Uruguay – more Argentinean than Argentina


Advertisement
Uruguay's flag
South America » Uruguay
January 10th 2011
Published: January 11th 2011
Edit Blog Post

Kyle

It was in Puerta Iguazú where we ran out of two very essential things when you´re travelling; the first being money, and the second being an idea of where to go next. Nearly all backpackers experience the first dilemma, but very few travellers find themselves in the second predicament. However here we were with about 10 days left on our trip and no clue what we could do with them. And obviously the first problem directly affects the second; our lack of funds severely limited our options as to where we could travel to in our remaining time. Arriving earlier than expected in Buenos Aires was out of the question as ten days in this European-priced city would cripple anyone´s budget. We tossed around the idea of staying up north and exploring the Misiones region, however the humidity and bugs thwarted those plans. So, we were left with one option – head to Uruguay. Five days is never enough time to explore a country, but when the country can be traversed by bus in around 8 hours your task is made a lot simpler. We may not have spent a whole lot of time in Uruguay, but we were
A statue in Montevideo to the GauchosA statue in Montevideo to the GauchosA statue in Montevideo to the Gauchos

note the two dogs humping in the background. subsequent to this they were stuck together for quite some time. we went back to the hostel to research this phenomena, and yes it happens post-coitus to dogs... weird hey?
able to get a good feel for the place and were surprised to find that it is more Argentinean than Argentina. They drink loads more mate, eat tons more meat, and even the prices are more expensive than their Argentinean counterparts!

The most common way of entering Uruguay from Puerto Iguazú is to catch an overnight bus to Concordia on the Argentinean side of the border and then take a ferry over the Río Uruguay to Salto on the Uruguayan side. There are two overnight bus options; one involves changing buses at Posadas at 2am and then hopping on another bus which takes you in to Concordia, the second option you don’t have to change buses but you are dropped off on the side of the highway about 7kms out of town and have to take a taxi in to the centre. We decided to go with the latter, as overnight buses are hard enough to sleep on without having to get off and on again in the middle of the night. Plus we were assured there´d be no problems getting a taxi from the highway drop-off point, and from there it’d only cost 35 pesos to get into Concordia.

So we jumped off the bus at 7am and instead of finding a waiting taxi all we found was a police checkpoint that was little more than a tin shed. The officer on duty was kind enough to call us a taxi and before we knew it we were on our way to the port. We were in a bit of a hurry as there are only four ferries each day (0835, 1200, 1500, 1830 Mon-Fri, and 0835, 1200, 1515, 1845 Sat) and we wanted to make that first lancha. We were happy to arrive just in time and even happier that the taxi fare was pretty much what was quoted – 38 pesos.

Immigration control and customs on both sides were a breeze – there were no lines as we were the only foreigners amongst the dozen-or-so people taking the ferry across the border, and the customs officials only took a quick look through our small bags before sending us on our way. This was one of the reasons we decided to take the ferry rather than a bus across the border; information we could find about passport control on the bridge between Concordia and Salto made it sound complicated. The ferry itself was a tiny little vessel, but what it lacked in size it definitely made up in character. Needless to say this was one of the more interesting border crossings we’d experienced.

Salto is a beautifully kept little colonial town with a truckload of charm, but unfortunately we didn’t get to explore it all that much. From the port we hauled our heavy bags up the main street to the local information office to ask about campsites in the area – this is as much as we saw of the town. We did spot a billboard with Diego Forlán flogging alfajores, which was the only time we saw his face around Uruguay, a surprise no? Sadly we were informed there are no campsites in Salto itself, but there is one in Termas del Daymán, a few kilometres south of Salto. Termas del Daymán is famous for its thermal baths, which made us a little apprehensive about visiting it as from experience we’ve learnt that these types of resorts attract only the old and the sick. Not the kind of people we were looking to mingle with. However this was our only option other than pay for a double room in Salto, which in hindsight we definitely should have done. Instead we made tracks to the termas, which turned out to be a big mistake. By this stage we had camped for over three weeks in Argentina and hadn’t had a single bad experience, unless you count a freezing cold night or the odd dirty toilet block, but nothing too serious. Enter Camping Termas del Daymán. My first beef with this place is the fact the ground was one solid rock making it impossible to put tent pegs in. Secondly the amenities left a lot to be desired; no shower curtains + no hot water = no dignity. In this case two negatives don’t equal a positive.

