One Less Cow In Argentina .. Uruguay

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On Friday did the groucho tour to see how the people live in the pampas area of Argentina. To be honest the actually tour was pretty rubbish; the food was quite dry, like it had been overcooked, don’t drink red wine and actually the only thing that saved it was that the live performances were absolutely outstanding, you know more tango and stuff. Anyways, whilst I was there I got talking to this Dutch guy, Pieter; he was really a cool and interesting guy. The journey on the coach home was spent talking to him about everything and anything, football, politics and travelling. Instead of getting off at my hostel, I got off with him and we went for a couple of pints and then he should me a really good little steak house. The whole time just chatting about a lot of different stuff. One of the most interesting conversations was about Cuba; its people, economy and government. Pieter, then invited me out to dinner that evening which I accepted.

I walked back to my hostel were I did nothing for a couple of hours, I wondered down to the NH Lancaster where Pieter was staying and met him outside. He told me that we were going to go to one of the restaurants on the waterfront; where all the swanky restaurants are. We went to restaurant called Asia De Cuba, we went in and I felt like so out of place as it was such a swanky place. That feeling soon disappeared as me and Pieter started talking about a whole range of subjects. The food was great and was cheap; I had a deer stake, 5 bottles of sol, a pudding and an Irish coffee; it all came to under £30! It was amazing! I hate to think if that was London how much it all would have come to.

That night I didn’t sleep as I stayed up all night to wonder down to the ferry terminal to purchase tickets for the ferry over to Montevideo later on that day. I took the short walk at the crack of dawn, feeling knackered and dead rough, managing to get a ticket for the 1330 ferry despite a girl sharing my dorm saying that it was completely booked up, When I got back to the hostel, I finished writing out all the postcards that I had to and tried to find a post office to get some stamps to send them home.

By the time I had done all of this it was time to check out of the hostel. Melissa had already left, I took a slow stroll sown with my pack and checked in for the ferry. I sat down and reflected on what I was going to do with my brief stay in Uruguay over a cup of coffee when I bumped into Melissa. The hour ferry ride passed rather uneventfully to be honest followed by another rather uneventful bus journey to Montevideo from Colonia Del Sacramento; I simply watched the world go by out of the window.

Arriving at the bus station was an experience; it was an experience which I didn’t expect. It took a few minutes to get my bearings; once this had been achieved I got to an ATM, withdrew some money and broke it up into smaller notes and coins. Me and Melissa were staying in different hostels and mine was quite relaxed and to be honest quite dead; I asked the guy for the key to my dorm and he informed me that they leave all the rooms open

After checking in I went out for a wonder and headed towards the old town; Montevideo is weird place with one thing in common, there are quite clearly beautiful buildings that have been left to ruin and there’s horrid looking buildings that have been left to ruin. It is as if somebody has forgotten about Montevideo. Bumping into Melissa; who was doing exactly the same thing as me, we wondered round the old town and it looked like everybody had been abducted by aliens or something because there was no hussle and bustle, there was nothing!

The old town looked exactly like the rest of it; run down and dirty. Street lights flickered and mad you feel unsafe; nobody was around and all the shops were boarded up. Maybe, it was because it was the start of carnival and it was a bank holiday, we didn’t know what was going on! In fact the only faces we saw were on the green lights on the traffic lights; somebody had thought it would be funny to put a smiley face on all the traffic lights. We went back to Melissa’s hostel and watched some Brazilian self defense display; the name escapes me right now. Afterward we shot some pool and generally relaxed.

24th Feb

Woke up and looked out of the window to discover it was raining, as we discovered yesterday we didn’t really like Montevideo we had decided to go to Punto du Este, a little resort town bout 2 ½ hours away on a coach. I met up with Melissa and headed off to the coach station. We brought our ticket and walked outside to find that the rain has worsened and was now a downpour. We boarded and I asked Melissa if it would be possible to have the window seat, I moved over and fell asleep against the window. I kept on getting woken up by something cold and it wasn’t until I went to get something out my bag that I realized the window was leaking; my bag was soaked, I was soaked and I was not overly impressed, Melissa just laughed! Eventually we got there and after 45 minutes of waiting in the bus station the rain stopped. We worked out that the shopping mall was 5 blocks away and would walk it. Big mistake! We got 2 blocks up and then the heaven reopened; with nothing to hide under we got completely soaked. We continued to the shopping centre and when we got there we left a trail of water behind us. Firstly, we brought some dry clothes and got changed into them. We wondered around and then decided to brave the freak weather.

We got to the beach to see a rather weird statue of a hand submerged in the sand, so you could just see the fingers pointing out and as we got there the winds picked up and started and created a sandstorm, we were going to take a picture by the hand thing but this was quickly abandoned as the sand blinded us and we decided to leave these freak weather condition. The winds were so strong that it moved enough sand onto the roads to cause hazardous driving conditions. Fell asleep on the journey home and arrived back into Montevideo, went back to my hostel to have a shower and get rid of all the sand, later on that evening I met back up with Melissa to go and see some of the carnival; however the weather had been really bad in Montevideo as well and so all of the carnival celebrations had been cancelled, we ended up just going back to Melissa's hostel; drinking and playing pool until the early hours when I wondered back to my hostel, packed and made my way to the bus station for my coach to Colonia and the ferry back to Buenos Aires.

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Photos

Montevideo
The Uruguaian Capital in the distance

Old Town
Some Old Style Coca Cola Adverts

Smiling Traffic Lights
The Green Light Seemed To Be The Only Things Smiling

Carinval ...
Closed ....