Take the day off.

Today was a feriado (public holiday) and we opted to walk from the hotel to the bus terminal, as it’s only two kilometres.  This gave us a chance to stop at a park so the kids could have a play and for a well-dressed homeless man to engage us in a conversation.  About half way through our chat we realised that we were not needed.  We could have replaced ourselves with cardboard cut outs and the conversation would have continued the same.

Our bus was leaving at 12:20 so we organised some lunch before hand in the terminal at a café that only took cash.  Talluah sat the kids down while I went off to find an ATM.  Being a feriado the ATM had obviously not been refilled from the weekend.  I walked around the terminal looking for another ATM.  No luck.  I returned to the café and explained our problem to the staff, who had already started cooking our lunch.  A waitress told me there was an ATM upstairs and a bank.  I ran up the steps and found that ATM was also empty (and owned by the same bank as the first ATM).  With hips swinging like an Olympic speed walker, I went to the bank – the same bank that owned the other two ATMs, the same bank with a line of people waiting the use the last ATM in the terminal.  Downstairs, Talluah was chewing away nervously wondering what sort of collateral we could leave with the café in order to board the bus.  Surely not our newly purchased Ug boots.  I slid the card in hoping the planets were aligned and breathed again when the pesos started pouring out of the slot.  Travel lesson #4078 don't order without cash.

Once back in 9 de Julio, we cycled into town to catch the tail end of an international food festival and sample some delights from across the globe as well as buy enough empanadas for the kids’ lunches at school tomorrow.