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Pinamar, Argentina
37° 6' S 56° 49' W
Jan 27, 2006 19:51
Distance 327km

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Other entries in Pinamar

Not the worst place to be stuck

Text written in: English

So if you want to know why this is being written from Argentina and not Rio, you ought to read Noah's most recent post, but for those lazy enough to just read this I'll give you the short description: A Brazillian tourist visa must be used within 90 days from the date it was issued. our Brazillian visas were issued 94 days before our flight left for Rio, therefore we were not allowed on the plane. The long and short of it is that we wont go to Brazil on this trip. Naturally we were bummed when this happened, but as I told Noah, there are two ways to look at this bump in the road:

¨we could bitch about it and carry on about all the wasted hopes, time spent on visas, and money on flights, and generally ruin the rest of our week... or we could realize that this happened in of all places, buenos aires argentina, a country that we liked, that we hadnt seen even ten percent of yet, and that we know had a week more to explore. we werent stuck in America for a week vacation to Rio we had been planning, we were stuck in argentina with the  country at our fingertips¨ we hopped aboard a bus to Pinamar (thanks to brandon staub for the suggestion) to enjoy a rio like environment.

As it turns out PinaMar has no hotels (at least thats what I gathered) and absolutely no foreigners, but lucklily for us Noah and I met an American in the bus station named Alex who actually had a guidebook and a reservation at a place to stay close by. So we are now at Villa Gesell which is kind of like the Jersey shore or Panama city Fla or South Padre island (whichever you're familiar with), except its in Argentina. Its a nice, very crowded beach, lots of bars, restuarants, and cheesy t-shirt shops, but No foreign tourists. In fact this is a pure argentine experience as it seems to be sort of the last week of summer trips for most of buenos Aires. Anyway, Alex, (the young woman from seattle), Noah, and I have stuck pretty closely together the past three weeks and really enjoyed our time.

On Tuesday night (right after we arrived) we went out and befriended a bartender, francisco, who took us out to the best bars in town, and actually kept us out until 5 in the morning. the next day we slept until three in our cave of a room ( i call it a cave because it stays very dark and cool all day) and then ventured out to the beach. The wind was too strong, so we only stayed for an hour and then ventured back for more sleep (like we needed it), that night we had a nice steak dinner and enjoyed the musical stylings of a band called the needles (a beatles cover band) who were pretty good, but couldnt understand what they were singing. Then we continued the evening at a bar close by where Noah and I enjoyed some girly drinks ( i was assured beforehand that they wouldnt be girl drinks because they had whiskey, but when they came in a martini glass with strawberrys on the rim, I knew i was drinking a girl drink) at that bar a young woman came by with a sort of flyer that doubled as an invitation for a disco. We finished our drinks and headed for this disco, where Alex was free, and go figure noah and I had to pay. But soon enough we were inside, dancing, and generally enjoying ourselves. we actually stayed again until nearly 6 am making it home nearly in time for breakfast to start at the hostel. But we hadnt needed breakfast, we had stopped for Shwarma from a nigerian man (what the hell is he doing here?) named Steven who was quite friendly to us, I suppose because we are the only other foreigners in town.

Anyway, although this isnt everyting that happend to us here, I think it basically sums up the argentinian's life while on vacation, sleep, eat, go to the beach, stay up late... repeat...