Wash laundry and eat in Villa La Angostura

After a delicious breakfast, we left our nice accommodation. But before we drove to our next destination, we wanted to make sure that we didn't run out of cash. Therefore, we wanted to withdraw some money in town. After our experience with the last withdrawal, we first went to the Western Union counter and asked if they had the desired amount of money in stock. When this was confirmed, Christian was very happy. But then it turned out differently. The man behind the counter said that, unlike in all other Western Union stations, he needed a paper copy of my passport. No problem, said Christian and wanted to give him his passport to copy. But he said he didn't have a copier. Christian would have to go to the other end of the village to visit the only store that made copies. Since Christian was clear that all discussions were in vain, he set off. The description of where the store was located was not very clear. Therefore, Christian asked his way through. When he finally arrived at the store, at least that's what Christian thought, he lined up. When he finally had his turn and wanted to make a copy, the nice saleswoman told him that he was in the wrong store and had to go one store further. So Christian went to the next store, slightly annoyed. Unfortunately, this store wouldn't open for another half hour. So we continued and used the time to buy provisions for the journey. Luckily, we got up early to get a head start. When Christian finally got his copy made, everything went really quickly. He went to the Western Union counter and got his money paid out very quickly. Heike was not idle during this time either. She searched and found and booked accommodation in the next town for us. So we could finally start our journey in a relaxed way. That's what we thought...

When we arrived at our destination, Villa La Angostura, at around five o'clock, we called our accommodation to let them know that we would be there soon. The landlady simply replied that our cabin had already been rented out. Since they hadn't heard from us all day, they had simply rented it out to the next guests who arrived.

Since any discussion seemed to be in vain here too, we immediately went to the tourist information office. When Heike told the whole story there, the very nice employee started calling several accommodations for us. Finally, she gave us two addresses and also told us how much the night should cost there. After we had looked at both accommodations, we finally decided on the second one. When it came to the price, the landlady tried to increase it. When we referred to the phone call, she just said, "Oh, yes, right, then we'll take the lower price."

Since we noticed several times that prices vary according to nationality, we tried to book accommodation only via WhatsApp from then on. If that didn't work, Flora had to take over the phone calls, as she speaks the best Spanish of all of us by far. She also really enjoys haggling over the price. The result pleased us. The prices were sometimes even half as much as before. The reactions of the landlords when they saw and heard us were amusing.

After we had finished cleaning our accommodation, which we unfortunately always have to do in Argentina, we packed our dirty laundry together and looked for a laundry. There were two laundries, fortunately opposite each other. The principle in the first one was clearly described on a poster: you had to take a laundry basket, put your laundry in it, and then weigh the laundry basket. The laundry, including the basket, could not weigh more than five kilos. Since the basket alone weighed almost two kilos, you quickly had half a dozen baskets. Before we decided to get involved in this questionable procedure, we first went to the competition across the street. It was much more pleasant there. The lady at the reception immediately chatted with us while her colleague walked around the whole room with a feather duster and dusted everything. After we had told them where we came from and what we were doing, we also came to the actual reason for our visit, our laundry. The principle was the same there, there were baskets that had to be weighed. But when we explained that we wanted to wash more rather than less laundry, she told us to just put the laundry on the table and she would give us a good price. So we got our two large Ikea bags full of laundry and placed them on the counter. She counted our pieces of laundry and in the end she wrote down a price. At first, we thought she had forgotten a zero. But we actually paid as little as never before. In no other country have we paid so little for such a mountain of laundry. After that, we asked where we could go for a good meal. That's where the dusting colleague came into play and wrote us a index card with all the restaurants, sorted by specialties.

Ultimately, we decided on a small regional cuisine. We obediently took a number and were then expertly advised by the saleswoman. We opted for a beef sandwich, pizza, and Argentine lentils.

To shorten the waiting time, we strolled around the town. The children immediately found an ice cream parlor. The sellers quickly approached us about our German origin. One of the sellers had been to Berlin recently. This was the starting point for a professional discussion about the best team in the Champions League. In the meantime, we tried almost every flavor of ice cream. No one in the long line behind us seemed to mind. In the end, we had almost 15 sample spoons in our hands. Most flavors were excellent and the others were too exotic for us, like lavender, beer, or wine.

When we picked up our hot food, it turned out that one of our two pizzas had been forgotten. Honestly, you can't blame the saleswoman for that, as it's always quite chaotic when we order something. It's ordered, taken back, discussed, questioned, and in the end, something completely different is taken. The saleswoman simply gave us an extra pack of empanadas because we were concerned there wouldn't be enough. But we always think that. So we packed our food basket and went home. There we ate the really delicious things. But because there was so much, we couldn't finish it all again.