Buenos Aires has a lot going for itself and takes advantage of most of Argentina’s resources, including my favorite combo of steaks from the Pampas and wine from Mendoza. But there is one blatantly absent attraction that Buenos Aires has utterly failed to present. In a city next on Río de la Plata, I have yet to see a beach.
Buenos Aires was founded partly to export materials across the Atlantic and was eventually recognized as the official port city of Spanish South America by the Spanish crown. So the port is a pretty big deal here. But still, all I want is one little plot of land with a view of the water, is that so much to ask? I live under a mile away from the water, yet I have never seen it; there’s no reason to. I don’t even think I can get there on foot. An airport stands in the way.
This frustration was kept under the lid until last week when I was in Chile for my second spring break this year (thanks Southern Hemisphere!). The first leg of my Chilean adventure was in Viña del Mar and Valparaiso, a small beach town an hour east of Santiago by bus. Immediately, I fell in love with both towns. We stayed in a hostel in each village — 15 minutes apart by bus — and saw one of Chile’s major ports in Valparaiso, some of the beaches of Viña del Mar and the sand dunes to the north.
After trying to blend into the crazy and hectic Porteño lifestyle of Buenos Aires, Chile provided the perfect balance of beach lifestyle and vibrant nightlife. We met up with a friend of a friend and bussed up to the sand dunes within the first hours of arriving in Chile. Of every incredible place that I’ve visited so far, the sand dunes were the first to legitimately shock me. I expected the enormity of Iguazu Falls, towering mountains while crossing the Andes and utter flatness bussing through the Pampas. But I had no idea what to expect when visiting Chile besides seeing the Pacific Ocean. Sitting atop the tallest dune at sunset, I could’ve been convinced we were on the North African coast above the Mediterranean instead of in South America.
So there we sat, bottle of Chilean wine in hand (it doesn’t beat Mendoza) to watch the sunset. After a rushed morning in Mendoza barely catching our bus, after bearing through some horrible straight to DVD movie, after freezing and boiling on the same bus ride, we made it to to Chile in order to sit on a pile of sand. And I was OK with that. Much more than OK.
And I realized, in that moment overlooking the sand dunes into the Pacific, that I missed Lake Michigan. I miss seeing the water every morning from my dorm room window. I miss running on the lake fill seeing the Chicago skyline in front of me and the water the the left. Northwestern may be hectic, but a day on the lake fill always slows everything down. Life really is calmer by a body of water.
Buenos Aires can be the same way as Northwestern — things to do, people to see, parties to get to — but I’m still looking for my lake fill.
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