Mar Del Plata

After only two weeks in BA, I was definitely ready to escape the heat and head to the beach. Molly and I hopped on a bus and headed south for 5 hrs towards Mar del Plata to meet up with Laura and Alberto. It took us about 30 minutes at the ticket counter to make our itinerary and purchase our tickets, and, of course, only VIP tickets were left on our outbound trip. So the two Americans sat first class in a "cama suite" on the 5 hr ride to the beach. The buses here are amazing, it's pretty much like sitting in a lazy boy.

We stayed at one hostel the first night, and a different hostel the remaining 3 nights due to availability. The beaches were PACKED. The most crowded beaches I've ever seen for sure. We'd walk around for at least 10 minutes just trying to find enough space to plop down 3 towels. It's summer vacation in BA and everyone heads to the beach during January and February...

Our 1st hostel was....skeevy, to say the least. (older folks: check www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=skeevy for definition) The people were awesome, we hung with all young college kids from Buenos Aires that were at the beach for vacation, and one kid from Sweden. It was the best practice I've had with my Spanish thus far. So the people were great, but the bedrooms were gnarly. Oh well, it was do-able for one night. We shared the room with two other girls from Argentina...Molly woke them up at 3AM when she decided she was hungry for some cheese puffs in her bed....That's what drinking games with fernet branca will do, I suppose.

In the morning we were "politely" told we needed to leave ASAP if we didn't want to be charged an extra day, so at 9AM we started trekking to our next hostel that was on the other side of town. When we booked them online, we didn't realize the beach town was actually a HUGE city. So this hostel was a little less fun (we called our hostel manager 'La Diabla'...the devil), more family oriented, but CLEAN. The picture may not do it justice, but compared to the first place, it was clean. We stayed in a bedroom w/ 3 other people. A couple from Sweden and a guy from London, Rob. I'm new to the hostel culture, but I think it's pretty awesome. You get a chance to meet a lot of new, interesting people from around the world who are all on their own journeys. It's also weird, you make a connection with some people, then leave in the morning, and will potentially never see these people again.

The beaches in Mar del Plata aren't the best beach I've seen.

The main beaches are actually quite dirty. The sand is filled with cigarette butts, plastic, glass, condoms, etc. ewww. And the Atlantic is FREEZING. I mustered up the courage to get in once. I walked a couple miles down the shoreline to Playa Grande which was cleaner and classier, but equally as crowded, if not more...I've heard the beaches in Uruguay are a lot nicer, so I can't wait to go check them out.

Alberto and Laura were staying at a nearby hostel and invited us over for my first asado (BBQ, but Argentina style). Alberto spent a solid hour getting the grill ready and Laura, Molly, Rob, and I hung around eating snacks and drinking fernet and coke....Fernet Branca is the liquor they drink here. It's made from a bunch of herbs and spices. It's an aquired taste-super bitter, but it's starting to grow on me. We spent several hours hanging out and eating a ton of meat. MMM, bife de chorizo. The beef here is delicious. So we headed home at midnight, when guests are no longer allowed at the hostel, and walked back to ours.

I still can't believe the night life here. We were walking through the streets at nearly 1AM and families were just going out to get dinner and ice cream, etc. All of the restaurants were packed, the streets were packed....new borns were out, grandparents were out. When do they all sleep?????