La Plata

Day 4:
February 9, 2013

Hey guys it's Livia blogging here today! We were all really tired after staying up late at the carnival last night so we slept the whole bus ride down to Mar de Plata which is a city in the Pampas region. The Pampas is a region in Argentina that is right by Buenos Aires and is well known for its awesome beaches. It took us about an hour to get to La Plata via bus.

The first thing we did after was take a taxi fifteen minutes out to the Caballos a La Par, which is a  family owned horse ranch. They give people free two hour horseback riding lessons and it was a lot of fun! The horses were all really beautiful and well taken care of. Our instructor was really friendly and helpful, and before you knew it we were all off riding through the forest. It was so relaxing trotting through the forest on a horse. The horses were also so tame and well behaved, and afterwards we were allowed to feed them carrots and sugar cubes. I wish I could have taken my horse home but I don't think horses can get past airport security!

Afterwards we returned to the city of La Plata and went to the famous museum there. The Museo de la Plata opened in 1888 and it's collection has been growing ever since. They have everything there from fossils, bugs, artifacts, sculptures, and paintings. We walked around checking everything out for awhile. In the bug exhibit dead bugs were pinned everywhere for people to view. I thought that was really sad and gross to see all these dead bugs for display, but Sydney on the other hand seemed fascinated by all the beetles at different stages of development. Personally my favorite part was all the fossils. They had an original fossil of the Titanosaurus and it was amazing!

After we were finished exploring the museum we still had some time left in the day to visit the beaches of La Plata. The area by the main entrance to the beach was insanely crowded! We managed to grab a small chunk of sand to put down on our towels. We only stayed for an hour or two because it was so crowded it was hard to have a good time. We then gathered up our stuff and headed over to the nearest bus station. Our next stop is Peninsula Valdes and it's going to be a long seventeen hour bus ride to get there.