Uruguay

Montevideo (20-22 Sept)

We arrived in Montevideo after a particularly bumpy overnight bus-ride, and our debut on-board ´meal´; basically a dry ham roll, a pasty-type treat that resembled a salted rock, and (surprise, surprise) a sweet gooey cake. As if this wasn´t spoiling us enough, they then played a rather good film with Portuguese audio and Portuguese subtitles. Bonus.

The Tres Cruces bus terminal is impressively coupled with a mini shopping centre, restaurants and all the usual ammenities, so we dived into an internet cafe in the hope we´d find something central and reasonably priced. Research completed, we headed by taxi to Red Hostel and were pleased to discover a light and airy building with friendly staff who were fortunately able to accommodate us.

That afternoon we took a stroll around the central part of the city, taking in Ave 18 de Julio (similar to Oxford Street but smaller and not as good) and the Plaza de la Indepencia (the largest of MV´s squares), which contains one of the many ´Horseback´ style statues. Here, Sarah managed to fall down a large and fairly obvious hole in the pavement, grazing her heel. Fairly amusing to say the least. Once the tears had subsided, we headed into the Old Town, wandering aimlessly amongst the various markets stalls and further to the docks and financial district. On our return, we opted for an early dinner in a fairly reasonable looking Pizza restaurant, only for Sarah to be served up her requested Spag Bol, with a dirty great lump of ropey looking meat slapped on top. Slightly off-putting in all honesty. It´s safe to say that it wasn´t really her day...

With fresh and renewed hope for the following morning, our mission was to book our ferry to Buenos Aires for the next day, and find ourselves a couple of English books. No easy feat. There are plenty around, if you like Jackie Collins, Harry Potter, or Danielle Steel but thats about it. A girl in the Hostel advised that we try a store near the large city shopping centre, and happily, Sarah picked up her usual ´Warped Mind of a Demented Serial Killer´ type paperback, whilst I opted to wait out until the next opportunity. Things were looking up...

The Shopping centre was pretty much everything you´d expect: Designer label stores, sports outlets and perfumeries. Window shopping only for us backpacker types obviously. After lunch in a rather pleasant Italian, we headed back along ´La Ramblas´, a long seafront road which skirts the city and looks out across the Rio de la Plata to Argentina.

That evening we headed back to the Old Town, and to an Irish Bar called Shannanigans, where we´d heard there was a live band playing. Here we met Salah, a young American guy from Washington, who whilst on vacation had managed to pull himself some Uruguayan totty in the form of Vanesa. We spent most of the evening with them discussing local customs, the absurdity of american politics, and most importantly, why English football is much more sensible than it´s american namesake and why it should never really be called ´Soccer´, except for saturday morning TV purposes. All interesting stuff. Being South America, the band arrived on-stage at around midnight just as we were leaving, but their first number sounded like a belter. We were invited to continue onto a club, but politely declined due to an early morning bus the next day.

Colonia del Sacrimento (22nd Sept)

A small town, located two-and-a-half hours West of Montevideo, Colonia is a quaint and scenic town. It´s the sort of place that we´d imagine most Uruguayan´s would consider retiring to, if it wasn´t for the fact that it is over-run with tourists day-in, day-out. As it also has a ferry terminal linking daily with Buenos Aires, it means that many sightseers pop over for a pleasant day trip.

Once an important centre for smuggling British goods across the Rio de la Plata into the Spanish colonies throughout the 17th Century, it is a charming little town, with cobblestoned streets, quiet treelined squares and remnants of colonial style architecture. During our afternoon here, we enjoyed the views from the ´Faro´ (Lighthouse), admired many of the bays that skirt the town, and sampled a traditional Uruguayan ´Chivito´ (basically an enjoyably large Steak Sandwich with many trimmings) at the insistance of a random woman we met at the bus station.

Once our few hours were up, we headed for the port and Ferry ´Rapido´ which would take us across to Buenos Aires in under an hour. The storm which gathered with uncanny timing made for a choppy crossing, but even Sea-Legs Sarah managed to keep her lunch down with the help of sea-bands, sickness tablets, and a clever mind-distracting technique which came in the form of chuckling at other elderly passengers attempting to walk straight. And so it was a fairly unemotional farewell to Uruguay, and Hola! to the bright lights of Argentina´s captial...

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