Mar del Plata

Buenos Aires can be a demanding city. It is huge, crowded, noisy, hot... this intensity makes the city fun and exciting, but it also makes breaks from the city feel neccessary. The weekend after my trip to Mendoza, my housemates and I headed south to Mar del Plata, a beach town five hours south of BA by bus. Of course, calling Mar del Plata a 'town' is a bit if an understatement since it has nearly the same population as San Francisco, but it provided a change of pace regardless.

Despite being the start of fall (and the end of peak season), the beach was fairly crowded, and the restaurants and clubs were even more packed. I'm slowly getting used to the late schedule of things in Argentina, but it still amused me when our cab driver teased us for going out too early - hailing him at midnight after dinner (that started at 10 pm) seemed silly to him. Rather than go to a club, we ended up in a coffee shop for an hour when the bars opened, then hopped a bit until 3 when the clubs started letting people in.

So much for the restful weekend... but at least I could sleep on the beach and on the bus going home to BA.