No, that’s not some new Spanish salutation I’ve learned. It’s a new place I’ve visited.

Zarate is about 90 kilometres north of Buenos Aires, and Cecilia has a friend there called Maria Luisa. They have known each other for a very long time, and Maria Luisa told Cecilia she wanted to meet me as she had heard so much about me. So on Saturday, we set out with another friend, Sandra, on our day trip.

It was a beautiful summer day, and we went straight to the restaurant down by the riverside. It’s called La Querencia (which as far as I can understand means something like home), and it was beautiful. It had a lovely terrace, but we opted to sit inside for lunch as it was cooler. We moved out for coffee afterwards, so had the best of both worlds. We even sat and drank some maté for a while, which I love.

After lunch, we went down to check out the water’s edge and took the photos. The bridge is the one you take to go north, and Cecilia and I have done that on several of our famous aventuras. We loved this little miniature pony, whose name was Luca, so we couldn’t resist the photo op.

Maria Luisa told us there is a famous tango festival held in Zarate in February, so I think we’ll be going back for that.

By the way, I’ve resolved to pay attention to taking better photos so that you can see some of the places I go.