San Bernardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina... July 19-24th

This week I headed to the coast with Martin's family... It was windy, rainy, and the polar winds were flowing - but I still had a blast. Just being able to see that much of the Argentine countryside was a thrill for me. We drove nearly 6 hours without ever leaving the "Province of Buenos Aires." I had absolutely no idea it was so ginormous. It went on forever. Truthfully, it wasn't so lovely due to the fact that outside of the Capital Federal - Buenos Aires is generally very poorly governed, dirty and somewhat desperate. There is so much poverty and waste... I even saw a man drive up along a service road in his beat up pinto, pull over, get out of the car, and dump 5 bags of garbage into the yellow-green countryside. It made me a bit sick, but alas, this is Argentina. And despite all of its downfalls, I love it just the same.

The coolest part about staying in this sleepy little beach-town called San Bernardo is that it is in no way at all an international tourist destination. On the contrary, it is a common go-to place for nationals - especially people trying to escape the capital. I was without a doubt the ONLY non-Argentine person staying in the hotel (I don't think anyone knew this, however). We had one night out at a Pizza joint. Diving, divine pizza.
It was low season so the streets, shops and clubs were dead, but I got the basic picture and I can see how much fun it must be (especially for hormone raging teenagers) during the summer.

We spent most of our time indoors enjoying the extremely heated "Pileta" (pool) and hanging out in the hotel apartment.


Seeing how there was little to do, Martin and I also saw a couple of movies at the local theater. My favorite: La era del hielo 3 (Ice Age 3) Why was this fun, you may ask? A few reasons, I shall answer.One: it was overdubbed in Spanish, making it entirely the more amusing. Two: we smuggled in contraband "Prontos" - kind of like a smirnoff ice made from the local favorite liquor "Gancia." Three: the movie theater was a riot in and of itself as on either side of the screen there were two turbine jet propelled heaters which looked as though they might set the theater on fire at any moment, their sound greatly overshadowed the meager speakers and a couple of times I felt as though we might be orbiting into space.



Ah, yes, it was quite an experience. We also drove to Mar de Plata one day - which is a huge city located just a couple hours farther down the coast. It was so stormy it was hard to get a great idea of what it was all about - but I gather it's pretty much a lot like the Capital... except on the coast. Fun none the less :)



Another patch of experience to add to my grand Argentine quilt.