American Express or Visa?

Mar del Plata, Argentina

March 21, 2007
S 37°59.389
W 057°32.687

We had a great day on the beach. The weather was perfect, nice and sunny with occasional clouds to provide a little shade. I realized this is the first time I have ever been in the Atlantic Ocean; I’ve seen the Atlantic, but never actually put my foot into it. The water was cool, but nothing like the bath water in Montanita, Ecuador. As for Marc, he first set foot in the Atlantic Ocean on his cross-country trip with Mike; if you want to see the videos, just give Mike a call.

We know we should be over it by now, but we’re still baffled by the whole concept of Sietsa. However, we finally know what everyone does during siesta, at least in Mar del Plata. We arrived at a fairly empty beach right around noon today. At 1:30 PM the beach slowly started filling up with locals. They ate their lunches, relaxed, and some jumped in for a swim; the exodus started around 3:30 PM—just in time for siesta to end at 4: 00 PM. This definitely helps explain why everyone has such a great tan.

The only people at the beach the entire day were retired folks. We think Mar del Plata is the equivalent to Argentineans as Del Boca Vista, Florida is to New Yorkers. With a beautiful beach like this, who can blame them? Apparently, during summertime, the beach is so packed with tourists and retirees that there isn’t even room to walk. Luckily we arrived during the low-season… we definitely prefer walking room and a little space to breath when we hit the beach.

After a few hours in the sun we decided to do a little yoga. We found a fairly remote spot on the beach. The session was great in the sun, but we were completely covered with sand when we finished. We made tracks back to our room (stopping first to pick up a few cold beers) for a good shower to get all of the sand off of us—well, we got most of it.

Other big news today—Marc shaved off the Grizzly Adams beard he grew in Torres del Paine. It served its purpose in the cold, but in this beautiful beach weather it just makes him hot and he said it was starting to make him feel mangy.

Other notes:

The place we are staying, Gran Hotel Manila, is listed as a 3-Star hotel (0ur strained view of the beach is above). Clean with a private bathroom; our only hard requirements. Marc thinks the bidet is a nice bonus; he believes the bidet may be the only valuable contribution France has made to the modern world. The place has some character as well as characters… especially the old man who works the evening shift.

The little old chap is probably is in his mid-to-late 70’s and hard of hearing. When we checked in yesterday, it took us at least 15 minutes to complete the registrar with him. He would ask a question, we would give him an answer, a correct answer, and he would ask again. For example, what nationality are you? Are you Canadian? We responded Estados Unidos. He then asked us if we are English. Sure dude, we´re English. We figured it was easier than going through the list of countries with him again.

After we finally finished the registrar, literally 15 minutes later. We gave him our AMEX card and he tried to read it upside-down... first sign of trouble. After several failed attempts swiping the card through the new-fangled contraption he actually handed us the machine. When the machine gave an error, he would simply unplug the machine and plug it back in again. This went on for at least ten minutes; us attempting to decipher the Spanish abbreviations on the card reader and him explaining (in Spanish) how it “should” work.

We finally suggested a Visa card… “Ahhhh, si, si, si, si! Visa es muy bueno!” he replied. We allowed the old-timer two tries with our Visa card when it was apparent he had no fn clue what he was doing (obviously not his fault… just a training issue). We suggested cash… “Ahhhh, si, si, si si! Efectivo es muy bueno!” and we headed out the door to find the nearest ATM.

We wondered why the hotel is paying a monthly fee to Visa, Mastercard and AMEX when their own employees clearly can’t use the machines. We knew better than to “ask why”… for some things down here it’s just the way it is.

We gave our night-clerk 400 pesos and all was good. The whole process was mind-boggling! We finally got in our room, took a shower and headed out to dinner a bit later. When we came downstairs old-timer was taking a little siesta in the lobby chair with the television blaring. We didn’t want to wake him (he had a hard day – new fangled contraptions and all) so we left our key on the counter and attempted to head out the door. Unfortunately, the door was locked and we had to wake him from his slumber to unlock the door to let us out.

When we returned home around midnight old-timer was still at his post, standing guard, at the Gran ol’ Manila… no wonder he needed a siesta!