Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata, or Mardel for those in the know is THE classic Argentine Beach town. It's about 5 hours south of Buenos Aires in a comfy bus.

The high season is in January and February so the beaches aren't too crowded right now. And it's much cooler being that much farther south of the equator.

I scored a great recently refurbished apartment a block from the beach. For all my bitching and moaning about how expensive Patagonia is, Argentina isn't really that expensive once you get out of that area. I'm regularly finding lodging for 50 bucks a night and you're never going to find that in the states, are you?

Mardel is an interesting city. It's about the size of Milwaukee but on an ocean and it receives 12 times its population in tourists per year. Most of them are from Buenos Aires taking 2 week summer holidays with the family. There's a huge casino on the beach which is a big draw. But it has definitely seen better days.

There are miles and miles of beaches in this town and I've been doing a lot of walking up and down them, just enjoying the ocean and sun. I dipped my toe in the water and said no thanks. The Atlantic is pretty cold here in December.

This is probably the only beach in the world I've been to where people don't seem to drink alcohol. Everyone in Argentina is madly addicted to yerba mate. It contains caffeine and other mild stimulants. So everywhere in Argentina you'll see people carrying a thermos of hot water and their guampa (gourd cup) with the bombilla (metal straw). Instead of buying ice cream sodas or beer, people go to booths to buy hot water for 50 cents and fill up their thermoses. They slowly drink yerba mate all day. There's a lot of rules and rituals involved, including pouring just enough water in to keep the bottom leaves wet but not the top ones.

I found a gluten-free bakery here and bought some treats. I paid with a $20,000 peso bill which is about $20. The guy yelled out to a coworker in the back "Hey, he's got a 20!" I asked if that was rare and he said yeah. I told him I got it at a cambio in Paraguay.

Until this year, the currency has devalued so much that a $50 bill became a $20 bill and then became a $10 bill. I read recently that it cost about $0.13 to print a bill, so it's not much for printing a $50 bill. But if you're spending $0.13 to print a dollar bill, that's a bad thing. So apparently there's not too many $20 bills in circulation here.

When I was in Patagonia at a grocery store, the guy in front of me was buying $80 worth of groceries. He basically gave 100 or more bills that equalled $80. The guy at the counter had to count it three different times. Credit cards are accepted at many places but are frowned upon. Most restaurants will charge you 10% more to use a credit card. And no apartment I've rented will accept credit cards. They all want US dollars, but will accept Argentine pesos.

Using an ATM here is out of the question. The banks really screw everybody here, especially foreigners. A daily limit is about $30 or $40 and they'll charge about $13 in commission! To get around all of this, I brought many crisp $100 bills to exchange. They won't take twenties and they don't want anything crinkled or marred. I haven't had to play this game for many many, years. I've been spoiled by my credit card use and the ease of ATMs with low fees. For some reason I got an excellent exchange rate when I was in Paraguay and I haven't had to change any money here yet.

My Spanish is getting better, but is still not great. Probably never will be. I'm talking to taxi drivers, my apartment hosts, people in restaurants and the occasional person on the street. I can get by but once people start talking rapidly they lose me fast.

After 4 days of sun and fun, I'm heading back to Buenos Aires. I found another nice apartment with a rooftop pool. I'll be exploring some new neighborhoods and eagerly awaiting Deanne to join me on Christmas.

More photos and videos are here.
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