After a short 5 hour bus trip, Terry and I arrived in Pinamar, Argentina.  One would think "5 hours in a bus, yuck!", but these are your standard Grey Hound bus. For a mere $4 extra per seat, it was an easy upgrade to equivalent of business class seats on an airline with seats that recline up to 55 degrees, what a deal right!?!  Five minutes into the trip I am dead asleep, only waking up as we pull in to the Pinamar bus station.



It's a half mile walk to town from the bus station and a two mile walk through town to the beach. We booked this trip with no hotel room reserved because we couldn't find any decent priced rooms online.  So when we arrived, we first scooped the beach before we started our hotel hunt.  We settled in at Hotel Novo Siena.   After checking in we headed back to the beach, but the winds had turned. Everyone was heading home because it was now ridiculously windy and chilly. Not how I had envisioned my first day at the beach.



After dark fell the town really burst alive and resembled what I would think the Atlantic City Boardwalk is like.  After an extensive search for something other then a grill, we stumbled upon a Mexican restaurant called Jalisco.  It was the perfect change of cuisine. For some odd reason, Argentina doesn't seem to have a taste for international restaurants that we are used to. Indian, Mexican, Middle East, Asian foods are few and far between here.  Apparently they don't like spicy foods. The 5 hour bus ride was worth it just for the fajitas and jalapenos.



Wednesday was my actual birthday, so even though the weather was still pretty crappy, we attempted it anyway. With 15-25 mph wind, the lifeguards had the "swimming prohibited" flags out.  Not that I wanted to anyways because it was only 66 degrees with no sun (we now have a reference point for 19C).  We tried to wait out the clouds during a 2 hours walked but gave up and headed back into town for some lunch. A popular sandwich down here is a "lomito", which is basically a skirt steak (what fajita meat is cut from) sandwich.  We found a "lomito" restaurant called, Betos, that looked interesting because they had a huge image of french fries covered with scrambled eggs.  Terry and I ordered two different styles of lomito sandwiches (Mexican and Chimi) and Terry upgraded his combo to the papas con huevos (fries with eggs).  Don't knock it till you try it.



Since the weather wasn't letting up, we knew our beach day wasn't going to happen so we hit up the local arcade.  As you know I take my Air Hockey very seriously.  We some how lucked out on "faulty" air hockey table that just wouldn't quit giving us free games.  So for 50 cents we played 20 games until Terry gave up "because his arm hurt".  Could have also been because I was winning 11-5-4 and he had no chance of a come back.  I'll have to agree my rotator cuff isn't what it used to be.

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 3pm on our last day and luckily the weather turned to be perfect; the sun was out, light breeze in the air, smell of the surf, and the tons of families playing together. We spent the entire morning laying out under a half tent that we purchased.




 I was sad to leave the beach when our time came to head toward the bus station.  I feel so at home when I am at the beach,. Perhaps in a past life I was a mermaid.




Thanks Terry for making my 25th 28th Birthday one to remember!