Our Week In Pinamar

Hello everyone!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and will have a great New Year’s!

Nikki and I have had an absolutely wonderful time since our last blog post when we about to leave for Pinamar. Our trip to Pinamar was really easy and relaxing. We took a 5 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Pinamar and it was so easy! We were able to pack up our bags the night before and walk to the bus station. Once there we boarded a very new looking bus and were impressed to see the seats were designed like lazy-boy recliner chairs. Each seat could recline almost into a full bed. Nikki and I took full advantage of this and we slept about 4 of the 5-hour bus ride! I slept better on that bus that I have on any plane ride. I have decided that for shortish distances, I prefer to travel like that.

When we woke up from our nap and found ourselves in Pinamar, we were so excited to see the beach! We got off the bus and retrieved our large backpacking backpacks and proceeded to walk into town to our Airbnb for the week. The walk was about 1.5 miles but we loved being outside and feeling the cooler ocean air. We were so tired of the pollution in Buenos Aires that the fresh air was a rejuvenating experience. When we arrived at the Airbnb we were thrilled to see it was only a 3 minute walk to the beach! We chose this place due to its proximity to the beach but being able to see the ocean so close to our apartment was amazing. Unfortunately, the proximity to the beach was the best attribute of our place. The apartment was ok but we didn’t like how grimy it felt. All the dishes and cookware felt sticky or was rusty. We quickly decided we would not be cooking much as home. Even the floors and the bathroom didn’t seem clean but we could endure the grime for the week since the price was decent and we would be at the beach most of the time anyways. We proceeded to quickly unpack our backpacks and head for the beach!

The day we arrived wasn’t a terribly hot day, around 65 degrees F or 18 degrees C, so we decided just to read on the beach and enjoy the evening. Nikki and I have both been reading a lot and have loved it! So far Nikki has finished reading Americanah and is making her way through Melinda Gates’ book and I have finished reading A Brave New World and am now reading The Goldfinch. If anyone has any book suggestions, we would love to hear them!

The next two days were spent lounging on the beach and enjoying all it had to offer! The beach at Pinamar is a huge stretch of beautiful sandy beaches. Almost everything about it was perfect! The sand was silk smooth, the water was warm enough to swim in for hours and the weather was hot! The only thing we didn’t like about the beach was the amount of people. The whole length of the beach was crowded with people since we were there during the holidays, but we made do. Each day we were able to secure ourselves a little spot to relax and swim. We swam and read and enjoyed the summer weather. Unfortunately, we don’t have many pictures of these days since we decided to leave our phones in the apartment. We had heard, things get stolen at the beach, but we never saw anything like that while we were there.

On the third and fourth days there, a storm rolled through that dropped the temperatures and brought some wind and rain. Instead of lounging on the beach, we took the opportunity to wear a couple more layers and walk the length of the beach. On the third day, we took off down the beach to the north and decided to walk till we were either tired or the beach ended. We walked for about 2 miles just talking and practicing Spanish. The beach didn’t seem to have an end in sight. We were just about the turn back but then we saw a bunch of kite surfers just around the corner. We were both interested in the kite surfers so we kept walking to check them out. Sure enough, just around the corner was a group of about 20 kite surfers. The kite surfers were so cool to watch! Some of them were jumping 10-15 feet out of the water and doing all sorts of flips and tricks while others were on surf boards and were surfing some decent sized waves. We stayed and watched the surfers for about an hour. We commented on how cool the sport was and how we have always wanted to try it. It was right then that we decided we would try it! When we got back to the house, we would try and find a kite surfing school. Actually, one of our wedding presents from Pete, Maureen, Erin and Luke (Nikki’s uncle, aunt and cousins in South Africa) was to take surfing lessons and we thought this would be a great place to use those! That evening we found a kite surfing school, phoned them and had lessons set up for the next day! We were so excited but also a little nervous for the lessons. Unfortunately, the next brought even more rain than the day before and we had to postpone our lessons another day. Instead of lessons, we spent the day inside reading but we did manage to walk along the beach again.

The following day, we started our kite surfing lessons! We decided a 4-hour lesson would be a good start to judge if we liked the sport or not. Of the 4 hours, the first hour was mainly about the safety features of the kite. This was a great way to start because both of us were a bit nervous handling the kite. From seeing the kite surfers the previous days, we knew how much power the kit could produce. We soon learned it is really easy to stay safe with the kite. At any point when you feel like you have too much power in the kite, all you have to do is let go of the bar and the kite loses all power. So as long as we didn’t panic and pull the bar in, we were going to be totally safe. The next hour of lessons involved learning how to control the kite and how to walk with it. At first this was hard to do but it seemed that once we had practiced for 15 minutes each, something clicked, and we were much more comfortable with the control of the kite. We continued to practice control of the kite for the 3^rd hour and then we finished off the 4^th hour by controlling the kite with some power. In order to get power from the kite, you must dip the kit to the ground and then pull it back up to make an 8 shape. While doing this, you can pull in slightly with the bar to generate power. We practiced this motion a lot and at the end of the lesson, we were sitting on our butts and pulling ourselves along the beach with the kite. This was a super cool sensation because we could feel the power of the kite but also felt in control. After the 4-hour lesson, we had finished all the beach training and if we wanted to continue, we could move into the water. Both of us were tremendously excited and decided to plan another day of lessons. We planned to continue lessons in two day’s time where we would go to a lagoon to practice in the water.

