Mar Del Plata

Mar del Plata is where the upper middleclasses go when they are escaping BA for the hot summer.  A number of the big clubs in BA like Pasha leave altogether in the summer months and decamp to sea side city. Leaving BA I kind of needed a few days of relative peace and quiet, a nice little beach town would have been ideal, with a few days relaxing by the sea.  Instead we turn up with the weather cloudy (and it remains so for the next two days) and while not on the main strip, about 15 minutes south at the strangly named `Playa Grande`.  The beach would indeed have been wide, if not long, had a good 80% not been taken up with private enclousures.  Thus everyone without a membership to the Yaht Club was forced to sit like sardines on the very gritty sand.  Even when there was no sun, the beach looked like the photos of brighton on the only sunny day in the year - bodies everywhere (although a lot slimmer!) and windbreaker tents.  Finding a space on the beach required running and bagging the space with a towel.  Had the sun been out this would not have been such a problem. However in the cloudy weather, in which we were trying to get a tan anyway, the wind was very very strong, blowing huge amount of sand in my face.  I have still not forgiven Matt for allowing me to walk back with my face covered in the granny dirtycoloured sand.  He said he didn`t want to embarass me by telling me!!!!

I did however pass a nice, if rather quiet brithday here. Bought a bikini (unlikely to be doing that again on my birthday!). Most of the people in the hostel were Argies, which with my lack of spanish makes a bit of a barrier.  But we saw a jack johnson tribute band (very appropriately) and then the bar played every song you would be likely to here in a gay disco, but without the dancing. Ended up going home at the very early hour of 4am, and waking up the next day to find that there was again no sun. 

However on our last day there was indeed sun.  A little too much as we both found, me having burnt the back of my knees and the areas where my bum had never before seen the light of the sun.  Brilliant given we were going to spend that night on a bus! And a semi cama (i.e. still luxury for anywhere else, but a step down from my full camas i`d been used to!).  Ouch.