San Clemente del Tuyu at dawn

The 'night' was over and we felt... well, how should I say... just tired and crumpled... and cold.

Just cold. Compared to Buenos Aires, the 21 degrees we encountered upon our arrival were really chilly.

So, jacket on and off we go. After a bit of looking around, we quickly found a bus that took us to the city center of the 8000-inhabitant seaside town within 20 minutes. 6 o'clock in the morning.

Somewhere in San Clemente del Tuyu, we discussed our next steps, but someone else made the decision for us again.

Our stomach. But you should trust your gut feeling. We did that too and headed to the beach.

Upon arrival, we were greeted with a fantastic view of the sea, including the sunrise.

With some bread in one hand and water in the other (I know, it sounds like prison), we had a cozy breakfast on the beach.

Even though we like to separate ourselves from tourists because we are not the typical tourists, we still had to get some information first.

Well, where could we do that better than at the tourist information. The place where some of our illusions were shattered...

For example, that you can camp in the Punta Rasa Nature Reserve. Thank you for these fake news, Google Maps...

Also, that a campsite with 80/90 pesos per night would be satisfactory turned out to be a mistake.

Instead, we had the choice between 360 pesos and 400 pesos per night for 3 people.

Of course, we chose the cheaper option and made our way there. To the other end of the city.

The sun was almost at its highest point by now and beat down on us with all its force.

The distance was already considerable, but it felt three times as far with 17 kg on my back and the sun beating down on my neck.

Arriving at the campsite 'El Tala', a young, thank God, English-speaking woman welcomed us and immediately showed us a cheap spot.

Shady, between several big trees. Perfect!

We immediately started setting up our tents. It caused some confusion with my tent at first, but once it was clear how the inner tent connected to the outer tent, it went quickly.

With Conny and Hilmar's tent, it seemed easier. Now everything was set up and we proceeded to have a little orange breakfast, which we still had from my trip to Tigre.

The rest of the day was relatively calm, except for the late afternoon and evening.

In the afternoon, the little daughter of our neighbors on one side came over to me from time to time and gave me a stone.

This went on for a while, until I got into a conversation with her father. He also spoke a bit of English. His name was Santiago, his wife Lucia, and his daughter Olivia.

Towards the end of the conversation, Santiago suggested that we have lunch or dinner together sometime.

I immediately agreed and internally rejoiced at how quickly we had made contacts.

But that was not the only ones for this evening...

Because a little later, a little boy and his father (neighbors from the other side) suddenly stood at our table while we were drinking wine from a plastic cup. I think that has style :)
The father, Frankiano, explained to us that his son, Tiziano, was learning German at the moment.

It was obvious that they had identified us as Germans...

Tiziano showed us what he could do with a nod of approval from his father. Greetings and a few small sentences.
But hey, has any of you been able to speak another language at the age of 7?
Of course, we also got to the numbers from 1 to 20. It worked perfectly 👌
I thought to myself: Well then I can show him that I'm also pretty good at the numbers in Spanish.
I started right away, but had a couple of hiccups, which made the little guy grin.

The ice was broken. It happened pretty quickly.

During the evening, we also met a Ukrainian named Pavlo through Fabiano, Cecilia, and little Tiziano.

However, there was a problem:

Pavlo was deaf and tried to communicate with us in sign language.
But why do we have the good old Google Translate. It doesn't translate signs, but it does translate Spanish into Cyrillic.

Another hurdle taken!

Now that we could communicate, he asked us to follow him to his tent.

So why not?

We took a seat and he disappeared into the tent for a few minutes.
The three of us sat there somewhat confused.
Pavlo came out of his tent again, but this time with a pair of earrings in his hand.
On a piece of paper, it said 50 pesos.
We quickly signaled to him that we didn't have any cash with us.

To be honest, it wasn't even a lie.
Proudly, he then showed us his passport.
Ours, in comparison, looked pathetic. His was full. Up to the top.

And so we chatted into the night with our newly made friends...