Ever since I got off the bus in Mar del Plata, the beach has held some sort of magnetic attraction for me. It’s not very pretty or clean, the water tends to be cold, and it’s frequently super crowded, especially since it’s summer here, but I’m forever thinking about it. Is that weird?

Actually, last Sunday (aka January 2, aka MY TWENTIETH BIRTHDAY!) a group of us walked to Cabo Corrientes, a beach that’s to the south of the hotel, to go banana boating. It was a pretty nice, although fairly long, walk. We saw loads of street vendors selling jewely, churros rellenos (churros filled with chocolate, dulce de leche and other creamy sweets), flip flops, fruit, candy, etc. Unfortunately, when we finally got there, we were told it was too windy to head out and the beach was totally packed. While we waited to see if we could go out, we had a delish lunch at the restaurant, which took forever since we couldn’t decide where to sit and service is usually slow when cooks and waiters are trying to prepare and bring food to a large group. After lunch, we finally headed back since the wind hadn’t died down and the waves were still ridic big. We stopped to take tons of pictures on the rocks, and a random woman told my fortune, which was pretty exciting.

Walking back to the hotel, I got to see more of the city, which is another of the things I’ve been doing quite a bit of. There are tons of couples everywhere looking all cute (mostly teenagers and young adults, presumably enjoying summer vacation), families, and tourists. A lot of the architecture is absolutely gorgeous. I’ve seen a lot of huge houses made of stone with intricate detailing, specially-shaped windows and well-kept gardens. We stopped by the bank on our way back to take out money (obvi), and were unsuccessful. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but most of the banks didn’t (and apparently still don’t) have money in their ATMS; the few banks that had ATMs with money had ridiculously long lines (one bank had a local cop making sure everyone stayed in line, no pun intended). This whole money thing has been an issue since Buenos Aires, but more about that in a different post. Actually, a couple of girls were able to trade in dollars at the casino for chips, and then trade those in for pesos, which was pretty cool.

Mar del Plata is soooo pretty. I’ve spent a few hours each day walking around the area surrounding our hotel, and I’ve gotten pleasantly lost (at least, it’s usually pleasant until it’s been a loooong time and I start to worry that I won’t be able to get back!) several times. Streets are sort of zoned here (I’m not sure if it’s official): there are a few streets devoted entirely to [the coolest] bars and clubs, some to different clothing, shoe and accessory stores, some to open air markets, and some to restaurants. Finding dinner isn’t usually a problem since the area around our hotel is “zoned” for restaurants (the real problem is deciding where and what to eat!).

I’ve quite a bit of exploring to do, so I’ll keep you guys posted on what I find!