Gaucho town

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Arrived in San Antonio on Sunday afternoon. Found our hotel to be really lovely, right on the main square, attached to a silver workshop - we even had a sitting room and fridge complete with beer and water. Breakfast gets delivered to your room. Could get used to this.

The town centre and around the square seemed very quiet but this is apparently normal for the summer, according to one of the locals. Lots of people in the park by the river enjoying the blistering weather. Only a couple of hours from Buenos Aires this is a nice place with some decent restaurants.

Monday morning we had one of those frustrating times - we needed to send money to a hotel in Tandil for a deposit, but they don´t take credit cards. So we go the post office to do a Western Union transfer. To find that in San Antonio they only do these on Wednesday (!) and get redirected to the Banco de la Nacion. Queue up again to find that they only do Western Union transfers to abroad (!!) but that we can do bank to bank transfers if we have the requisite 22 digit "CBU" number. Of course we then have to go and contact the hotel for the number....by which time the bank is closed. Aargh.

Give that up for today and walk out to the town´s gaucho museum. Lots of really nice stuff in a restored estancia, now the Ricardo Guiraldes museum. He was a writer and poet of the early 20th C and a big gaucho fan.

Tuesday morning we catch the Chevallier bus/mobile sauna back into BA. It wThe aircon was not working so everyone on the bus had sweat running from every pore. Bad enough for us but positively worrying for the babies and older people on board. When we got to BA there was something of a passenger protest and all those who produced their tickets at the Chevallier desk, including us, got a full refund. We then went to the terminal cafe and drank lots of water before jumping into a cab to find our apartment in Barrio Norte, home for the next few days.

ps Sorry for the reduction in photo numbers but the camera battery charger has died so I have been conserving what power there is until I can track down a new charger in BA.

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