22/11/2019 – San Rafael, Argentina

We got up early and Josh and Casper went and fed the animals whilst Samantha and I got breakfast ready. It was overcast and nice and cool. We had coffee and toast with butter and honey before starting work. Josh and Casper were in charge of sanding and changing the gate of the horses paddock. Samantha and I swept and mopped the main hall and then cleaned and made some of the guest rooms. Thankfully the cleaning is a bit more relaxed than that of when we volunteered on Easter Island! At some point during our cleaning I noticed Leonora and Frederico outside in the garden, I had a look and there were two of the horses roaming the garden by the guests rooms – Josh and Casper had been so involved in sorting the gate out that they did not notice that they had accidentally let two of the horses out! Luckily everything was seen in good humour, and Frederico joked that the boys would have no breakfast tomorrow!

We had lunch together on the terrace, rice lentils and salad.

In the afternoon I started catching up on the diary and Josh was excited to order a kindle online in the Black Friday sale as an early birthday and Christmas present from his mum and dad. We spoke to mum and dad on FaceTime who explained their kitchen renovation plans to us!

At 16:30 Josh and I fed the animals. The llamas get so excited they do a funny dance/jog when they see us walking towards them, and the horses are always ready for their food too! There is a ground owl and its baby nesting in a hole in the horses paddock which is quite cool!

After feeding the animals Leonora took us into San Rafael. I didn’t have time to shower or change, so went in to the city smelling of horse poo probably! We got dropped at the main plaza, found a restaurant and had some food before walking down the road to the supermarket to stock up on snacks! We met Leonora at the football pitch where her 6 year old son Alex had been playing. She handed me Suri, her 1 year old daughter to hold while she drove us back. Suri started screaming immediately, Leonora stopped the car and asked Josh to drive so she could hold Suri. Suri usually either has an au pair (Daniella, from Bolivia) or her mum, so doesn’t really settle with anyone else. Josh drove us home, and again I was thinking about how crazy it is here, Josh and I had our seatbelts on but Suri was free on her mums lap and in the footwell of the passenger seat, and Alex not strapped in playing around on the backseat next to me. I was considering what might happen if Josh had an accident whilst driving and something happened to the kids. Too awful to think about!

We got back and I showered and we got into bed. Again we slept with the window open as it was so warm, but the insects were rife tonight!