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Published: April 14th 2012
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Montevideo
One of the beautiful buildings outside the backpackers. Uruguay…Where to start? It was the 8 February 2007 and we decided to pack a backpack and head to the Buquebus station in Porta Madera, Buenos Aires. This is the main bus and ferry station for transport to and from Uruguay. The bus is almost half the price of the ferry but it is 15 hours longer because it has to travel North and around the Rio De Plata delta so we thought the hell with it, we taking the 3 hours ferry ride for 96 pesos each. There is still an even faster ferry that takes 45 min but that one was really out of our budget. Uruguay is 1 hour ahead of Argentina so if you take the 45 min ferry you gain an extra 15min into your day…ha-ha. After going through passport checks and customs we were onboard and ready to sail.
The ferry was awesome, it looks just like a mini luxury cruise ship with a duty free shop, arcade, bar and restaurant all onboard, it also has a lower garage deck that transports vehicles. We set sail and thought time to drink. We grabbed a seat at the bar, ordered 2 cocktails and whipped out
Manantiales
Manantiales Hostel, our home in Uruguay. the uno. We sat for nearly half the trip sipping our cocktails and playing uno then seasickness. Leigh-Anne started feeling a little nausea and I did to. The Rio de la Plata delta and river mouth is huge, I mean you cannot see the other side and so there are huge swells present that make the ferry sway side to side. We decided to head below deck and grab a comfortable lounge seat and chill out until we docked and disembarked onto land. We finally arrived in Colonia in Uruguay and hopped straight onto a bus for Montevideo, the capital. This trip took 2.30 hours so all in all including customs etc it took about 7 hours to get to our destination.
We arrived at Montevideo main bus station and caught the local bus transport to our backpackers. We had a pre booking but we were a day late because some things in BA kept us back. I had paid a small deposit for the reservation so I wasn’t concerned about loosing our beds but I should have been! We arrived and were told it is a very busy weekend and your room was given away because you did
Scootering
Clint on the scooter we hired for the day. not inform us anything. I know I should have informed them I just procrastinated then never did it. Anyway they called another nearby backpackers called Che Lafargo to find us accommodation which was successful and it turned out to be the better choice because we met a whole bunch of cool people and this one dude from Brooklyn New York.
We dropped our bags and headed out to explore. You do not need more than 2 days in Montevideo. Everything is very clean and beautiful but there is not much going on except to chill on the beach during the day and party at the very few bars they have at night. It is also very expensive to buy drinks at the bars. I think it worked out to about R100 for a drink for Leigh-Anne and I. I just remembered saying to myself guess we won’t be drinking much at the bars, like home the bottle store is the way!! Montevideo is hippie town. There are people with dreadlocks cruising around, smoking dope and selling their beads and handmade stuff…you know, as hippies do best! There was also a very cool flea market 1 road away from us
La barra
A little town just outside Punte Del Este. and a restaurant that set up a Dj box outside. They had a female Dj playing and she was playing some very nice and chilled house music. Anyway we were only there for 2 days so besides taking an extremely long walk to the beach, eating McDonalds everyday and looking at the markets there was nothing much else to do so we were very excited to get to Punta Del Esta.
10 February and we were back on the bus and off to Punta Del Esta. This place Rocks!!! It is the holiday destination for all the middle to high class Argentinean people and is filled with pristine beaches, night clubs and 5 star hotels. We arrived in Manantiales hostel and again immediately dropped our bags and headed out but first let me say more about the hostel. Manantiales is about 15 min North of Punta Del Esta which we felt was the better way to do it. No busy town and full beaches and besides there were buses running to and from town every 20 min. Our backpackers was situated in a pine forest and only 400m from the beach. It felt so good to be able to
Sunrise
We woke up really early to take this picture so enjoy!! be with nature and not just see buildings, cars and streets. We had free internet and awesome breakfast included every morning. The only downfall was that we reserved a 4 bed dorm and we were put into an 8 bed dorm but it was ok. We were only there to sleep.
Out in Punta Del Esta the harbor has a long wooden boardwalk and huge 10 million dollar yaughts and sea boats. There was a group of Brazilian Capoiera artists dancing, singing and performing their martial art for tourists for a little extra money. There is also a fish market at the harbor and so all the local sea lions and seals cruise in for some free lunch. Some of them were massive and had a mane like a lion and huge whiskers. If you have ever seen postcards of Punta Del Esta they usually have a picture of a hotel called the Conrad. It is a very cool hotel and the hotel taxis are Mercedes Benz. The hotel is 5 star and has a casino and obviously freaking expensive for a room. Not our cup of tea anyway…we backpacking man!
On our second last day we got
The Ferry
The Ferry that took us to Uruguay. up early and caught a bus to Punta Del Esta to hire a scooter for the day. Arriving at the hire place we realized we had forgotten our damn drivers license so they wouldn’t let us hire a scooter. I being the man jumped back on a bus back to Manantiales to fetch the drivers license while Leigh-Anne waited for me at the bus station. It took me 1.30min to do this because I mistakenly jumped off the bus 2 stops too early so I had to walk the rest of the way which was about 2km. That was my daily exercise so not complaining except that it was about 35 degrees outside. Finally we had a scooter and were cruising Punta Del Esta. It was a lot of fun and we really got to see places that we wouldn’t have if we were on foot. We kept the scooter overnight and therefore had to ride it back to Manantiales which was very long on a scooter and very windy. I didn’t mention this was Valentines Day by the way. The evening came and we decided to get on the scooter and go out for some romantic drinks. To our
surprise everything was too full and the places that weren’t full were out of our budget so we just stopped at a totally empty little cocktail café and had a drink to celebrate Valentines Day. My plan was to have a picnic on the beach with candles and red wine but it was too windy for that so...next time baby.
Other than that being our highlight for the trip we mostly chilled and read on the beach and explored the nearby towns. One town called La Barra is very cool. Just like Montevideo it also had hippie stores selling bright and colorful sarongs, Jesus sandals and music instruments. We sat at a restaurant there and ordered a pizza to share, the waitress looked at us funny and when it came it was square and the size of maybe 2 pieces of bread lying flat. It was very tasty though but just a snack. Wish I could speak Spanish already!!
It was the last day and we were packing to get back to Buenos Aires. We had a scooter and a huge bag so I put the bag on my back also resting it on the scooter seat and
cruised to drop the scooter off on my own. Leigh-Anne caught a bus and we met at the bus station to depart back to Colonia to board the ferry to Buenos Aires. The bus from Punta Del Esta to Colonia was 5 hours, we were 2 hours delayed on the ferry for some reason so all and all it took us about 10 hours to get home! Arriving to Buenos Aires in the evening and seeing all the city lights was beautiful. There was also a lightning storm in the distance!
I would say to everybody reading this definitely visit Uruguay one day, most of all Punta Del Esta!
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