Mar[red] Del Plata

Saturday, February 27^th, 2012

Despite the hostel’s website saying we were just a few blocks from the bus terminal, we were actually about 30 blocks away. We realized it was luckily a straight shot and walked the looooong 30 blocks down Gascón to our hostel, El Refugio.

The streets were so dead, I thought a skeleton might be walking around. I guess I wasn’t surprised then to encounter a dead pigeon, a dead rat and pile of bones in the street during our walk…While I wouldn’t say we were walking through streets that displayed abject poverty by any means, we definitely weren’t in an area that I’d feel comfortable walking through at night. Every wall was lined with graffiti, usually making reference to the legendary politician, Juan Perón or to Argentina’s current president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. All of the commentary seemed in favor of both. Everything was crumbling away to the point that it was strange to see flowers in bloom, covering the walls of houses that had long since been neglected. Additionally in the midst of this ragged section of town were lovely homes that didn’t seem to fit with the graffiti and piles of dog excrement covering the sidewalks. Mar Del Plata was getting increasingly more strange as we passed through each of the 30 blocks.

Finally we arrived at our hostel and were raring and ready for the beach. While our hostel was quite far from the bus station, it was a stone’s throw from the beach. Unfortunately, it was a million miles away from sunny no matter where you were standing and we were met with atrocious winds and a fully overcast sky with little hope of change. With sand wedged in every crevice of my body and page of my book, Angela and I couldn’t tolerate it any longer. In addition to this, we were starving. We went to a café right on the corner just before the beach and got the standard café con leche, with a chocolatada caliente for me. We also split a small pizza, which made us feel a little better about our fun day turned sandstorm.

The weather basically made it impossible to do anything, nor did we have the motivation to. We’d also just arrived after a 5 hour bus ride that embarked at 3am—and I didn’t sleep a wink. Unsurprisingly, I was incapacitated as soon as my head hit the pillow of my bed. I awoke with some confusion as I was on a sleeping porch in my hostel and thought maybe I was back home in Gamma Phi. No. You’re not. Goodnight, Gamma Phi…

When we woke up for real, we decided it was time to encounter more food. While we of course knew what to expect in the grocery stores (fruit, crackers and soda…), we were upset to find that there wasn’t really much of anything we could buy to make ourselves a meal, so I just settled on some fruit. Passing along the streets near our hostel, however, we found Güemes, which was the main shopping and restaurant vein in the area. In addition to the cute boutiques, there were surf/skate shops, giving it the authentic beach town feel. Confeteria after confeteria, I realized I was going to fall victim to the delicious treats of Argentina and tried my first conito, which is essentially like an alfajore, but with only one shortbread cookie topped with a cone-shaped glob of dulce de leche and of course dipped in chocolate. Delicious is an understatement. I don’t know how I was ever satisfied with caramel now that I have tried dulce de leche. Amazing how something shaped like a cone is going to make my body look like a circle…