Junk Food Limbo - Blogabond

The next day was really hot and humid and the next stage in our journey to Iguazu was to get a bus across the border. Before we got on the bus, we used the last of our Uruguayan Pesos to buy a pancho, which seems to be a bit of a national dish – in Argentina and Chile too – but it's just a hotdog. We had a few Pesos left over, so I bought us each a dulce de leche ice cream. Every country we had been to so far in South America seems obsessed with dulce de leche, which is often for spreading on bread for breakfast, but it had also featured in the particularly rich pastry I bought in Montevideo; we'd had it in pancakes on Easter Island. It's everywhere. It's quite like runny toffee or thick condensed milk; Bon Maman in France make the same stuff, which I think they call milk jam.

Panchos

Leaving Argentina, the bus stopped and we all had to get out of the bus to get our passports stamped: at one desk we were stamped out of Uruguay, then our passports were handed along one desk where we were stamped back into Argentina. As soon as we were back in Argentina, people were asking for tips again: the guy unloading our bags from the bus, then the creepy people than hang around in the toilets handing out sheets of toilet paper. The tipping culture isn't very nice in Argentina: it just isn't like that in Uruguay or even in Chile.

We spent hours hanging around the bus station in Concordia waiting for our overnight bus. There was nothing to do but eat more typical South American dishes, so I had a sandwich de Milanesa, which is just breaded meat in a sandwich. Not very healthy, I imagine, and I've started to suspect that it's veal, which I'm not that pleased about eating, but, if it is, it's not particularly young veal because it tastes very like beef. Finally our bus arrived over an hour late and, unfortunately, it wasn't the same business class quality bus we had to Salto, but it was comfortable enough.

Sandwich de Milanesa

Quilmes bock

written by

The Happy Couple on October 5, 2009 from Concordia, Argentina

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

Send a Compliment

comment on this...