Mar del Plata...How could you not want a towel with cocount trees on it?

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Like I said in my last post, Ashley and I just caught our flight to Buenos Aires and were off on the next part of our South American odyssey. We arrived in Buenos Aires around 10:00 pm and jumped on a shuttle that took us into the downtown, about 45 minutes from the airport. From the shuttle’s central office we grabbed a cab that took us to our hotel, The Grand King on Lavalle Street, one of the main commercial areas of Buenos Aires. We checked in and tried to orient ourselves a bit, then just decided to wander the streets to find a restaurant for a quick bite to eat. Apparently Argentina is also renowned for its pizza and ice cream, to go along with its steak. We found a restaurant close to our hotel and had some stone-hearth pizza, which, besides being almost too cheesy to eat more than about a piece, was very good. I’ve been told never tell an Argentinean that their pizza is inferior to that of the United States or Italy, so I’ll say this one was at least as good (I can’t say the same for all of the pizza I ate on the trip, but hopefully no Argentinean will be out for my head after reading this). Oh, and for the record, South Americans eat dinner at what we in the United States would call a very late hour, between about 10 pm and 1 am, so yeah, we kind of fell into this habit.

We woke up the next morning, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, and then packed up to head to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Mar del Plata, about six hours south of Buenos Aires on the Atlantic coast of Argentina. Being a Monday morning, our walk down the main commercial streets of Lavalle and Florida was frequently impeded by street artists, retailer vendors selling a bit of everything, and many tourists and business people passing through on their daily business. We first ended up at the train station, which was pretty cool looking but not where we wanted to be. We must have looked a bit confused and our luggage was a dead giveaway that we were not locals because we were approached by a nice Argentinean man who asked us if we needed help. From my experiences in South America, I have found this friendliness/helpfulness to be characteristic of many of the people I have interacted with. He assured us that we were just a few blocks from the bus terminal and with that we were on our way. After walking around the imposing bus terminal and trying to find a bus leaving relatively soon, we found one that left within the hour and bought our tickets. The trip to Mar del Plata was uneventful but allowed us to catch a bit of rest, a nice feeling after all of the moving around we had done in the past few days. We arrived in Mar del Plata, meaning Sea of Silver, late in the early evening and caught a cab to our hotel, Hotel Traful. Mar del Plata is a huge vacation destination for many South Americans, so finding a hotel at high vacation season in the summer was not that easy. That being said, we were not exactly thrilled with our hotel when we arrived. The room was small, the bathroom was a ridiculous green color (I think Ashley was pretty scared of the bathroom, although to be fair, it was clean), and there was some sort of screen thing covering the window that we could not figure out how to open (kind of felt like we were in a jail cell). We had a good laugh about it and said whatever, at least we are at the beach. That night we pulled out the Lonely Planet again and found a restaurant called The Palace of Beef. How could you not order a steak at a place with such a name? Sure enough, we both had steak (my third time in about five nights) and it was pretty good, not quite as good as the first night but better than the second night. After dinner we wandered the streets of Mar del Plata, which were ridiculously crowded for it being almost midnight. The retail stores that line the street fronts are open until about 2 am, so yeah, it is definitely a town with a night life. We found a little street side bar, had a few beers, and just hung out for the rest of the night. Oh yeah, one other thing to mention. The hotel room got significantly better upon our return when we asked the front desk attendant if it was possible to open the window covering. He must have thought we were really stupid because he responded, yes, just use the cord thing on the right side of the window. Sure enough, we found the mystery cord and the room was a whole lot less jail like once we got the window open.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then head out to look for somewhere to have lunch. After wandering the streets for a bit we came upon a café with outdoor dining and we grabbed a quick bite there. Afterwards we needed to find a towel and a disposable camera to take to the beach. The camera was an easy find (we did not want to take our nice cameras to the beach, but later lost the disposable camera, so all went for naught). The towel, however, was surprisingly hard to find. You would think that in a beach town they would sell towels in almost every store. Not true. The first towel we encountered was in a place that was kind of like bath and body works and was a normal bath towel. Ashley wanted to buy it, but I told her I was pretty sure we could find a better, actual beach towel and that it would be cheaper. This proved to be somewhat true, the better part that is (that is my opinion, Ashley would probably argue otherwise). We found some beach towels in a hardware store and she had her choice of one with dolphins, killer whales, a surfer, or coconut trees. She chose the coconut one, and although it ended up being the same price as the bath and body works towel, I think in was way classier and for sure more fun. From there we headed to the beach, where we planned to spend a few hours laying out. Because of this we put a little sunscreen on our faces, but that was pretty much it. Mistake, one that I would regret for almost the rest of my trip. We had a great time lying out and spent a little time in the water, which was very cold, but the big mistake was when we fell asleep. We both fell asleep holding hands (which I am sure was very cute for all the passers by to see). The uncute part was when I turned bright red like a cooked lobster. One minute I was perfectly fine and working on a nice tan and the next minute I was burned to a crisp (replace minute in this sentence with hour, it just did not seem that long). After about five hours at the beach we headed back to the hotel, stopping for a beer on the way back. At this point I started shivering uncontrollably, probably my body’s reaction to my utter stupidity. We headed back to the hotel, rested for a bit, showered, and then headed for a local microbrewery recommended by yet again, The Lonely Planet. They had about six home brews and also what they called barley wine, which basically just tasted like beer with a higher alcohol content. We had dinner and drinks here and then decided to turn in for the night, which was a good idea for me because I was in a bit of pain with the sunburn and all.

We woke up the next day and decided that given the skin situation, the beach was not the best idea for the day. Therefore, we decided to take a walk down the boardwalk along the Oceanside. This allowed us to see the whole beach scene on a larger scale, pass through many street vendors stands (where I may or may not have purchased what could probably be called manpris, after being encouraged by Ashley), and look for good beachside restaurants. After walking quite a ways and taking numerous pictures, we happened upon a restaurant with a huge beachside deck and we decided to camp out there for what would end up being a good number of hours. Upon sitting down we ordered a drink that is famous to both Peru and Chile, not so much Argentina, but we figured we were close enough (South America at least). The drink is called a Pisco Sour, made with Pisco, a clear, distilled alcohol made from grapes that is famous in the grape growing regions of the above mentioned countries. The drink was pretty good and the atmosphere of the Oceanside restaurant was even better, so good that we ended up there for about four hours. Do not worry, we were smarter and used sunscreen and sat under umbrellas to avoid any further skin complications. Late in the afternoon we took a leisurely walk back down the coast and headed for our hotel for a bit of a rest. After sleeping for a bit, it was time for dinner and we ambled down the main commercial drag of Mar del Plata. We found a restaurant that overlooked the street and just hung out and people watched (yes mom, you would have absolutely loved it).

The next morning we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel, although we were able to leave our bags there as we planned on doing a bit more sightseeing before we left. We walked around and saw some statues and fountains (none of which I could actually tell you the names of or identify), visited the main Catholic church in town (also can not seem to find the name of it), had lunch, and Ashley bought some sandals (a common occurrence on the trip, I think it happened at least three times). We eventually headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and then caught a cab to the bus terminal, with our next destination being Buenos Aires, yet again. All in all we really enjoyed Mar del Plata, Ashley for the warm weather after leaving behind the cold Montana/Wisconsin winter, and me for the chance to go to the ocean, a place I absolutely love to visit. I’ll save the next leg of the trip for the next blog, just to keep you all coming back.

-MWC

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Comments

[Rija]

I'm still going to have to argue that you should have made it over to the brasilian side....rainbows rainbows rainbows!! good to see you made it down there. did you drink skol beer?