WEATHER: Glorious and sunny
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting sloshed in luxury
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Having to leave ‘luxury’
WORD OF THE DAY: Kir Royale – our drink of the day – champagne and blackcurrant liqueur
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 4KM round trip give our take a few steps staggering back to camp…
Kate and I managed to sleep in till 8.30am. Ahhhhh what a luxury to start a day of luxury! After breakfast we just read and rested till 11.30am and then we packed up all our gadgets that needed charging, our internet gadgets, books and purse and set off for our 2km walk to the 5 star hotel. I hope they have something better on the menu than yesterday and we weren’t disappointed when we got there with a choice of soup or Cesar salad, beef goulash or salmon and then rice pudding for dessert. Lunch didn’t start till 12.30pm, so we made ourselves comfortable in one of the many lounge areas, also right next to the bar, and settled in for the afternoon. The Wi-Fi at the hotel was a bit more of a mission to get onto and we all had to individually walk to reception and ask them to login for us. They had to change the IP address and all that other ‘stuff’ for us to be able to get into their network. We walked up with our drinks so they could see that we were buying things and we told them that we were staying for their 36USD lunch, so we just weren’t going to suck all their internet and then leave. So my first drink was a Rossini, which was champagne and strawberry juice for 3600 pesos (6.80AUD) which I didn’t think was a bad price for a 5 star hotel drink. Their internet didn’t like several web sites including iTunes and some Australian sites, so I pretty much just fluffed around on Facebook and email till we decided to head to lunch at 1pm after I had consumed a Mojito.
Lunch was on the second floor with a table that looked out onto those famous mountain tops again. Included in the lunch price was a free glass of wine or a soft drink, so with food being served to us, on a table, with a ceramic plate, in chairs with backs, music playing and the view, this was a great idea to have a break from ‘campers’ life. The house white was actually a nice drop, so Helen, Sharon and I decided to buy a bottle of the stuff for 15AUD and we consumed that over the last of lunch. So by this time we are getting ‘happy’ and we headed back to ‘our’ seats to resume the rest of the afternoon. There was as shift change at the bar and the old fella disappeared and a young fella came on, and he told us they were out of strawberry juice we had to change to something else, so we stuck to the champagne base and went for a Kir Royale, which had a blackcurrant liqueur in it instead of the strawberry juice. It was a bonus for us as the drink had more alcohol in it and at 2500 pesos ($4.77AUD) was cheaper than the other one. Anything mixed with champagne has to have warning bells and we were well on our way to getting trollied.
With Facebook still open on my IPod, I started chatting to people online and at one time I had 12 conversations going, man it was so good talking to you all and after re-reading my messages the next day, I wasn’t too bad in conversing after about 9 champagnes and half a bottle of wine. I didn’t remember typing some of the replies and besides a few spelling errors I held my own. It got to the drunken point we were messaging each other via Facebook and we were sitting right next to each other, this was hilarious and I guess you know you are getting drunk when you start to do that, but man it was funny!!!
Late afternoon, some of the group started to head back to camp and H, Sharon and I had all intentions of following them after a drink from the road, which turned into another one, then another one and after 5 roadies decided at 8pm that we were hungry and hoped to hell that there was some food left for us back at camp. The hotel had a dinner set menu for 36USD, but after spending around 50AUD plus lunch, it was time to leave our little cocoon of luxury and head back to the reality of the camp. A 25 minute walk probably took us 40 minutes getting back and with some music from my IPod playing and high spirits we couldn’t have given a toss. We didn’t have a care in the world and what a great day we had.
There was some dinner waiting for us when we got back, but apparently under duress, as the feeling was if we couldn’t get back in time for dinner why should some be left. Well this priced the ‘happy’ bubble we were in what a terrible way to end the day, when we always save plate of food for people that aren’t back in time, so this was very disappointing. But not to bum us out for too long we had some wrestling games with Gray, which apparently he kicked our butts, I can’t remember and I have picked up a new nickname from PM of Beepie, as I got myself into the front cab with Mark and let loose on the horn beeping away to some tunes, so Gray disconnected the horn and took all the fun out, so I took the truck key and hid it, till I dropped it when Gray came to the cab and I lost that as well, so defeated in all areas I think it was time to finally go to bed.
What a great 5 star day, so thanks Helen and Sharon. It was nice to feel a little human again and also have a little splurge. It was worth every penny!
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