big city girl in a small beach town

I was put off at first by Playas Doradas, a small dusty town with dust-colored-sun-baked-half-finished-concrete-box houses. One main road with a handfull of shops. Cars with obvious parts missing chugging down the street. I´m not much of a beach person. Sweat, sand, sunburns, and the smell of suntan lotion and salt all mixing together. Beaches make me uncomfortable and mildy disgusted. But this is the story of how I fell in love with it.

Juanjo is a friend of mine from Bariloche. He and Nico approached the slackline in the Centro Civico, one fine spring day. From that day forth we´ve slacklined, rockclimbed, made homemade spegghetti, sung and played the guitar, and finished many bottles of fernet. Juanjo is working the summer temporada in a bakery in Playas Doradas. I decided to go for a visit.


Mornings I worked serving mates and making churros and facturas. Afternoons and evenings were spent either walking along or reading by the beach. Nights were back in the bakery preparing for the morning rush. I learned a lot. And worked quite hard.

Here´s Juanjo preparing churros to be fried.

Nati is filling the sugar-covered churros with dulce de leche!


My first attempt at media lunas was a disaster. I eventually got better.


The people at the bakery were hilarious.

I stayed in a two room apartment. Well no, it was a small concrete box with newspapers on the windows. There were 9 or so of us in total. I slept on the top bunk in a room with snoring boys.

I was one of the locals and I loved it. I had a non-commital hectic job and a beautiful backdrop. I worked hard and relaxed hard. I swam in the sea and squatted to take a closer look at washed up sea creatures. I watched rugby and drank beer. I ate a lot of pastries.






Here´s a videoblog I made on the beach.



Yesterday was awesome. Around 5pm, Juanjo and I drove off to the muelle. We encountered a big black monstrosity of a building and a host of abandoned houses.


We were looking though for octopi, for dinner of course. I found a human-made orange thing in the middle of nature, so I climbed it.


Then we rock-hopped to find dinner. I splishsplashed in shallow puddles enjoying the scurrying of little critters. I amused myself with snails hiding in their shells. Juanjo found a small fish and a starfish! But no octopi.




But what he did find was quite a find! He found mejillones. A whole lot of them. Giddy, we jumped around snatching up the biggest ones we could find. We filled two buckets.




The tide was coming in so we headed out.



Mejillones steamed with parsely, garlic and lemon! Delicious!! It made me unexplicable happy to be eating something I had collected from nature. It was fresh and delicious and free. I was so happy.

I guessed Silvio´s astrological sign. That also made me quite happy.

That night we had fernet and improv music night. Then daquiris in town. Then when everyone else fell asleep, Juanjo and I escaped the light polution and star watched. The line of the milkyway was visible and we searched for satelites. I FOUND MY FIRST SATELITE! Usually I have to have them pointed out to me, but I found one this time. And it was gigantic. The stars were falling all around and painting lines in the sky.

The next morning was a slow one. No one had gotten any sleep. I packed my bag, and against objections, said my goodbyes. I would have loved to stay for a few more weeks, but it´s just at the point when I get comfortable that it´s time to move on. Plus my experience there gave me a lot to think about.


I thought I´d have a hard time hitching a ride out of town, but Alberto from Sierra gave me a lift. We had a fantastic conversation that made me feel on top of the world! I said goodbye to my locutorio woman who gave me that room. I looked for Chachi, but he still hadn´t returned from his trip. I stood outside town and stuck out my thumb.

Carlos, or "mono," the truckdriver picked me up this time. What a character! 32 years driving the same Buenos Aires-El Calafate route. He gave me some helpful hints about the roads in the south. He was also muy buena onda!


I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. There´s a lot of desert in this part of the world. I got picked up and dropped off in the middle of Puerto Madryn. I usually like cities, but it was like a shock to the system. I didn´t like it. It was big and touristy. And I knew nobody. I immediately missed the small town feel of Playas Doradas and my new buddies.

I paid a visit to the tourist office and decided that I didn´t want to be a tourist. I dragged my bags down the street toward the organized camping companies. I still don´t know why I can´t just put up my tent in a grassy yard. Miriam, the porteña turned madryleña, went out of her way to drop me off at the campsite. Meanwhile, I´ll be here maybe for two nights before heading south.