Is It Safe? : Imprisoned In Bahía Blanca : Tues 28th Jan

A 12.30pm bus calls for us. We have to get to Bahia Blanca, but of course its not quite that easy. Firstly, we have to take a deviant route up into the middle of the province of Buenos Aires to Olavarria, four hours away, to come right back down to Bahia Blanca on the coast, five hours away. Our five different websites have not been useful in finding a direct route. What a surprise, then, that  on arriving at the bus terminal we find we can take a bus straight to Bahia Blanca at 1.15pm. Superb, a mere 6 n a half hour journey instead. No changes. Saved us a hundred pesos.

I have a bus station milanese, my first since a crappy one in Fray Bentos (crap steak in Fray Bentos. That doesn’t sound right, does it?). Its a delicious return to breaded-steak-sandwich-territory. No snacks on this bus, but we have comfy downstairs seats. The journey is utterly dull, the landscape an unfaltering flatness of blue-grey sky and golden yellow fields for the most part. Las Pampas could, in theory, be a romantic vista, but it just reminds me of Ontario. What could be spectacular is in fact bland on the ground, the grandeur of the repetitive landscape extinguished by the curvature of the Earth. You can see a mile or two across the fields, then nothing. One hill, an aberration, somehow pops up, and as the bus rolls down the straight road it takes an eternity to fade away. When it does, I close my eyes and fall asleep again.

We almost jump out at the one-bus-town of Punta Alta, but my brain notices no one else is disembarking. 25km later, and we pass through the outer limits of Bahía Blanca, with the traditional dogs, half-built houses, and girls on scooters. The taxi knows our hostel, and we pull outside the recognisable Hostel Bahia Blanca in a few minutes. Sarah is already certain she wants to move on from here before the four nights are up; one of the girls in Hostel Quercas warned her that she was from BB, and we would be bored within minutes. Lonely Planet is less unforgiving, describing it as ‘overlooked’. Initial impressions favoured the former.

The hostel’s lobby featured a pool table, a fusbol table, and a strange array of mothers and babies. Indeed, the sound of wailing children was prominent. The chap behind the counter was bamboozled by my faux-Spanish, and called his associate. Between them we found our reservation, but also found that the hostel does not cater to mixed-gender rooms, so we would have to be ‘upgraded’ to a private room for the same price. If we can hang on for a moment, they are just putting another bed in the room. Wonderful.

Well, it would be wonderful if the room didn’t remind me of some sort of chamber where people were taken to be tortured. The stained mattress on the floor we had been given could have seen any number of ‘last moments’. The bathroom was a concrete box where the shower sprayed nearly straight onto the toilet. The signs were ominous. Even a fiver a night seemed a little steep right now.

Nevertheless we stuck it out, charged our devices and headed out to find the heart of Bahía Blanca. Six blocks up, six blocks left we headed, through the main shopping district and past some surprisingly attractive shops (BB does have a population of 300,000 at last count) with some intriguing two-tone shirts that I haven’t seen since River Island in 1999. Down a darkened street we head, towards El Mundo De La Parrilla, an acclaimed restaurant offering all-you-can-eat meat for a mere $120. It strikes us as exactly the mix we are missing in Norn Iron, that of actual quality balanced by unpretentiousness. The waiters are excellent, the food is substantial, and for our little extra money we get a bowl of aubergines in olive oil, a fresh pepper salsa, plenty of bread, and a fine variety of meats. All you need to do is ask, and they are happy to accommodate Sarah’s dislike of offal. I, on the other hand, eat some grotesque body parts. They are mostly very tasty, and go with the tasty Malbec we have be recommended. Sarah shows great character and devours more meat that I can. I know why she is the girl I wanted with me on this trip.

OFFAL.

COUPLE

LIMONCELLO

MEMORABILIA

BAR AND FANCY HD TV

INCREDIBLY DISTURBING GAUCHO

SARAH'S FACE.

We wander back to the hostel, and the town centre is busy at the pizza places. Near the hostel we begin to wonder about its prison-like character, as we spot a few girls who may be doing some business outside it. We have given the guys a heads up that we might be changing our reservation from 4 nights to 1, and they seem ok with it. We pay in advance for our first night. It is a steep $80 each, damn them.

I have just noticed I jump between past and present tense. Sorry about that. I blame the bottle of Schneider and the bag of Holly Kraps I have been eating. Holly Kraps are very salty nuts with their little papery wrappers still on. After half a bag I was starting to feel like I was eating raw bacon.

