Day 3: Duty Free Argentina

24 February 2012

In the evening we went to the duty free shops in Argentina.  Those of you who know me are probably wondering why, it's because this outing was included in our trip package.  My iPod (second hand and quite old) finally gave up the ghost, and electronics are taxed so heavily in Brazil that I hadn't replaced it.  As an example, new iPod Nano in the States is USD$129, and in Brazil USD$389.  So I used the duty free trip to pick up a cheapie Colby mp3 player for USD$64.  It is good to have portable music again.

I only took a couple of pictures - inside the duty free shops they take your belongings and zip them into a big ugly bag and lock it so you can't shoplift, which is unlocked when you pay upon leaving.  Inside it looked more or less like duty free shops in the airport, except that up by the ceiling were some very adorable miniatures of castles and other fantasy stuff which was slightly reminiscent of Disneyland.

This is the control center at the border.  We waited in the van while the driver took our ID's to be registered both going in and coming out.

As usual, the cloud formations were amazing, and gave me something to do while waiting.

 This is the outside of the duty free shops - all I saw of Argentina.  It looked much prettier across the waterfalls! ;)

 Back at the hotel, we had possibly the best dessert ever, maracuja (passionfruit) mousse.  The seeds are very tart when you bite them, offsetting the sweetness of the mousse, and this dessert was the first I have had that actually had some of the fruit pulp along with the seeds, making it extremely tart for a sweet-and-sour contrast that took me an hour to savor.