Advertisement
Published: September 25th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Well, it is Sunday night, the last day of a real weekend as my classes start tomorrow. I am sitting at the corner restaurant while sipping on my café con leche…the place is packed with people watching (and screaming at) the Sunday soccer match. You can definitely tell who is the foreigner…I am the only one turning my back to the TV!
We just spent few days in Mar del Plata, a city located on the East coast of Argentina at about 400 kilometres from Buenos Aires. The bus trip to Mar del Plata was truly pleasant as we bought tickets for full-reclining seats, meaning that you can sleep horizontally the entire way. A luxury that we will not be able to buy once travelling in Bolivia or Peru. The landscape was mostly made of fields where cows and horses were grazing. I started having carnivorous thoughts watching all those cows…it was like seeing a bunch of steaks running in the fields!
Last year in November, this city was the venue of the Summit of the Americas, an event where all leaders of the Americas (well…except Cuba) gather to discuss a particular theme affecting all countries of the Americas.
Despite last year’s official theme “Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance”, most discussions were, not surprisingly, revolving around the FTAA. Besides, extreme security measures had to be taken because of, not surprisingly, Mr.Bush’s lovely presence at the Summit. In my humble opinion, he should have never been attending. And not surprisingly, the outcomes of this Summit have not been yet very…visible.
I can tell you by experience that a city is completely transformed when holding such event; I was in Quebec for the 2001 Summit. Quebec is known to be a very quiet and peaceful city and the violence engendered by such event was a total shock for its inhabitants. I even got a taste of the security measures as I got, few days after the Summit, the leftover of pepper spray into my eyes on a windy day on my way to work…
Having lived on the West Coast of Canada for three years, I have learned to enjoy the proximity of the water…hearing the waves, smelling the salty air, reading at the beach, swimming in the ocean. This trip was therefore a true blessing since the hectic city of Buenos Aires does not
really have a “water space”. But this is when I arrived in Mar del Plata that I became aware of how much I missed the ocean. We had lunch on a patio with view on the ocean…it was such a relief to breath the salty air!
We went at the time of the year where the city is half shut down, as the spring temperature does not allow people to sunbath. However, in few weeks, when summer will be truly warming up the cities, the beaches will be overcrowed and Mar del Plata will become a real Buenos Aires. Personally, I enjoy this spring tranquility and the “pueblo” atmosphere of the pre-touristic season. After eating lunch and finding a hotel which costs less than our meal (it says it all….), we went for coffees and drinks on another wonderful patio followed by a traditional Argentinean pizza-beer dinner.
The next day in Mar del Plata was spent walking along the coast and enjoying the scenery with the objective of getting to the harbour to see the famous sea lions colony. After few kilometres on the sea wall, we arrived at the port looking for these giant animals, which are
the symbols of Mar del Plata. If you want to see these gigantic beasts, just follow the smell…God do they stink! After a short walk on the beach, we saw the group of sea lions sunbathing on rocks closed to the rusted boats while others were fighting in the water. Do not get fouled by their apparent laziness and clumsiness, these terrific swimmers have huge teeth and can be very aggressive. They do not only have a hairy neck that looks like a lion’s mane, but they also roar like lions! It is quite impressive (like their smell…). After few moments, some dogs entered the area where the sea lions were resting and started barking at them…I was ready to see a bloody massacre. At my surprise, the sea lions did not even touch them…and the dogs were claiming their territory by rolling into the sea lions’ droppings. Quite an interesting relationship…
On our way back, we saw other sea lions, but much smaller, sunbathing on the decks where tourists walked to admire the port. They were not afraid at all and seemed to be enjoying the posing and pictures. Once again, the dogs were defending their territory by
preventing more sea lions to jump on the decks and harassing the others already sun bathing. There is probably an unwritten code of conduct between them because the sea lion can easily kill these dogs…I leave this interpretation to the zoologists…
That same night, we had a wonderful dinner at a fancy restaurant with view on the ocean. A delicious meal and exceptional wine; for the first time in days, I had a different type of meat than cow: a delicious rabbit! For the next day, we decided to go on an excursion to Sierra de los Padres and go horseback riding in the field Unfortunately, when we woke up the next day, it was pouring rain…and it stayed this way for several hours. The tourist office strongly recommended us not going because the trails transformed themselves into muddy tracks when it is raining. Since there is not much to do in a city like Mar del Plata when it is raining (besides admiring the extensive shell collection of the Museo del Mar), we decided to continue our trip meaning that I will be going back to Buenos Aires since classes start on Monday while Jason will keep going
South to Puerto Madryn. On my way back to the capital, a powerful thunderstorm was shaking the bus and illuminating the sky…you get hypnotized by the lightning…how beautiful are the wonders of Mother Nature.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 14; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0289s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
birte
non-member comment
cool
Hi LaurenceI just red your blog We really enjoy that you keep us informed about your adventures thank's take care love Birte. hi to Jason when he comes back.