Only tourists in Uruguay.....


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Published: August 14th 2008
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The 1st of 2 buses (16hours to porto alegre) was oretty cack. Barely got any sleep. You can imagine our joy at having to wait 10 hours at a bus station for our next bus..... Realising how busy the place actually was we dumped our bags at the station (2nd time around) and went into town. Seeing as it was our third day attempting portugese we just about managed a McDonalds - Well sort of not exactly what we wanted.
Greg was mesmerised by the pert Brazillian bottoms if not slightly ruined by the skinny jeans, wedge shoe combo....
Both of us (understandably we think) not on it we headed back to the station for another 7 hour wait. Next bus to Uruguay was a vast improvement receiving a lil dinner pack and blankets. As we got there we yet again had no local currency (we find it more exciting this way) Also being well prepared we had no idea about the exchange rate or how much anything cost! We ended up with 7'000 pesos surely that'l be enough!.... Deciding to be "real travellers" we consulted the bible for bus timetables and then waited dutifully for one. However rush hour on a friday morning in the capital of the country does not make it easy to board a bus carrying your house on your back. After half an hour the buses were still rammed we decided to get a taxi instead. (both thinking there should be a law about Fiat Uno's being used as taxis!) Knowing the vague location of our hostel "splendido", yeah we chose it for the name. After walking a figure of 8 we soon arrived. Hostel was pretty cool, huge high ceilings, marble floors, free internet, very chill. That is until about 2am, the time it appears most Uruguayans go out as the place suddenly erupted! Greg waking up saying "thats loud" then falling straight back to sleepleaving Katy to fester til about 7am.
Getting our exploring heads on we went out to see some local sites, rounding a corner we stumbled across a massive food market. Katy really wanted some strawberries but having not mastered spanish and possibly being the only tourists in Montevideo we kept walking!
Hitting the main square Greg "papping" various statues - which youi will see from the photos actually the same one- in various shades of light (GAY) One of the worst sites was a grown man that had just poohed himself, not being "de-turd" we headed off for some food with vomit in our mouths!
Greg taking he lead with the Spanish attempt, we ordered 2 submarinos just cos we knew what they were (hot milk with a chocolate bar in it!) And opted for 2 pasta dishes - not really 100% as to what we were getting. Both pleasantly surprised although Greg refusing to leave a tip - his excuse being travellers don't do that....hmmmm
After bumping into a random little Italian called Francesco, on his advice we headed towards the beach. Nice brisk 4/5km walk our bodies were a lil shocked . Lot's of people chilling on the promenade drinking there herby teas.(we did try this in OZ oretty sure it would have tasted the same here not huge fans) As it was winter the beach was pretty deserted apart from a big group of kids who grabbed any unsuspecting member of their group and through them into the sea..... we watched this for a while very amusing!
Seeing as we had a whole day to kill before our next bus, our helpful hostel staff said we could leave our bags and sent us off in the direction of the local sunday market/flea market as absolutely no shops are open on sundays. Started off seeing goldfish, puppies and kittens for sale this progressed into fruit & veg bit of general market tat and then endless supply of crap e.g. desk chair wheels, random tyres, car bumpers, bikes with no wheels etc. Needless to say we didn't buy any of this exceptionally useful tat but did get chocolate, hot dogs and strawberries...yay!
The very kind people at our hostel let us mince around all day whilst we waited for our bus, using their net nd TV it was great.
Next stop Rio (well minus Porto Alegre again as have to get 2 buses)................

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