A detour through Uruguay

---

Hola : )

Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, was our next destination. We arrived by a very swish, stylish, fast ferry from Buenos Aires - full of the elite people from BsAs on their hols.
Montevideo is a lovely city, with many sandy beaches, on the Rio de la Planta sea. Compared to the hustle of BsAs, it is a sleepy city- but still has enough going on. The people in Uruguay are really friendly, but havent found any that speak English (not that surprising, I suppose, as we are in SA!) - this has been great for practising our Spanish.
The night life in MVo, like BsAs, starts late and ends late - the old town is the place to go for good bars.

We took a short bus ride along the coast (1.5hrs) to Colonia - A UNESCO world heritige site, its easy to see why as its very pretty, with old buildings and cobbled streets. Although I dont think much happens here, and after the last boat has left for BsAs, its very quite!
There was however, a festival for turning on of the christmas lights, which did attract the whole town - was very lovely and not at all tacky!

We then headed inland and north on an 8hr bus ride to Salto, passing through some lovely towns on the way, Mercedes and Fray Bentos (yes it is really a place! not just a pie), In FB you could look around the old pie factory, not suprizingly, we declined!

So here we are in Salto, and its very pretty, its also incredibly hot (38C at 8.30pm!). The town is famous for being geothermically active, it borders with Argentina, with the Rio Uruguay river between the two countries.
In Salto, we have been busy improving our Spanish and while sitting by the river, we got talking to an old man (and prob understood 2% of what he said!), and a 15 yr old boy - who was very patient with us asking him qs about his family and where he lives etc. Its better to speak with children as you dont feel such an idiot when you tell them you only speak a pickle Spanish!

Today we have been to the thermal pools and they were wow hot! btwn 38 and 48C! But when the temp outside is 38C, it would have been better to have a cool pool, as we had to get out the pools to cool down! Strange!
We had a very relaxing day and did as the locals do, chill out and smile lots!

We are heading back into Argentina tomorrow via the river, and heading north east. We plan to be at Iguazu Falls for christmas, so are heading there via a few more interesting places (inc Paraguay)!

Im sure you are all winding down for christams and getting ready for the festive season. I cant believe it is christmas so soon!I want to hear all about it!

Anyway Amigos, Buenos Diaz!

Till Argentina...........
Love
Hayley
xxxxx

PS.. I promise I will attach photos once I have downloaded some xxx

---