Needless to say, it lived up to it's name.
It all started with a birthday dinner for our friend Sarah at one of the best restaurants in the city, La Cabrera. Dinner was delicious, and all the girls were treated by her mom who flew in from CT to celebrate with Sarah. There was literally more food than I could ever have eaten. Juliana and I split "un medio porcion" of Bife de Lomo and "un medio porcion" of a hand made cheese stuffed pasta in a tomato cream sauce. I don't understand how the people in Buenos Aires are so skinny, except for how much they walk every day. But seriously, our half portioned meal could have made a NFL linebacker full. Not only was our half piece of meat bigger than any whole steak I've ever had in the US, it also came with a salad, creamed pumpkin, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and baby corn. The pasta was also to die for. And to top the meal off we complimented it with some authentic Argentine Malbec, my new favorite vino. After we finally finished eating, which took at least an ninety minutes, we sang to the birthday girl who's dessert came with a baby firework in it instead of a candle. Craziest thing I've ever seen at a restaurant birthday (or so I thought...stay tuned). Then we all got to pick lollipops of a lollipop tree!
After dinner, we met up with the boys to get ready to head out for the weekend. Oh did I mention we all had our luggage for the weekend in the restaurant with us? No, I didn't. The hostess almost didn't let us in because we looked like well-dressed vagrants living out of our giant backpacks. We were quite a sight, considering there were 6 of us hauling around our lives on our backs.
Anyway, we got to Retiro around 3 and waited for our 3:55am bus. It sounds crazy, but Mar del Plata is about 6 hours south of Buenos Aires, so we got on the bus at 4, and slept until we got to Mardel. The buses here are the most popular way to travel long distances, most people don't even think of flying unless they're trying to get to the very most southern points of Patagonia. They're decked out, and for the shorter trips you get a snack and a "semi cama" or a seat that reclines until it's just shy of being perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Sweeeeeeet. And for longer trips, you get a full cama, a legit bed on a bus. So really it's the least expensive (only about $75 USD each way) and classiest way I've probably ever traveled except for my one first class flight to California back in the day of Ice Castle.
So we all boarded the bus, or well everyone except for Jimmy and Shannon. We originally couldn't get 11 tickets on the same bus, so the two of them were left to beg and sell their souls to the bus driver, who eventually took pity on the two gringos who would've been left stranded without any friends for another 3 hours. The only problem with that is that it mean that one person didn't get a semi cama...and that person was Xima, who enjoyed her rest on the floor. HAHAHA poor Cheem, she was fine in the end though, and we made sure she got her pick of the bunks when we got to the hostel.
This was my first ever experience staying in a hostel and I have to say, for the price (just shy of $35 USD a night) I was impressed. Hostel Urbano was fit to serve. We each got a bed with clean sheets, we could rent towels for 5pesos, we were served a breakfast of coffe, tea, juice, and medilunas every morning, and the boys were in a room right down the hall, and it was conveniently located right in the center of town. I'm chalking that all up to the win column.
We got to the hostel right around breakfast time the first day, so we quickly got settled, changed out of our pj's and into our bathing suits and took our medilunas on the go. We were DYING to get to the beack, but we also just wanted to stay close to the hostel the first day, so we went to the beach right at the end of our street called Playa Popular. The name pretty much says it all, since it means the same thing in English as it does in Spanish. It was PACKED. But it was a beach, and we were happy to just be in the sun.
Once we were thoroughly fried, we headed back to change and get ready for the night. I would say we didn't "do it big" on the first night because we didn't really go out. But we had the biggest pizza I've ever seen for dinner, and it was delicious! We ordered salads to try and be healthy and they were really weird and lettuce-free (it's an Argentine thing to serve a salad with just the fixings and no lettuce) but who cares about the leafy greens when the pizza is bigger than a car tire.
Since we took it pretty easy on Friday night Jackie and I decided that we'd get up early (and I actually mean early...we were up and at 'em by 7:30) and head to a beach called Playa Alfar that the people running the hostel recommended to us. They said it would be about a 25 minute ride on the colectivo. The ride was great, we got some awesome sea views, passed the Navy base in Mardel, and got to see the most beautiful golf course that had greens right down to the shore. The ride was TOTALLY worth it! It's the most southern public beach in Mardel, right before the private beaches start. When we got there it was empty! We got an awesome beach spot and started our day in the sun.
