Back to my trip. This weekend I decided I needed to go to the beach since it is so warm and nice here. That meant I was either heading to Uruguay or Mar del Plata.....well since part of me still wasn't ready to leave Argentina.....Mar del Plata was my destination of choice.
For those of you who are geographically stunted allow me to point out where this is.....
The red dot at the top with the black center is the city of Buenos Aires and the part that says Mar del Plata is obviously Mar del Plata. Let me assure you that while it looks rather close it is actually more of a 5 hour bus ride....so do not be deceived. For the my people from the US it is basically the distance from where I live in Massachusetts to New York City....more or less.
Anyway....the beach is exactly what I needed. I had a lot of work to do last week and I have a big event coming up this week (I promise I will have a blog post about this!) so I needed a little break. Shout out to Pinkie because I decided to take your advice about taking care of myself to take care of others. So I got a bus ticket for 1AM on Saturday and a return ticket for 9:30PM that same day and just went for it.
I LOVED Mar del Plata!!! Let me just start with that. Seriously it was the perfect combination of South America, Buenos Aires, Cape Cod, and Martha's Vineyard. It wasn't a small town and beach but a big city and really big beach. Cleanliness wise I would rank the beach somewhere around Revere Beach without the same number of homeless people that live there.
It was a pretty typical beach experience. But a few things did happen. We, myself and another student from the Connect-123 program named Julian, got there early and stopped to have breakfast. I seriously had the best medialunes since coming to Argentina. They were covered in honey and just so what I needed to go with my cafe con leche. Then we headed to the beach where we were surprised by the set up. The beach was public but there were tons of cabanas near the back that people could rent out see below for pictures.
The beach itself was actually fairly nice really big! Here are some more pictures for your viewing pleasures:
So that was the beach in the morning....we then left to go and grab some lunch. We stopped by a small grocery store, bought some homemade bread, some ham, some cheese, and some drinks and then decided to eat in the shade of a nice park fairly close to the beach.
After lunch the beach got CRAZY!! When I say crazy I mean it was like July on Cape Cod....there were just people everywhere and this was there slow season. There were also a ridiculous number of hawkers selling everything: ice cream, soda, water, corn, sunglasses, camera cases, jewelry, fruit salad, renting umbrellas, renting tables and chairs, pens, and other assorted tchotchkes. Then someone started to drown...and by started I mean started and finished. It was actually pretty insane. All of a sudden the lifeguard noticed this guy just floating really far out and everyone started running to save him. I stayed where I was. I mean too many people just causes more of a problem then solves one. But I did have Julian, who is much taller than me, venture into the crowd to get a picture. I actually sort of felt bad since I don't think the guy made it. But it was interesting to see how the situation was dealt with here. I mean first of all, they don't have any sort of oxygen or resuscitation equipment handy. Which surprises me mainly because of the large number of people at these beaches, I mean statistics are just simply not on their side here. Eventually an ambulance was called and the paramedics did come and take from the looks of it a very gray man from the beach. I'm pretty sure the man was dead since I didn't see him breathing and they stopped CPR, and that the whole chaos around the ambulance was to keep the beach goers calm which is pretty interesting too.
Anyway here are some pictures of the beach busy and the guy right after they pulled him out of the water....sans guy...I thought that would be inappropriate.
After the harrowing events on the beach in the afternoon, we began meandering around the rest of Mar del Plata. We ended up finding this great area to shop and I actually bought stuff to bring home....some stuff for me and maybe something for Jonathan....We also saw a pool. Yes that is right. The beach is so very busy that if you have enough money you can actually pay to swim in a pool that is located on the beach....If this ever happens in the US I will probably be forced to move, just sayin'.
Again here are some pictures from the afternoon:
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| Yes this is it the infamous pool on the beach......Ugh! |
Then we headed out toward the bus station in order to grab dinner and then go back to Buenos Aires. What did we happen to see on our walk back you ask.....oh that's right I almost forgot....a concert for Christian Rock Music.....
I'm not going to lie I was really excited. I mean how many times in your life do you get to see a Christian Rock contest in the middle of a park in Argentina? I'm thinking not many.....anyway I took pictures here they are!
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| That's right it was called "Yo Creo" in other words "I believe" |
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| Quite the crowd...surprised since if this happened in a park in the US I'm pretty sure someone would have a problem with it. |
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| This actually made me sooooo happy! Argenitnes in traditional gospel choir robes!!! |
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For those of you that can't see....That is ham flavored snacks, an alfajor, an apple lollipop, and one of those cracker wafer things with vanilla filling....just odd! Hehehehe....but I ate it all and it was actually pretty tasty...so maybe I should just keep my opinions to myself.
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| This is me sitting on a Sea Lion statue....I have no idea why it was there but here I am ....I figured I at least needed on picture of myself at the beach right?!? Oh and by the way.... I am Northeastern...hahahaha!! |
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