Sat 22th Oct: El Bolson

October 22, 2016

So today I'm catching up. Cause although I'm not keeping the journal electronically, well not until some time after I return home, there's still pictures to upload, and, a fictional radio news program that takes much time. Oh, and I've a journal guestbook message needs answering, as well as an email to write.

This all keeps me occupied from seven o'clock until eleven.

It's wonderful, I just went at it from getting out of bed and lasted that amount of time without my morning coffee.

Once I've breakfasted, I'm off out. First I call at the Bank. It's always handy to have plenty cash,as prices in this country are forever increasing. And the pound sterling continues do do poorly after the Brexit fallout. Having checked exchange rate websites, at the moment 185 Argentine pesos buys ten pounds sterling. Not a disaster, but I hope it doesn't drop any more in value.

Also worth mentioning, banks here charge 95 pesos per ATM transaction for foreign card holders, so its worth taking out the biggest amount possible.

American couple buying a knife as a present for a friend back home. How do I know that, because, I's eavesdropping.

The next thing I need is a haircut, so I'd to go on a walkabout, there being no barbershop that I see in the centre of town.

Then with hair cut, I return to the Saturday artisan market with stalls selling just about all kinds of craft wear.

I stop by a stall selling knifes. No reason apart from all the glinting blades, where an American couple are buying a knife as a present for a friend back home.

My real reason for being in the market was to taste the artisan beer, thinking it would be cheaper there than in a cafe. But no, it is just as expensive, so I end up going to a cafe "La Torre" with a beer garden outside. I have a wheat beer that I can only discribe as delicious. Well, being neither a wine nor beer taster, I don't have fancy words for taste.

This for me is El Bolson's most extravagant commercial premises; circa 1900, with original corrugated iron roof; very much the English railway station design, with painted detail wooden gables.

It is well known that during the 1960s early 70s, El Bolson became Argentina's hippy flower power colony. So I suppose these alternative lifestyle people that started growing all their own food organically, didn't want anything to do with commercial beer like Quilmes full of chemicals; it was poison, they would've perhaps maintained, so they started brewing their own.

So today we have them to thank. And when in Rome I enjoy a pint of beer even if it costs 68 pesos.

Today's ride: 318 km (197 miles)
Total: 5,014 km (3,114 miles)

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