An Amazing Adventure and Wild Weather

I arrived in Punta del Diablo with pretty high expectations, not a good idea when arriving anywhere new. All the hostels there are very expensive, except for one, so that was where i was planning on staying. i didnt know where it was, but i knew it was an HI--hostelling international--hostel. i saw a sign for an HI hostel with an arrow pointing up a dirt street, so i headed up there. a few blocks later i found a hostel and asked if it was the right one. they said no, i had to go up a few more blocks, to the left a few blocks, and up more. i did that and didnt find anything. it was very hot, my backpack was heavy and i was tired and frustrated, so i went back to the hostel to stay there for the first night and find the other place later. well, the "hostel" that gave me directions was $70 a night and only had single rooms, so i cancelled my plan. i tossed my big pack into some bushes and headed back to town to ask around there. the tourist office was closed (i didnt see it open once during the 5 days i was there) so i went to an internet cafe. i got more concrete directions and went back to get my backpack and headed off. it ened up being about a kilometer outside town, but i found it. very basic, cold water, broken computers, but it had a kitchen and a TV and it was half the price of the next cheapest in town.

i settled in and had a couple days of relaxation and easy beach going. then i met a really annoying swedish guy, and we went on the mission of all missions. he said there was a big fort (the kind people battle over in war) about 5 kilometers away (3 miles, or so) and we should walk there. i was up for it, even though he was annoying. we left at two or so, and walked along the beach for about 2 hours, then asked someone where to go. they said follow the road up there until you get to route 9, then take that and you'll see signs. so we did that, another half hour or so of walking, and started seeing signs. we followed the signs down a dirt road, through a campground, until the signs stopped. i asked someone where to head next. they said we had to walk all the way back to the main road and around to the fort. but let me explain something about south americans. if you ask one person you'll one answer, and someone else will give you a completely different answer, so you have to ask maybe 3 or 4 people to get an idea of where to go, and its best if they work in a shop or something, because they probably know the area better. we found someone who worked in a shop and for us answer number two was, "oh you're close, head up that road, take a left, and you'll be there soon." we went with that answer. we found the fort, which was massive, but all locked up. at this point it had been about 3 hours since we left the hostel. we walked around the fort and found a place to climb the wall. so we both climbed up the wall, saw some security guards walking around, and quickly scurried back down. there were cactuses where we were walking and the swede had never seen a cactus in the wild, and tried to pick the "fruit" that was growing on it. the "fruit" ended up being a pouch of those tiny thorns that you cant see but hurt like hell when they are stuck in your finger. he spent a while working on getting all those out, while i tried to pull one of the thorns off the cactus itself, and in the process got a cactus thorn splinter, which is still in my finger and hurts like hell.

we planned on taking the bus back but learned the bus didnt come during the week of the "off season" months, which includes march. so we started walking back. we got to a point were we could take the road or the beach. at this point it wasnt dark, but the sun was getting to the setting point. we decided on the beach, but we had to walk through a kind of wooded area to get there. ok, that will be fun, we though. its going fine until we get to a really thick part. i cant explain what happened next, because ive never seen anything like it, but ill try. the trees and plants were so thick you couldnt just walk through them. fortunatly for us, most of the trees in this part were very dead and dry, so we were physically kicking apart braches of trees and breaking through dead trees to keep going toward the sound of the ocean. we had to army crawl to get through some parts. now its getting darker. not dark, but the sun is setting, and pretty quickly. after fighting to get through one part, we would just find ourselves facing the same thing again, but it seemed to get thicker and thicker every time. there were parts we actually had to find our way AROUND, because without multiple machetes it wouldnt be impossible to get through. it took a solid 45 minutes untill we got to sand. and at that point we were scraped up and bruised and in pain. we headed toward the beach, which we could finally see. its dark now. the last part we have to get through are some tall reeds, which end up being about 8 feet tall, and so thick--and sharp, i actually cut my hand on them--that we couldnt push through. i was leading at this point. so i reached up and started pulling them down, and after i pulled enough of them low enough, i jumped horizontally on them, using my body weight to pass through. we swam through the rest like that until we could walk, and promptly found we were in a swamp, and sunk in the mud and water past our ankles. but we finally got out and onto the beach. then it was just another 2 hours back to town. we ended up getting to the hostel at about 11. upon arriving we poured hydrogen peroxide over our wounds, and made pasta. after 7 hours of walking we figured it was a solid 10-15 kilometes that we walked. insane.

the next day was grey and colder and wicked windy, but we headed to the beach anyway. people were fishing off the rocks where all the waves break, and i was convinced they wouldnt catch anything--what fish swim in that part of the ocean, right?--but one kid caught like 5 fish in 20 minutes or so of us watching. we headed back to the hostel and BBQ'd with some canadians and french people and a german. the next day i awoke to steady rain, which sounded nice on the metal roof. but it didnt stop. in fact, it just got worse. it rained and rained and stormed and was windy and cold all day and all night. in fact, it was so bad at night we lost power quite a few times, but it didnt stop the argentines from showing us more drinking games. im in a different town now, and headed back to buenos aires tomorrow. i think i can find cheap sandals there, which im still missing since my camping adventure.