As the day heated up, our friends finally decided to get themselves out of bed and got to joining Jackie and I sometime around 1230. They got there just as the area of Playa Alfar was picking up...hoards of people started coming from every direction but it was a better group of people than at Playa Popular. There were more young people on this beach, and people left a good amount of room between their umbrellas. There was also a boardwalk type deal at Alfar. Not a boardwalk like at the Jersey Shore, but various huts along the beach serving daiquiris and super panchos (foot-long hot dogs) and waters and all the fried beach food you could ever want. The daiquiris were 2 for 1...or at least that's what Nicolas the bartender told us, so the girls enjoyed our tropical celebratory beach drinks while the boys enjoyed their Quilmes.
Saturday night after a well deserved nap, we all headed out to a Mexican restaurant, Coyote Ugly, for dinner. The food was AMAZING and the first hit of spice I've tasted since I've been in Argentina. Don't get me wrong, the food here is beyond delectable, but these people think black pepper is hot. Anyway, Sarah, Jackie and I split steak, chicken, and shrimp fajitas and the table enjoyed orders of nachos and some delicious sangria. The restaurant also gave us all itty bitty complimentary margaritas as soon as we were seated! People here are all about things being gratis. That was the trend for the night, since after we ate we went to a bar around the corner where the bartender immediately whipped out 11 shot glasses, poured tequila in his shaker, and lit it ON FIRE! Then he poured 11 flaming shots that we were told to slam our hand down on top of (to put out the flame, causing it to suction to our palms) shake it up, and take it. Craziest bar trick I've ever seen! And this guy was all about his tricks; he even opened and poured a can of soda by suctioning to his hand! After we were thoroughly amazed, we went to this club on the other side of Mardel called Sobremonte. There's another Coyote Ugly at Sobremonte, so since we had already eaten there, our cover at the club was, you guessed it, FREE! Another 50 pesos back in my pocket. Since it was Carnaval the people there were WILD. There were dancers and drumlines and some of our friends even ended up joining in on a bachelorette party. We also met up with Juli, Bea, and Paola there, three of our friends from IFSA who were also in Mardel but at a different hostel. The night was awesome...we danced until way into the night to the best techno music, and even a little american pop/rap thrown in there! I would relive it again in a heartbeat.
Monday rolled around and we all decided we were too tired to trek all the way to Playa Alfar again (hence the "far" part of the name). But much to our dismay, it ended up raining at the beach we went to near us and never rained at Playa Alfar, according to our reports from Juli. Bummer. But it gave us extra time to hang out, start packing up, and to get ready for dinner and our last night in Mar del Plata. Naturally the 11 of us couldn't agree on a place to eat after spending every waking and sleeping moment together for the last 72 hours, so we ultimately decided to split up. Boy did Neil and Eric miss out on the dinner of a lifetime...I hope their McDonald's was good enough to make up for it. Thanks to Jackie's keen eyesight we found this little crack in the wall Italian place with a menu that was about 30 pages long and had everything from land, air, and sea you could ever want. Xima and I along with a few other people decided to go with some fresh Salmon, and Ben and I split an order of Calamari...which had the tentacles (my favorite part of Calamari) this time!! Everyone at the table was served their dinner except Evan; our moso forgot to put his order in. We told him how disappointed Evan was because it was his birthday and he was the only one without food. We figured it was okay to say it was someone's birthday since the original reason we were in Mardel was 1) because of the long weekend and 2) because it was supposed to be the continuation of Sarah's birthday weekend but her's and her mom's flight was cancelled twice so they actually never made it down and went to a beautiful estancia in Uruguay instead. Our waiter thought it was the greatest thing ever that it was Evan's big day, and our night immediately took off. Almost instantly in walked a mariachi band. They were actually there just to play to get the restaurant patrons to tip them, but talk about perfect timing. Before we could blink they were belting out lines of "que los cumplas feliz" and Evan was about ready to pee himself. Finally the mariachi guys left (we obviously tipped them for making our night and providing us with some great blackmail photos/video) and we thought the celebration had ended. Really it had only started, since there was the restaurant owner/manager with a giant candle for Evan to blow out while a recording of cumpleaños feliz rang out over the speakers, replacing the normal subdued restaurant background melody. Then as a toast to Evan the whole table got 2 gratis bottles of champagne, and the owner even cheersed a glass with us!
Monday night we just stayed local again, and a girl traveling alone from Argentina who shared our hostel room with us joined us. We once again were welcomed at the bar with bebidas gratis; OJ's and vodkas. Courtney and I ended up meeting a couple of young lawyer's from Buenos Aires who were in Mardel for a bachelor party weekend, but there were no sparks unfortunately.
I can't believe the weekend is over. I learned a lot traveling with 11 people all the time, but it was worth it. Now it's time to think ahead to my future viajes: Tiesto concert this weekend (Sarah's birthday present from her parents), Colonia, Uruguay from the 19th-21st, and Bariloche from the 23rd-28th.
¡Vamos!
