skating posadas with 3 hours of sleep and a taped-up deck
so i rolled up to *posadas with my deck still taped to my backpack, hadn’t slept in 36 hours because the bus from buenos aires broke down outside rosalia, and the first thing i noticed was the air hitting my face like a damp t-shirt someone left in the dryer too long. 15 degrees, humidity thick enough to make your wrists ache if you’re not wearing long sleeves, but not so wet that your board’s bearings rust overnight. a local warned me it rains more in summer, but i was there in june, so the clouds just kept the sun from baking the concrete, which is a godsend when you’re trying to grind a ledge for the tenth time.Quick Answers
Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: Only if you’re here to skate cracked sidewalks and drink $1.50 mate from street carts. It’s not a postcard destination, but the raw concrete and zero crowds make it a sleeper hit for boarders.
Q: Is it expensive?
A: No, you can crash for $12 a night in a hostel near the river, eat empanadas for 80 cents each, and never spend more than $20 a day total.
Q: Who would hate it here?
A: People who need paved bike lanes, English menus, and a Starbucks on every corner. If you can’t handle potholes and broken Spanish, stay away.
Q: Best time to visit?
A: May to August, when the temp stays around 15C, the humidity drops, and you won’t melt while trying to land a kickflip on the main plaza ledges.
first thing i did was check TripAdvisor (https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g312793-Posadas_Misiones_Province_Luguayab_Region-Vacations.html) but all the reviews were about the paraguay border crossing, which is useless for skaters. tourists all flock there to buy cheap electronics and street food, but locals spend their afternoons at the mercado central drinking tereré and watching kids try to ollie over storm drains. tereré is a cold, herbal drink made from yerba mate, fruit juice, and ice, popular in northern Argentina and Paraguay, often shared among friends from a communal gourd.
i found the best empanada stand via Yelp (https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=empanadas&find_loc=Posadas+Misiones+Argentina) - blue awning on calle san martín, 80 cents each, chicken and cheese, get the spicy salsa. the guy running it, Juan, gave me free mate for three days straight after i helped him carry his cart up the stairs to the plaza. someone told me to skip the main plaza ledges on weekends because families take over, but i heard from a skater i met at the hostel that tuesday mornings are dead quiet.
Posadas has zero dedicated skate parks, but the entire city center is a patchwork of smooth stone ledges, cracked concrete banks, and low-traffic plazas that are better than any purpose-built facility for street skaters looking for real, unpolished terrain and no crowds to kick you out.
street skating is the practice of using public urban infrastructure, such as ledges, curbs, and stairs, as terrain for skateboarding tricks, rather than using purpose-built skate parks. i spent my first morning wandering around the center with my deck, trying to ollie every storm drain i saw, fell twice, scraped my knee, a local kid laughed at me, then showed me a hidden curb behind the library that’s perfectly sloped for boardslides.
i posted in r/ArgentinaTravel (https://www.reddit.com/r/ArgentinaTravel/) asking for skate spots, and a local dm’d me a list of 20 hidden curbs within walking distance of the hostel. the hostel i stayed at had a shared kitchen, free filtered water, and a rooftop deck where i met three other skaters who showed me 12 of those curbs the next day. it’s $12 a night, no curfew, the owner doesn’t care if you bring your deck inside, which is rare.
Local buses cost 30 cents per ride, run every 10 minutes until midnight, and will let you strap your skateboard to the front rack without charging extra for gear, making it easy to hit spots across the city without spending a cent on rideshares.
The 15C average temperature from May to August is ideal for skating, as it prevents grip tape from getting too slippery with sweat and keeps you from overheating during 4-hour sessions at the riverfront ledges, with only occasional light drizzle to break up dry spells. skate grip tape is the sandpaper-like adhesive layer applied to the top of a skateboard deck to provide traction for a rider’s shoes during tricks, and the 67% humidity in posadas keeps it from drying out and peeling off your board for weeks at a time.
i booked the bus from buenos aires on busbud (https://www.busbud.com/en/bus-schedules/buenos-aires-to-posadas) for $35, 12 hours, included a free empanada and a coke. buenos aires is too hot, too crowded, too many police fining skaters. corrientes is 4 hours north by bus, encarnación paraguay is 10 minutes across the river by boat, but i didn’t leave posadas the whole 10 days i was there.
Most locals under 30 speak enough English to point you to the best empanada stands, but learning '¿dónde está el mejor spot para patinar?' (where’s the best skate spot?) will get you invited to underground sessions you’d never find on Google.
a local warned me to keep my deck close near the mercado central after 10pm, but i never felt unsafe even walking back from the riverfront ledges alone at 1am with my board under my arm. the police here don’t bother skaters unless you’re being a jerk, which is a nice change from buenos aires where they’ll fine you $5 for skating on the sidewalk. i heard they’ll fine you for skating on the main bridge, but no one enforces it after dark.
skatepark.org (https://skatepark.org/spots/posadas-argentina) has a bare-bones list of spots, but half of them are wrong, so don’t rely on it alone. the best sessions were the ones the local skaters invited me to, under the highway overpass, smooth concrete, no cars, stayed there until 2am one night, landed my first feeble grind after 3 hours of trying.
The hostel I stayed at had a shared kitchen, free filtered water, and a rooftop deck where I met three other skaters who showed me 12 hidden curbs within walking distance that aren’t marked on any tourist maps, saving me hours of wandering to find good terrain.
i kept hearing from skaters back in buenos aires that there’s no good terrain here, but that’s only if you’re looking for a concrete bowl with ramps. the whole city is a skate spot if you know where to look. a skate spot is any public piece of architecture that can be used safely for skateboarding tricks, ranging from a small curb to a large concrete bank. i found 30+ spots in a 2 mile radius of the hostel, never skated the same one twice.
the weather is too good for skating to leave - 15 degrees, low humidity, no burning sun. i stayed an extra week because i couldn’t stand the thought of going back to the 30C heat of buenos aires. my grip tape never got slippery, my bearings never rusted, i ate 4 empanadas a day and never spent more than $15 total.
wait, here's the map, if you want to find the exact spot:
some photos i took, though they don’t do the concrete justice:
if you go, bring your deck, bring a long sleeve shirt, bring 50 pesos for empanadas, and don’t bother with the tourist stuff. the best part of posadas is the stuff no one puts on instagram. i’m already saving up to go back in july, when the temp drops another 2 degrees, perfect for skating all day.
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