Colonia, Uruguay and Buenos Aires contd...

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Justin turned 32 in Buenos Aires, and we had a nice day and met some nice people. Jasmine may have celebrated a bit too much, so we ended up missing out on a birthday dinner. On June 24th we went to the Malba Museum of modern art, which was cool. We then went to the Puerto Madero area to wait for our boat ride to Colonia, Uruguay. While waiting we were able to watch the US´s epic upset of the #1 ranked team in the world, Spain, at the only place showing the game, Hooters. After that we took a short (1 hour) boat ride to Colonia. We checked into our hostel (brr, more on that to come) and then found an amazingly overpriced dinner. Our hostel was fine, aside from the fact it had no heat, and it was a very cold night (luckily they had plenty of extra blankets).

The next day we rented a golf cart with a zip down plastic cover for warmth and explored the town. It was a pretty funny way to get around, but there is not a ton of traffic, so it is a good way to see the sights. We took a ride out along the coast, which was nice, and we found a place outside of town to purchase a cup to drink mate out of (mate is a drink that is basically like tea, and is shared in a social setting with others and has some specific rules as to how to drink it.) Colonia is a small, quiet, charming town with cobble stone roads and no dog poop on the sidewalks which was an amazing change of pace. After returning our golf cart we spent the last of our Uruguayan money on some mate to bring back to the states with us and returned to Buenos Aires via boat. We checked into our hotel and went to get Justin´s nice birthday dinner. We were told the restaurant that is supposed to be the best steak house in BA does not open until 8:30 and that they were already totally full for the night, so we moved on to our second choice (which was also a highly rated steak house) and had an absolutely fabulous meal (for a very reasonable price as well!)

Today is our last day in BA, and we are planning to take in a tango show and do some relaxing before heading to Iguazu Falls tomorrow.

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