Taking a holiday from a holiday - Easter '07

Following on from my last post it would seem obvious that I was in need of a break. Something to release the stress, some relief from the day-to-day grind and an escape from the 9-5 (sorry, 9-11) rat-race. Being on an extended holiday with no commitments is not easy. It can bear heavily on one’s head and believe me I can commiserate with the hundreds of thousands who are living it tough here. They work long, hard days for very little income and are lucky to get a couple of weeks vacation a year. So when Semana Santa (Easter) comes along most do whatever they can to get out of the big city and enjoy some down time. So I joined them. About half of the city´s population (or so it seems) head 400km south east of Buenos Aires, across the pampas (long flat plains) to the Atlantic ocean-side city of Mar del Plata.

Although Argentina is more well known for its fantastic mountain ranges, glaciers and waterfalls it also boasts a string of nice beaches along the Atlantic coast. Though not as warm or scenic as the more well known beaches of Brazil to the north, they are no less popular at summer time. Most Argentinians will spend their entire year’s vacation time here in January or February when the beaches and hotels are literally bursting. The Easter break is considered as the last weekend to soak up some rays and dip into the frio agua (cold water) before the cool winter sets in.

So in a bold attempt to beat the traffic we resisted the calls of the pub on a feriado eve (public holiday eve) and set off at 5am on Thursday morning (when those who couldn’t resist are coming home). Amazingly, many others had the same cunning plan. But the highway is long, straight and comfortable – and at about 2 and a half lanes wide (Argentines don’t take much notice of lanes or roadmarkings – overtaking and swerving is not only common but expected), the traffic was bearable. There were only 2 things hampering an otherwise 130km/h nonstop breeze of a trip – gas and tolls...

Now I was riding in Marina’s car with Marcela, Maria and Marina. Marina’s car is the only car I’ve been in since living in BsAs (this time around), and since she doesn’t speak English and I obviously can’t speak Spanish I haven’t been able to exactly get to the bottom of the whole gas issue here. The fact that I was asking girls had nothing to do with it of course... But Marina’s car runs on CNG gas (not sure what it stands for) – I guess its similar to LPG as the tank in the boot looks the same, but it is filled up from a connection under the hood (and everyone has to get out of the car while the servo man does it). The BIG difference is that it only takes about 8 litres of the stuff to fill it up – at a cost of approx 4 or 5 pesos ($2AUD)!!! Cheap as chips I hear you say... unfortunately this only gets you about 100-120kms before a re-fill is necessary. And the CNG gas servos are strategically placed along the pampas in order to force a stop at each one, about 4 times on the trip. So we got to enjoy that Argentine pastime that I dearly love the most.... LINING UP:

The toll booths were the same, except if the cars were backed up 7 or 8 deep and not moving, everyone just starts honking their horns to try to persuade the gatekeepers to open up the gates to relieve the pressure of traffic. This happened once and we celebrated the free toll like we had won the lotto, but each other time the honking just gave me a headache.

So anyway, I better cut to the chase. Mar del Plata is like a cross between Surfers Paradise and Brighton in England. A big city on the coast that thrives in summer and is bereft of tourists in winter. Hundreds of high rises, casinos, shops and restaurants. Some slummy, industrial areas and some glitzy, rich areas. A nice variety of beaches, with mainly brown sand and brownish water with some surfing areas and some fishing spots too. And just as I was warned, they were nothing like Australian beaches, but I was pleasantly surprised that I could swim in the ocean and even catch a few nice little waves. Check out the pics.

Some beaches were named after its sponsor who then has free reign to plaster the billboards, drink huts, flagpoles etc with their insignia (eg Quilmes – a local beer, Rip Curl etc). Some beaches were like the equivalent of the “wrong side of the tracks” – with concrete ruins tumbling onto the beach, badly erected timber “clubhouses” covered in graffiti and heaps of rubbish. But some others were beautiful and I enjoyed taking a run up and down the boardwalk and kicking my rugby ball to myself against a steep green grass hill overlooking the beach. Remember I was with 5 girls (the triple M´s plus 2 other friends who live in Mar del Plata), so for them the prospect of joining me for a run and to kick the footy ranked far below gossiping on the beach getting a suntan.

Unfortunately the city of Mar del Plata and myself had an uneasy relationship for the 4 days. It was nothing personal and if I have the chance I won’t hold it against the city and would go back there again. It’s just that in the little battles of day-to-day living it seemed I was always being dealt the short straw and someone was laughing at me from above the whole time. First the hotel was tiny, old, dreary and had no toilet paper. Then they didn’t service our rooms and we had no towels for the beach. Then one afternoon the sunny sky turned grey, windy and chilly and punished me for several hours for not bringing a jacket – something I never forgot again. Then the apple I half ate had a worm in it and the hotdog I had at the beach was cold in the middle. Then I stepped on some glass while running along the boardwalk. Numerous times we were told by our hotel that they didn’t need to call us a cab as we could just hail one from “anywhere” – of course we ended up having to walk. Then once when we got a cab, it couldn’t get out of first gear and crawled along for 10min before burning out about halfway to our destination. Then after a day at the beach and preparing for a night out in the chilly air, the crummy all-in-one shower/toilet/bathroom (ie a toilet with a shower rose above it – yes everything gets wet after a shower) decided to only spew out freezing cold water. This was where I drew the line so I went out that night without a shower (crusty sea-hair and sandy feet) and checked out of the hotel a day early (despite already paying full fare) and stayed on the floor of the above mentioned friends for the last night. Needless to say the warm shower a day later was bliss.

But luckily none of the above was serious so it didn’t impact on the enjoyment of the weekend at all. And there was a pot of gold at the end of the hotel debacle story. One day when our room wasn’t serviced and the towels were still in a wet heap on the floor (there weren’t any towel rails) we insisted on fresh towels. To my amusement we received not the standard pile of folded white bath towels, but a pile of faded, old, multi-coloured beach towels. When I unfolded mine I was in absolute astonishment to be met with this beautiful specimen of a towel:

I was in absolute stitches and couldn’t wait to take it to the beach the next day, as the girls had been gossiping and debating about the gay-ness of the men at the beach all day. Of course it was a hit at the beach, and of course I souvenir’d the towel from the hotel as it was just too funny, and we had got so little from that hotel that it was the least they could do. Since then it has been nicknamed Pipi which is quite a gay name of someone’s friend here. I´ve just joined a gym too so I can’t wait to take him out after a solid workout and watch the reactions...

For the trip home we had a cunning plan of leaving about 2pm on the last day of the weekend, but for some reason it wasn’t so cunning and the normal 4hr trip took 7.5hrs, 4 gas stops, countless sweets and one engine overheat. But to get out of the city and into the sun and ocean for a few days made all the minor troubles worthwhile. And the fact that I didn’t have to go back to a dayjob like everyone else just made it icing on the cake.