honeymoon dia 26 – puerto madryn

needing to get the rental car back by 9am, we sadly had to leave our beach campsite. pounded out the kilometers on the dusty rough roads (sorry rental car company) and made it back to puerto madryn nearly in time. the owners (husband and wife) were nice and we chatted for awhile.

the husband commented on how he worked for walmart in the US years ago and learned a lot. in argentina, no one plans ahead. in the US, that’s all we do. in my observation, this is certainly true with all the construction elements i’ve seen throughout the country. no forethought of how things will interact with one another. need a drain? punch a random hole in the shower floor. how’s that toilet work? i don’t know, let’s stick some piping here. sidewalks? make ‘em level everywhere, and then throw in a bunch of stair steps to account for the fact that we’re on a sloped hill. one thing is true: there is no uniformity in the building world here.

we walked from the car rental place to our hostel. i caught up on blogs and carrie did more planning (she’s so great). in the afternoon, we took a 3 hour walk on the beach. judging by your entrance into the city of puerto madryn, you’d think it was a drab, industrialized waterfront. nope. instead, it was an incredibly nice beach that spanned for miles. lots of people out enjoying it on this midweek day.

we took a swim in the inviting water. there were almost no waves despite being 90% open to the rest of the atlantic. upon submersion of our feet, we noticed lots of little jellies. not jellyfish, but jellies. we haven’t looked up the name yet, but they were nearly 100% translucent save for small lines that would occasionally change to neon pink. how awesome! this clear little blob of jelly is. if you’ve seen the movie the abyss, you get a sense for it. further walking along the beach showed hundreds or thousands of these jellies stranded in the sand. occasionally you’d squish one in your feet if not paying close attention. the kids love ‘em. they stand in the water, scoop up the jellies, and throw them at each other. never witnessed anyone getting hit, but if they did, i imagine the jellies would explode. heck, when they get tossed, the jellies already partially rip apart. i feel bad for the jellies since they seem like peaceful creatures, but apparently the kids have yet to decimate the population based on the abundance you will find in the waters here.

average costs:
swimming in the atlantic: free