Villa Gessel

I went to the beach at the weekend. To a little place called Villa Gessel on the atlantic coast. I headed out with my amigos Meg and Edwin. Meg is a writer/master storyteller from Oregan, USA and all round cool chic. Edwin is from Holland, studying Spanish in Beunos Aires and all round cool bloke. Meg was heading south, Edwin wanted a weekend at the beach and I just wanted to see something of Argentina besides BA!
We had a five hour bus journey down there Friday afternoon, which seems rather short in comparison to some of the epic bus trips I have taken so far! We arrived early evening, checked into our hotel and headed straight out for an early dinner, and by early I mean 9pm! We found a little restaurant called Zutra for dinner. After noticing some rather interesting art work on the walls we realised there was a distinct Karma Sutra theme going on! After some good wine, good conversation and a whole lotta food we headed back to the hotel for some sleep in anticipation of our big day at the beach.
We awoke to a beautiful day and headed straight to the beach. The beach was not fantastic, at least not compared to the beaches at home, but still, it was nice to be on the sand and in the sun! Edwin and Meg denied my offers of sunscreen and both were sunburnt at the end off the day. I was a little smug with my non sunburned skin!
After a little siesta (at 9!) we ventured out for food, vino and more great conversation (think I already mentioned that Meg is a master storyteller!!) We called an early night at around 1pm and headed back to the hotel to sleep. We had planned on going out to see the Villa Gessel nightlife, but we weren't up for it after all that sun!
Here's where the story gets interesting. And as Meg would say "let me break it down for ya..."

1am we go to sleep
4:45am I am woken by the sound of something being dragged on the floor. In my just woken state I think it is Meg dragging her backpack outside. Then I hear Edwin call out "hello, hello". I look over and he is sitting up in bed. Next thing he has shot out of bed towards the door. I quickly get up and find Edwin standing at the door (in his underwear!), Meg's backpack at his feet. I'm starting to realise that someone had come into our room to try and steal Megs backpack!
4:46am Meg has awoken at this point and we are just looking at each other in shock. Edwin drags Meg's backpack back in to the room and we sit on our beds, heads in our hands, in disbelief at what had just happened!
4:47am Edwin starts to explain what happened. He woke from the light coming from the open door and saw someone standing in the middle of the room. At first he thinks it is Meg, but when the guy starts dragging the backpack out he gets a view of Megs bed and sees that she's still in it. He calls out, chases the guy, the guy drops the bag and bolts off. This is the point that I woke up. Meg, who had previously been lamenting the weight of her backpack, is now very glad that she overpacked! Personally, I pity the poor sucker who tries to run off with mine in the middle of the night!
4:49am We sit around going over the event. Meg asks questions, ''what did he look like?'' Edwin answers ''like a normal guy, wearing a grey top, grey pants, got a really good look at him, actually he was kinda cute!''
4:50am We discover the robbers shoes at the door along with Edwins. It appears he had intended to swap his for Edwins. Edwin is not suprised, they are pretty cool shoes after all!
4:52am We discuss whether we should wake up the owners of the hotel and call the police but we're thinking that since nothing was taken and he was long gone that there wouldn't really be any point. Then we start thinking we should take a really good look to make sure nothing actually was taken. That's when Edwin realises his two mobile phones are gone, taken straight from the bedside table not even a metre from his head! He didn't take his watch though which was right next to the phones. We'd already decided the robber was not that bright so we're not suprised by this.
4:55am We go downstairs to wake the owners to tell them what has gone down. This is quite a task. The story has to be gone over and over, they come upstairs to check out the room, then we go back downstairs, go over the story some more and then some more, and then some more...luckily Meg speaks pretty good spanish. Otherwise it would have been some game of charades. Five words, first word, two syllables, sounds like...
5:45am We go to the police station. Which turns out to be about 100 metres away! We have to wait for the police officer in charge to wake up (he´s having a snooze out the back!) before a report can be done. The report takes all of five mintures whilst he fills in his template. He really doesn't seem to give a toss that a guy had broken into our room whilst we were in it and it's obvious no further action will be taken. We're very sorry to have woken him.
6:50 am Back in our room we go over the events again. I think we're still all in a bit of shock, completely stunned that someone would would be so brazen. "How rude!'' I think is the exact term that Edwin used! The room that we were staying in was tiny, not enough room to swing a cat in, which means that when the man was in our room he was never more than a couple of metres away from anyone of us. This thought makes Meg and I feel sick.
7am We go to sleep finally....
When we finally get out of bed having caught up on our interrupted sleep, it was raining and it becomes apparent that our romantic idea of a weekend at the beach has not turned out so great! Whilst waiting for the bus back to Buenos Aires Edwin starts singing, " We gotta get out of this place" I couldn't have agreed more...

Edwin and Meg

The three of us, our last day together as Meg is going south and Edwin and I back to BA.