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.