Carneval in South America is huge and Argentina is no exception. We went to Gualeguaychu with almost our entire group from W&M (Maya was with her parents in BsAs).
This trip was very haphazardly planned (we didn't have a place to sleep) and we departed from La Plata early Saturday morning with tents and the bare essentials and boarded the best bus i have ever been on. Argentina has an incredible bus system and the seats on the buses made a 15 hour bus ride to Mendoza seem like a possibility in the future. We got out of the bus in Gualeguaychu and it finally hit me how many people came to Gualeguaychu for Carneval. We took a taxi to the river and were instantly surrounded by lots of people on very small beaches
However, we had more important things on our mind than joining the party, mainly finding a place to camp. We crossed the river to the less popular side and walked around for about two hours asking different campsite if there was room before deciding to stop at a restaurant and ask if they knew of any places we could camp. I was so amazed at how willing the owner was to help us. He jumped on his motorcycle and returned in about 20 minutes with the name of a campsite that still had room for tents. 
After setting up our campsite and checking out the beach for a while, we returned to the restaurant that we stopped at earlier in the day for an early dinner. We had a killer parrillada with more meat than you can imagine. We had the traditional pork, chicken, beef, chorizo and then a few meats that I’m not really sure what part of the cow the came from. Not all of them were great, but it was a uniquely argentine experience. The best part of the meal, was by far the puppies that the waitress brought out. There is nothing better than a puppy break in the middle of a delicious dinner. 
The rest of the weekend consisted mostly of going to the beach, eating whatever we could find close to the beach/campsite and a combination of going out/sleeping at night. It was fun and the beach parties are crazy (here are a few pictures, including the boys dancing on stage with the DJ/party starter) but I think I could have done Gualeguaychu in 2-3 days rather than 4. I’m glad that our group was able to experience Carneval and get to know each other a better but the comfortable seats on the bus and finally getting home felt great after 4 days of camping in the heat and eating whatever we could find in convenience stores.
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