Mar de las Pampas, the Tortoise Next Door

Mar de las Pampas lies next to Las Gaviotas. Though they are both part of the District of Villa Gesell, the locals have begun to demand autonomy for different reasons in the last few years.

As far as we were concerned, we were staying at Las Gaviotas and it occurred to us that we could walk up to one of the new seaside cities in the Province of Buenos Aires.

It is said that everything can be forgotten at this location. The sea and the forest in the right dose and an architectural style in which wood and stone overshadow concrete are the ingredients used by this small urban settlement to make us feel as if we were in Patagonia.

It is true that Mar de las Pampas resembles many other cities on the Atlantic shore. Yet, it still preserves some foundational attributes that preserve the quietness of the region, even in summer, when visited by thousands of tourists.

A local neighbor took pride in declaring that cell phones do not work in Mar de las Pampas. The fact is the city authorities have decided not to install antennas to prevent the whirlpool of immediacy from working at this place.

“At times Mar de las Pampas is a short journey back in time to the days on which nothing vibrated and no one could find us”, the local concluded.

Its commercial center, its beaches, its recreation venues, its streets, everything is different. Mar de las Pampas is the first city in the country to have chosen the slogan "live without haste”.

The founding neighbors and those who settled down there after them assure they would rather be the tortoise in the fable than the hare. That is how they enjoy things best. Visitors just need to tour around to find out this is true. Tortoises can discover unthinkable things that go unnoticed for hares.