Bs As then on to Uruguay

Olga, the owner's rep at Las Pampas had a bad day and turned nasty toward us when we shortened our stay by one day. That made us more than ready to leave.

We depart Villa Gesell with a police escort.

The beachside village is a maze of dirt roads which when we stop one to ask directions,  every squad car with blue lights flashing willingly says, "Follow, I will show you ".

Returning to BsAs we learn it is $1,100 to change our United Airlines tickets,   so we will make a new plan to go to Uruguay. Once again, we pack up.

Marina de las Pampas - Days 2-4

Today, Friday 19th Feb, it is cooler, about 70F.  A southerly wind blows bringing cooler weather, and clearer skies. It's a north wind that does the same at home.

 Perfect day for a long walk on the beach. We walked  a mile to the South and encountered a couple using a gill net to capture a fish they called a "Lisa".  You can see the small net to the left. The woman carries the fish bag, a scaling knife and a hammer. A table was setup for cleaning the fish. The boy shoveled the offal back into the surf. It was difficult not to judge this couple... the gill net is illegal at home (unless you are an "original person" operating on tribal land), but everyone needs to make a living. We did not consider buying a fish because it came from the somewhat muddied waters close to the beach. 

 A one-eyed Alligator had been carved in the sand.

Series of sunrise and rabbit shots from Saturday morning just after 6am.

Later in the morning, we walked to the beach for a swim. 

Selfies galore

I apologize for this shot.

Neighbors.

Marina de las Pampas

Much about this place reminds me of Weld, our summer Camp in Maine. Can't drink the water. Electricity goes out in a thunderstorm. Insects. Weld has the Lake and Las Pampas has the Atlantic, and both have a bungalow with a view and a restful ambiance.

Numerous sea perch washed up from the muddied surf. We suspect they drowned.  The roiling sea picked up sand and may have robbed the fish of clean water in their gills.

Anna tilts toward Antarctica. (May have been the cameraman.)

 <-- View North to the village of Villa Gesell, Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Brazil, Central America, Texas and California.  We are closer to Africa than to home.

View South to the "end of the world" and Antarctica. --->

The cabanas of Marina de las Pampas, ours on the left.

Beach vendors selling everything from selfie sticks to kites.

Anna suspects these are egg casings, perhaps of aliens.  They appear half-filled with water and perhaps, in reality, are parts of jellyfish. We will consult scientists as soon as the Internet comes on again.

Drive to Argentina's Costa del Sol - Pinamar and Villa Gesell

Carnival is celebrated every weekend before and apparently during Lent in Bs As. We returned to Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo barrio, bought and ate bananas, and sat to watch tango dancers, street mimes and puppeteers. 

The crafts fair filled with kiosks of leather purses, jewelry and tchotchkes of interest kept us engaged all afternoon and evening on Sunday.  Busses full of decked out club and school bands competing for prizes danced and drummed (loudly!) in roped off streets with a large police presence.

This young lady videoed the singing gaucho, transfixed by the strains of "Celito Lindo" then quickly pocketed her iPhone and ran off with a sheepish grin forgetting to leave a tip for his effort.

No longer trusting the beautiful women, the flirting Troubadour gave Anna an earful.
"I have CD's that are available all over the world", he said, "not everyone can get my phone number like you can."

"If that is your husband over there you should divorce him and come with me."

A harried street mime in a hurry.

Preparing to take the stage with their marching band these elaborately costumed characters may do this a couple of times each month.

Monday Feb 16 we drove 4 hours south to the Atlantic coast. Pinamar & Mar del Playa are touted as beach communities for the Argentine rich. (They look like everyone else in their summer costumes.) All the Trip Advisor chatter about crowded beaches disappeared when we sat up our chairs, walked to the sea, and dived into the rolling surf propelled by a steady 20 knot northerly wind. The water is 67-68 degrees, cold at first but was fine after an adjustment. We're not talking about our first night in a hosteleria, but last evening we moved on to a small beach-side hotel with adequate amenities for everything. We dined at the large (50 tables!) highly rated Chiquilin, arriving as it opened at 7:30PM.. We were first to arrive, when we left at 9PM the place was full. Tonight we will stay at Marina de las Pampas.

Families dining at Chiquilin. This one had four open hightest Coca Cola bottles on the table. 

Piola - Making pizza in Buenos Aires

Last Tuesday at Piola next to our hotel we enjoyed pizza, salad and a bottle of Mendoza Malbec. Piola is a large and successful pizza bistro, one of two in Bs As.We met Julian, the tattooed manager from Northern Italy. I have no Spanish but his English was pretty good so I thought I would try to hatch a plan with him. I showed him a folded sandwich bag I had brought with me containing some sourdough starter I'd borrowed from the Berkeley Cheeseboard Collective about 14 years ago. I told him I thought he'd like the sourdough crust better than a plain dry yeast starter, and if he would like I'd give him this starter to try. After a moment of disbelief, and a futile lecture on how Argentines like their pizza only a certain way, he expressed some modest interest in trying a sourdough crust. He wanted to know "how much dough? how much warm water? what are the proportions of everything?" Anna, fluent in Spanish, chimed in and said, "Allen can show you."

I was soon admitted to the kitchen where I proceeded to mix up a bowl of starter. I left instructions to cover it and leave it in a warm place, and that I would come back in the morning to see if it was still alive. (We'd been gone a week or 8 days and it had not been refrigerated.) That was Tuesday.

Several times during the week I walked next door to Piola...first to check on the starter the next morning (bubbling! which means alive but too hot) and again a day later to mix up a large bucket of dough. I said to Alex, the chief cook, we will make pizza on Friday after being assured that both he and Julian would be on duty. That assurance turned out to be completely wrong,

Communications all along were spotty and difficult. That may be why my preposterous notion that I could bring this off had half a chance. Julian would say, "I'll see you tomorrow." and when I arrived I found out he "won't be in today". The day manager, Lucrecia, is a tall, friendly and very helpful person. Still, I felt welcomed but that I was intruding.

Saturday night I arrived at 8 to check on the dough. Piola was not quite open and no Julian.  Lucrecia

Lucrecia and Alex

showed me into the kitchen to check on the dough. It had suffered somewhat because of the hot starter, maybe I used too much?  Apparently it had been refrigerated but flowed over the sides of the bucket.  The usual elasticity had not developed and so the dough fell apart easily.  I mixed in more flour and kneaded a batch. Then I left feeling doubtful that I could produce using this dough. When I  came back at 10pm, there was Julian who said, "Are you ready to make pizza?" "Si!", I said, hopefully.

I prepared two simple pizzas with julienned green onions and a small bit of mozzarella. For the second one I added a very thin layer of pesto right to the dough itself under the onion.

Unexpectedly, I got lucky. Julian shared the results with Lucrecia and the cook staff.  I took a seat in the room with a view of the oven/cooks and ordered a bottle of Malbec and a Piola pizza. Almost immediately Julian brought me three slices (on the left) of the sourdough. Lucrecia stopped by my table to tell me, "I like it. It's good!"

I left the starter fed and refrigerated for Alex, along with the rest of the dough in the large bucket. I thought the pizza turned out OK. I think it would have been better had I cooked it, brushed on some garlic infused, organic olive oil and a dusting of parmesan. But it was a very satisfying experience altogether. I gained a great deal of respect for those cooks. The oven was heated to 450 C (over 800 degrees Fahrenheit) and their pizzas cook in 60-90 seconds. Altogether Piola is a very impressive operation.