Looking Back part 2

Here comes part two as promised. I finished my last final today and am officially packing now. Let's just hope I can fit it all in the bags without going over the weight limit. It's going to be hard after accumulating so much junk over the past 5 months. The good news is, I'm all done with souvenir shopping so I shouldn't be adding anything else in the pile.

I left you off with the last post leaving Mendoza for Buenos Aires. I moved to a new host stay then, and the new host mom, named Muchy has been very welcoming and kind. So after doing some random sightseeing for a few days, I received a text Friday inviting me to go to Mar de Plata for the weekend. My friend Samara's host mom was going there to visit family, and she offered to drive us for free! Surprise trips are the best!

Mar de Plata is the main beach town for the province of Buenos Aires about a 5 hours drive south of the main city. Basically everyone who is anyone goes there once it warms up. To give you some perspective, the town's population is about 650,000 in the off season, and well over 2 million in the summer months.

When we got there the first thing Samara's host parents did was drive us to the port where all of the fishermen go. Of course it stunk like fish horribly. They parked the car about 20 feet from some big brown rocks, and then after a double take we realized they weren't rocks, but rather gigantic sea lions (or sea wolves as they are called here)! They were absolutely everywhere and they have no fear of people. In fact they would frequently be sleeping on the port docks where the fishermen would go to tie up their fishing boats. The sea lions were smart and knew that fishermen often dropped food, so they were basically just waiting for a feast. However, it makes it hard for fishermen to tie up when there are gigantic hungry animals in your parking spot. So, the fishermen somehow trained a bunch of dogs to chase off the sea lions whenever the fishing boats approached.

Later in the weekend, we attempted to get some quality beach time. I say attempted because it was surprisingly chilly, with lots of wind and clouds, but I still jumped in the ocean (which the currents here bring water straight from Antarctica, so it was also cold). We still had an awesome time and thankfully on Sunday we had a few hours of sunshine in order to get properly burnt like everyone should on a good beach weekend, something about that hole in the ozone layer here seems to make the sun feel even more intense.

Sunday evening, we went four wheeling on the beach, which was an absolute blast. We then continued our traveling tradition and ate at a Mexican restaurant for dinner after failing to find a sushi restaurant. I think I'm addicted.   Monday was a holiday, so the roads were packed and we took a back route home. The middle of nowhere Argentina looks an awful lot like middle of nowhere United States if you were interested in knowing. Overall a really fun and cheap surprise beach trip!

I don't have much time left here, so this will probably be my last post from Argentina. Be expecting another post, two at the most summing up my whole experience, it really just depends on my motivation level when I get back. I am definitely going to miss going on so many adventures, but I am definitely ready to go home. I miss everyone so much. I'm just hoping to bring some warm weather with me!

Thanks for reading!

Scott