Villa Gessel – Sandboarding, “captured” debit card, and a very long night at the bus terminal

Villa Gessel was much more chill than Mar Del Plata. Pretty friendly people and it was easy to move around. We had no trouble getting our bearings. At one point, a women at a small restaurant saved my drink and put it back in the freezer when I went out for a few minutes. At night, everyone crowds in the street and it becomes a perfect place for people watching. In Argentina, the mullet is still in effect. After dinner the first night, we just strolled along the beach. Besides fisherman, there were packs of stray dogs – some rolling 15 deep (for the elders, this means a group of 15 dogs). Saturday was an awesome day. For about $15, we got an entire day of activity. We took a dual level truck along the shore for some time, until we reached some sand dunes. We went sandboarding for about an hour. It is like sledding. You sit on a board and slide down. We went solo and in pairs. It was so fun. Usually when you go down in pairs, the board will turn over. It was pretty hilarious to see the group eat sand. We then took the truck to an old lighthouse - Faro Querandi. It is on the beach, but in the middle of the forest, and is about 100 years old. Very cool to walk up.

The next day, we planned to leave and buy bus tickets. After I bought my ticket for the 11pm bus, I went to get money from the ATM. I went with my Argentine friend so she could translate some words for me. Despite entering my code and doing everything correctly, the ATM wouldn’t let me do anything. The machine soon ate my card! I immediately got on the phone and canceled my card and set up a new one to be sent from me. I stayed pretty reasonable throughout it all. Shit happens.

Oh, but it didn’t end there. We arrived at the bus station at 1015 - 45 minutes early. Turns out the bus broke and there would not be a new one until 3 in the morning. Fantastic. We couldn’t go anywhere and had to wait. We couldn’t even sleep because of our packs. Anyways, a bus finally showed up at 430!!! For the those keeping track at home, that is over 6 hours of waiting. I think the highlight were the 4am Doritos. The temperature on the bus was colder than that outside. Lastly, because there weren’t many people on the dual level bus, we could sit anywhere and not pay attention to the seat assignments. There was like 40 open seats on the bus. Still, some guy gets on the bus and decides to sit with me. He could have sat anywhere - like the open seats next to his friends. But no, he sits with me. At that point, I was simply too tired to move or care. Only me.