.

Unfortunately, the explanation in the film was so detailed and filled with technical terms that our Spanish was far from sufficient. So we enjoyed the hour in the comfortable chairs for a little nap.

Afterwards, we went to the butcher shop again and bought our favorite meat and the ingredients for the empanadas. When we were in our cabin, we started grilling right away. Unfortunately, we were missing a bottle opener. So we went to our only neighbors, who turned out to be two traffic police officers. We had a nice chat with them and they also came over for a barbecue in the evening.

We drank a delicious Argentinean wine together and enjoyed Mattis and Flora's tasty empanadas.