A Really Really Big Sea Shell : Mar Del Plata Day 2 : Mon 27th Jan

Monday. The first day of the week (depending on your calendar). I feel I may have neglected to point out that in South America there are stray dogs everywhere. All different breeds, shapes and sizes, of mostly docile temperament, though sometimes of a grumpy nature. Walk down a street or sit outside a restaurant and you will inevitably be joined by one, probably looking fed, but more often just a mangey, scabby, flea-ridden mess. In Fray Bentos I watched a gang of dogs, twelve strong, led by a scrawny looking medium-sized gurney barkey type wander down the streets in search of some excitement. It was like The Wild One for canines.

One last day in Mar Del Plata. Out to the supermarket for Daniel to collect some supplies, breakfast being crap and all gone anyway. It is funny to go into a corner store in Argentina and find a Chinese couple running it, no less when they have thick Argentine accents. The chap at the counter bawls out the enormous bear-dog that follows me in. Small toasts and marmalade for me for the first meal of the day, Sarah is getting broken baguette and cream cheese. We shall invent coffee somehow. Fruit is cheap and green and orange oranges are the Vitamin C I need, plus bananas and peaches. I have purchased a big bag of Holly Kraps. Honestly, I've no idea what could be in this bag.

At some point we gather ourselves together and Sarah points out a museum with the biggest seashells in South America that we should visit. “Let’s walk” is the insane suggestion. At least we know what direction to walk in today. That we are 20 blocks from the museum, nearly 30 from the coast, ought to have warned us. Common sense be damned, we stride forth, and cover the 4km posthaste. A savage car / bike accident has taken place, closing off the hill at the end of Avenida Colon that leads to the sea, so we are able to take some good photos.

I tried to take one photo of one street that would save me having to take any more photos the whole rest of the day. This is that photo. Almost all of Mar Del Plata looks like this, to various degrees of 'cute little house'-ness.

The hill at the top of Avenida Colón that leads to the sea. Its a little more dramatic than this photos might suggest.

Mar Del Plata's Museum of Modern Art. We intended to go here too, however it was only open between 5pm-8pm in the evenings, and by then we had better things to do, like save the world from excess alcohol.

The attractive Museu Del Mar.

Looking back down Avenida Colón. It is not normally this easy to take this sort of picture.

Like so many things in South America, it seems the info on the ‘net is a bit woefully out of date. The Museo Del Mar is shut, and looks like it has been abandoned for a dozen years. We find some other big buildings, unidentifiable, and we are reminded yet again of the limitations of travel books and the internet when your sources are three or four years out of date, and you cannot adequately communicate with the locals. “WHY IS THIS SHUT, GODDAMNIT?” is what we want to ask. There is no one to ask.

This looks like a painting. Even in real life it looks like a painting. But it was very real.

Wander down to the costanera and find the crappy area we wandered around the day before. Encounter a few mediocre street musicians and a woman belting out songs whilst dressed like a mum. A bit weird. There is a skate park full of one-trick children, and plenty of families filling the pavements. Graffiti is everywhere, but not in a good way. I have been determined to find a McDonalds and enjoy a massively underpriced Big Mac, but Sarah is steadfast in her resistance, given that she knows we will be hungry a full 60 minutes later. Stop at a crap corner cafe and have lunch there instead. Watch sweaty people wander about and fail to enjoy a view of the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually wander north and east, arriving at the Antares Brewpub moments before it opened. Sarah is mortified by the idea of standing outside a pub waiting for it to open, so we walk round the block and find another brewpub, this time a German one decorated in shamrocks. This country is a joke.

The Antares is open now, and we take a comfy seat by the window. This is the menu:

What could we do but work out way throughout it? Perhaps we also ought to have a big conversation about religion whilst we’re at it. Maybe eat some chips with the worst Marie Rose sauce ever? It takes about 2 minutes before we have a big table of baby-boomer Americans beside us, and they are poor at disguising their interest in my (Northern) Ireland shirt. They are also poor at disguising their inability to drink, as the blaze through a couple of halfs. Mentalists. The women are all drinking wine or daiquiris. The place is rammed within an hour, and we have good seats. Outside we watch two girls who may be sisters get narky with a boy in their company who couldn’t be more than 19. He is utterly bungalowed and when his mates eventually leave the bar to take him home they do not look happy about it. That time in my life seems a million years ago, even though I am still friends with Lovejoy. Ha Ha Ha.

I attempt to teach Sarah the words to "Tony Kane Is Magic", a song that quiet singing cannot do justice to, and I explain why, in no uncertain terms, Niall McGinn's ability to play on the left and on the right makes Ronaldo look shite. I'm just saying. There are photos of this. We also, I am sure I should not mention, worked on track titles for the forth-coming HARD MAN album, entitled "VULGAR". At some points we quite literally cried from disgust.

Our very very dead exciting patatas fritas. This orange muck is half-mayo, half ketchup, with a hefty teaspoon of white ground pepper thrown in. The parsley was pretty good though.