The following day was another beautiful day for swimming and reading at the beach which we took full advantage of. We brought a large umbrella with us along with some snacks an we were able to spend the whole day on the beach.

The next day was our last day in Pinamar and our last kite surfing lessons. The lessons involved using the kite to pull ourselves through the water. This exercise taught us the best way to harness the power of the wind and made us more comfortable about how to control the power. Eventually we were able to pull ourselves superman style through the water with ease. We both loved the feeling of gliding through the water but were really excited to try it with a board. Eventually, with the last hour of our lessons, we learned how to do a water start with the board. This was by far the hardest lesson because it incorporated all of the previous lessons. For a water start, we would walk the kite and the board into the water. This involved controlling the kite with one hand, which we practiced on shore. Once in the water, we once again had to control the kite in a certain area with one hand while using the other hand to put the board on our feet. The board was just like a normal wakeboard except it was a little thinner and has slip-in bindings instead of full boot bindings. We both found it extremely hard to watch and control the kite while trying to get the board on all while floating in the water. In the end our instructor had to help us steady the kite while we got the board on. Once the board was on, to initiate a water start we did the same 8 shaped motion with the kite to generate some power. We kept that figure eight motion going until we had enough power to stand up on the board. I went first and found success pretty quickly since it is very similar to getting up on a wakeboard. I think our instructor was very surprised at how well we did since we are both comfortable on boards. Nikki also found similar success! Initially she had the motion of the kite down but needed to be more aggressive with it to generate enough power. Her confidence grew and she dove the kite more aggressively. With one big dive, the kite propelled her forward and she got up! Once again, our instructor yelled with delight! He was so happy and proud that we both managed to get up on our first day trying! We were only practicing water starts, so when we got up we were only allowed to ride for about a couple of seconds before we had to stop and try to get up in the opposite direction, but the feel of kite boarding hooked us! It was like wakeboarding and snowboarding, but you have all the control. You have total control on your speed and your direction which makes it very fun! Now Nikki and I are deciding how much we want to continue to kite surf for the rest of our trip. We are considering buying a full kit surfing setup and continuing to learn for the rest of the year but it is a big investment and we need to look into how much we would be able to do it and how much room we have in our camper. We absolutely loved our lessons and we want to thank Pete, Maureen, Erin and Luke for the opportunity to try it! It is something we both have wanted to try for a long time, and it will be something we never forget!

On Christmas morning we caught an 8:30 am bus back to Buenos Aires but not before one last adventure in Pinamar. Upon leaving the Airbnb, we were told to just leave the keys in the apartment; all fine and well because that is what we had always done. We are always nervous about this since the door automatically locks, so if we forget anything we can’t get back in. This created another problem that we hadn’t thought about. The entrance to the apartment was inside the apartment complex and the complex had a door of its own that also needed a key to open from the inside. So, we had just closed the door of the apartment to leave and realized we needed the key to open the complex door. We immediately knew we did something very bad. We were stuck in the hallway between the locked apartment door and the locked complex door and it was 7:00 am on Christmas morning. We quickly took our bags off and ran around the complex trying to find a way out but there wasn’t. It felt like being in a jail cell. The only possible way out was a small window we could climb through, but it then involved jumping down a 5 to 7-foot ledge and neither of our big backpacks could fit through the window. Slightly panicking that we would miss our bus, we narrowed our options to 2 choices: call the owner of the apartment at 7 am on Christmas morning or start knocking on other doors in the apartment in hopes that someone could let us out. Luckily, we still could reach the Wifi in our apartment and I called the host, who by the way, only spoke Spanish. I was so relieved when he picked up! In a slightly out of breath, slighting thrilled outburst I described our situation in Spanish. He just laughed at me and said, “Puedo estar alla en cinco minutos” “I can be there in 5 minutes.” We both let out a huge sigh of relief and patiently waited for him. Sure enough, 7 minutes later, he arrived on his bike and let out us of our temporary prison. We thanked him profusely before starting our 1.5 mile walk back to the bus station.

Due to our fiasco, we were running about 15 minutes later than planned and we had to maintain a brisk walk/ slow jog to make our bus. We just thought of it as backpacking training and thankfully made it to the bus station right as the bus pulled in. We were both dripping with sweat but so happy to have made the bus. That morning could have gone a lot worse; but we made it and took another 4-hour nap on our way back to Buenos Aires.