Cycling across the Pampas

Welcome to Paradise

A giant sign welcomes us after leaving the dusty sand road we took on the borders of Villa Gesell and which led us to this paradise after almost six kilometers.

Mar de las Pampas is a beautiful young bathing resort on the Atlantic Coast. For a few years, it has managed to build an identity of its own, which makes it stand out from the rest of the seaside cities. Here, chemistry has the exact dose of forest and Argentinian sea. This is breathed along its streets, its sandhills and even inside the cabins and hotels.


Much More than Two

There is no doubt that the best vehicle to see this small town is a bicycle. On two wheels and more slowly than on other kinds of vehicles, it is possible to observe everything with enough time to appreciate the surroundings with the necessary quietness and caution so as not to miss anything. The forest and the streets that get deep into it and get lost or forked were the first paths we took as we pedaled. The idea was to choose between the straight roads and the bends, which turned out to be endless and even have a dead end. This made everything more beautiful.

The observation of nature in its purest state was another attraction in our tour. The sounds turned stranger and stranger and striking at the same time. The most outstanding were the shy singing of the birds, the hares running around or the cracking of the pine cones as they fell from the high pines onto the ground. The presence of the wind performed an important task too. These minimal sounds are not usually perceived by the human ear when the chosen vehicle is a car.


The Charm of Getting Lost

The first street to access Mar de las Pampas (coming from Villa Gesell) is called Las Acacias and, once we went along the first few meters, we could already prove we were both literally and materially in another world.

According to some people, the geography of Mar de las Pampas is untidy. For others, it is a tempting invitation to tour around its streets, which lead anywhere, no matter where, how or why. Its urban layout does not follow any kind of logic. Most of its streets change their name one block after the other. Streets called “José Pagano”, “San Andrés” and “Alberto Williams” confuse the “attentive” visitors, as they both start and end on the same block.

In fact, the Mar del as Pampas urban planning project began as a layout of quadrangular blocks. This choice did not take into consideration the irregular scenery of the moving sandhills covered by woods and, ever since 1971, when the government of the Province of Buenos Aires approved the design, the urbanization was wisely adapted to the local natural surroundings.

Thus, since the late 1970s, reaching this quiet and mild place means letting oneself be carried away by the aroma of the trees, strolling around its sandy streets, enjoying silence and getting lost once and again, forever.

And all this gets much better if you are on a bike.