These are the Americans in the foreground. Notice the lack of beer on their table... in a brewpub.

As much as Sarah wanted one for each hand, I just couldn't allow it without phoning her mother.

And this is why.

SOOOOOOO PRETTY.

Eventually we have drunk all the beer on the menu, and it seems like Sarah’s love of IPAs has been the most fortuitous, as it is the most interesting beer here. The bill is less than £20 each, and we have change for a taxi home. There, we sit in the back garden and fall into conversation with the other folk staying in the hostel. We swap information about our respective countries, although I learn more about Argentina than they of Norn Iron, and we are all amused about the perception that Latin American countries are all matey. They are more flattered by my comparison between them (Argentines) and the Italians and Germans, which gives me an insight. I am still unhappy as to why the pasta here is crap, although one of our companions does explain to me that Patatas Bravas, which I was led to believe was an Argentine speciality, can easily be found in French restaurants. Typical. 3am rolls round and we call it a night. I am concerned that Sarah might be a little hungover tomorrow morning. I am less concerned about myself.

Wondering Where We Don't Belong : Mar Del Plata Day 1 : Sun 26th Jan

Sunday. Another restless night, not sure how many people were actually sleeping in my four bed room but at least they all seemed relatively normal. Sarah has had a run-in with some eejit who took the sheets off her bed for his own, and some mentalist girl with crazy eyes who glares at us both constantly for no reason at all. Not only that but the temperature dropped overnight, my feet were freezing, and when I eventually got up the whole breakfast buffet was devastated, leaving half a mug of coffee, a bit of bread and some banana jam. We look at each other with bleary eyes and resolve to head out and eat. This is 11.30am.

Like most places we have been, maps are in short supply, so we are flying blind here. Walking, to the best of our knowledge, towards the main road, we discover ourselves to be in an impossibly hot Mallusk. Car showrooms and gomerias dominate. We walk a few blocks. Nothing is looking useful. It takes a growling stomach to force us to wave down a taxi, who immediately turns in the opposite direction and runs us down to the beaches. We should have been more confident in our assertion that lower numbered blocks were closer to the coast.

The costanera is beautiful and crammed with humans in all their assorted shapes and sizes. We are dropped down near the trendy young people beach; perhaps our driver was trying to flatter us. At least the area was clean and had a buzz about it. Sarah and I like the beach, as agreed over a lunch of antipasti and chips and beer, it was just that we disliked all the other stuff that goes with it, like other people, outdoors activities, posing, sand and seawater. Otherwise it is exactly the sort of thing we enjoy. An indoor beach with no one on it and no sand and freshwater. Brilliant.

Surprisingly full after our light lunch, we wander along the coast back towards Avenida Colón, the street we drove down. The trendy young people beach, with its golden sands and sexy types looking at anything except each other, gives way to a rocky outcrop, followed by a brown sand beach with ugly families on it. Is sand supposed to be brown? Admittedly the whole coastal area was a pleasant walk, and we are happy to see colours for the first time in a while. We spend a few minutes watching a beach rugby sevens tournament, but thirsty prevails, and we enjoy a beer in a less salubrious part of the beach whilst listening to a ska band on a stage entertaining the poor kids who aren’t on the trendy beach. We mosey round a crap shopping mall, a bit like In-Shops, and nearly buy a lot of guff we don’t need, but seems very reasonable for the price. Anyone with an eye towards fake football shirts could fill a stadium with the goods on offer in this place.

Outside the Gran Hotel Mar Del Plata we see some football fans jigging about and roaring on their team who are inside. We see a lot of police. We see some men in combat fatigues with shotguns. We see a tiny tiny tiny bit of trouble. We get bored and wander off. 

Somewhere up Avenida Colón we find a nice little restaurant where we have a decent pizza for a change. The clientele initially appear to be a bit of a rotary club type, only to be superseded by a bunch of chubby mums with their whiny babies in tow. Our waiter is, however, surprisingly good, and it seems to be a family-run establishment. We watch Granda making pizza boxes in the corner. Maybe he doesn’t get fed until he has folded a hundred.

Yes, I know there can be practical reasons for this, and I know I have friends who have done it, but it just never looks right.

Sarah does a 'mum'. Getting quite good at it too.

It should be a simply taxi ride back, except that Sarah has forgotten to bring the little piece of paper with the address of the hostel with her. Normally not a problem, except we live on a street with an unpronounceable name, and our driver cruises around trying to find the right one. Thank god the taxis are cheap. We have to convince him that our street is far, far away and that we know and understand this. We use the grid system to our advantage, and eventually drive far enough up Avenida Colon to find Olazabal, a street our driver has never heard of. You don’t get this with Mahoods.

One cheeky bottle of Palermo and we head to bed.