Nov 22. Puerto Madryn to Las Grutas
With just a short, two-and-a-half-hour drive ahead, we drove back up to the plateau to the familiar, endless desert brown grass and wind farms, although now at least we were graced with several hills. We climbed steadily through a few rock formations and then back down into Sierra Grande, a very small town.
Our destination for the night was an Airbnb beach house in Las Grutas, a resort town on the Gulf of San Matias known for its relatively warm water in the Patagonian summer. We found the place in a neighborhood of mostly unoccupied vacation homes set back from the water. This definitely turned out to be the most questionable rental we’ve had yet, a two-story, very shoddily constructed ‘house’ with the living quarters above and two small bedrooms below. Knox remarked that the stairs were absolutely not up to code, and I could list several other issues, but I won’t. The ocean breeze was blowing off the Atlantic and the guy who met us to give us the keys suggested we check out the beach, a 10-minute ride away, and he highly recommended a spot for fresh seafood, Terramare.
So, we unloaded and headed out. When I booked the Airbnb, my only intention was to stay in Las Grutas to break up the very long trip across the country from east to west, our next stop being Villa La Angostura, near Bariloche. What I did not realize then, nor when we arrived, was that we had landed in a beach resort town that fills up with tens of thousands of tourists in December and January; but, at this time of year, late November, there was no one in town. Again, it seemed, we had the whole place to ourselves.
Until…we found TerraMare, which was full to the brim with retired tourists from Córdoba. So it was the two of us and many friendly, lovely, talkative, mature women from Córdoba. A fantastic time! In fact, the place was a dive and a gem…a plethora of photos on the wall of Maradona and Messi of course, plus the Stones, Freddy Mercury, the Argentine rock sensation, Charly Garcia, and, oddly, an old promo photo of the 60s TV show Get Smart, that I watched in syndication when I was a kid and loved. And the food, especially the salmon empanadas and the cazuela de mariscos, which featured a ton of mussels, was fantastic. After lunch, we took the stairs down from the sea wall to the beach. In sum, I knew I missed seafood, living in Mendoza, and so we enthusiastically welcomed the meal, but I had forgotten how much I miss the ocean. And this afternoon we were treated to an absolutely gorgeous gift of one, as you can see from the photos!
THE LINK TO THE PUERTO MADRYN to LAS GRUTAS IS HERE:
