Salto Uruguay - Thermal Baths

Hi all,

Well we left Puerto Iguazu on Friday evening and got on our 12 hour night bus to Concordia/Salto in Uruguay. The bus decided to drop us off way outside the Argentinian town of Concordia rather than cross the border to Salto (although that is aparently the normal regime). It actually left us in the middle of a dusty crossroads at 6am with nothing and no-one around except the few Germans that got off the bus with us and the dodgy looking pickup trucks on the roadside. The Germans grabbed the only taxi at the crossroads so we had to wait until the next taxi arrived, the driver phoned for another one thank God and waited until he arrived to take us into Salto. Our driver brought us accross the border and through the passport checks but he hadn't a word of English and we think ripped us off because of the ´confusion' over which pesos we were paying in.
We arrived in Salto early in the morning and looked around for a hostel to stay in but there was only one and it was booked up (The one time we didn't book in advance), we then tried some cheap hotels and they were booked up, this confused the heck out of us, because the town itself wasn't anything to oogle over. Eventually a nice receptionist in one of the hotels did a call around for us and found us the last room available in the whole town, literally!. Well how do we describe it, it was a really dodgy hotel, when we walked into the reception area first we were greeted by an old lady that kind of looked like Estelle, Joey's agent from Friends, she showed us to our room , number 13 on the ground floor, there was 1920s decor, unpainted walls with damp spots, cobwebs, barred windows out onto the street level with no curtains, bottle tops for drawer handles and when we went in and sat down, the bed broke!.
So that afternoon we went to the Termas de Daymán, these beautiful thermal baths a few kilometers from the town. It was so relaxing, they had indoor and outdoor pools and you could spend as much time as you wanted there, they also had a spa, where you could get a full body massage for 15 euro, you wouldn't get an eyebrow plucked for that at home. There was a band and DJ on a small stage playing both popular and their own national music in the park, it was more family orientated though. Everyone drinks their yerba Mate here, we thought it must be addictive first, but apparently its just their way of socialising. They even park up there cars on the side of the road, get out their deck chairs and sit around all day drinking the mate and chatting while watching traffic go by. Apparently the Uruguayans claim that mate originated with them but the Argenitina like to think that also. Anyway we delayed going back to the hotel that evening for as long as possible and pottered around the market stalls. On Sunday morning we stopped off at the Plaza Independencia, a took a few snap shots of the towns attraction, the statue of the Uruguayan national hero, Artigas.
Our impression of Uruguay is not so positive right now!!. We spent most of Sunday trying to get out of Salto, and eventually got a 5.30pm bus to Montevideo.

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