To make matters worse an enormous storm passed over the campsite late that afternoon, hammering us with huge wind gusts which had tree branches flying through the air. Not the safest situation to find yourself in when camping. With no pegs in the granite-like ground our tent wasn’t secured down. At least if it was flying through the air at the same speed as the branches ripped from the trees it wasn’t at risk of being crushed. But as we needed a roof over our heads that night we chose to weigh down the tent with our backpacks. These backpacks, our ground mats and our sleeping bags all got wet as the fly couldn’t be properly fastened. Our first bad camping experience was to be our last night camping in South America. Not the way we would have liked it to end, but that one night of hell was more than enough to have us moth-balling the tent for while.

The next morning we decided to head to the capital, Montevideo, seeking a bit of big city action and liveliness. After a 6hr bus ride we arrived at the Terminal Omnibus and went about calling around the hostels pricing their double rooms. The cheapest we could find was a place called Piedras de Afilar, only two blocks from Plaza Independencia. The hostel was really cool, one of the better we’ve stayed in. It sells itself as an art hostel, where young artists can paint, draw, play instruments and just hang out. Obviously not everyone who stays there is an artist, but even I gave a little didgeridoo lesson to one of the owners (finally tapping into my hippie side). The owners are a young Spanish couple who live on the premises; it is still a bit of a work in progress with the kitchen needing a serious makeover and the rooftop terrace yet to be opened, but the place has such character and warmth that the sub-par kitchen is soon forgotten.

This was our first night in a big city for some time, so we didn’t exactly sleep so well thanks to the noise. We woke late to find it raining, which was a pity as we’d planned to go to the Sunday markets along Calle Tristán Narvaja. We’d heard good things about these markets so we braved the rain and headed out. There was a great selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, homemade pasta, antiques, some fantastic leather mates, and several groups of tricksters swindling tourists out of their money playing find-the-lady. Tahlei bought a great mate which I was a little jealous of as it’s better and cheaper than the one I bought in Iguazú. Drinking yerba mate is a symbol of Argentinean culture, but it’s in Uruguay where they drink more of it per capita than anywhere else. You see so many people with mate in hand and thermos flask under their arm going about their daily lives; it’s such an awkward custom to have. On the point of Argentinean customs being more noticeable in Uruguay, we spotted several gauchos in traditional costume walking the streets of Montevideo. Again, this is synonymous with Argentina but so much more evident in Uruguay – not once did I see a gaucho in Argentina, but in Uruguay I saw numerous.

After a bit of shopping we went back to the hostel for a much needed siesta. We woke a couple of hours later and joined a group of people from the hostel in watching the African drumming that takes part every weekend on the streets of Montevideo. Troupes of drummers meet in a different spot in the city each Saturday or Sunday and then meander their way through the streets beating their drums. We followed a group of about 30 drummers – they had a few girls in front of them shaking their booties, an old guy on the front waving a huge flag, and a mass of onlookers drinking beer and dancing to the beat. It was all very tribal.

Again we woke late, but this time we were blessed with blue skies and not so bleary eyes. We took advantage of the great weather and did a bit of exploring around the old city. There were some nice pedestrian streets and pretty plazas, however some of the buildings were a little run-down and needing restoration. Much of the architecture around the port was particularly in need of TLC, but the whole area has a dilapidated charm about it – does that make sense? The highlight of the day was easily lunch at the Mercado del Puerto where there are a number of restaurants in a restored 19th century market by the port. Don’t be fooled by its location as beef is the catch of the day. All of the restaurants have huge parrillas cooking copious amounts of steak, ribs, sausage, blood sausage, innards and the odd bit of provolone cheese just for something different. It’s funny reading the two menus, one in Spanish and one in English, as there are so many names for different cuts of meat in Spanish, but on the English menu they just say Rump Steak for the majority of them. This isn’t a translation mistake, they just take their meat a whole lot more seriously than us English speakers – where we have one word to describe the whole rear end of the cow they have about a dozen names for different sections depending on flavour and texture. And this is another of those Argentinean customs that they seem to have bettered Argentina at (me thinks they suffer from a bit of one-upmanship). The portions were incredible, we saw a family of seven share a parrilla para dos personas (mixed grill for two people). This place even had its own traditional drink – called media y media or “half and half”, which is simply champagne and white wine. It’s not a bad drop but it goes straight to your head and after a bottle of it you feel fairly tipsy.

If that was the highlight of the day, then surely trying to book a ferry from Colonia Sacramento to Buenos Aires was the lowlight. We first tried to book online, but it asked for a local address and since we didn’t have one we thought it best to seek another method of reservation. So then we went into one of the local lotteries offices, Abitab, where we had been told you could reserve ferry tickets. All they did was go to the same website that we ourselves accessed earlier that day. Somehow they were able to bypass the address page and complete the booking. However when it came to pay they told us we couldn’t pay with credit card, which would have been good to find out before going through the whole booking process. We had enough money issues as it was without having to fork out cash for something we had planned to put on credit card. We could’ve paid by credit card if we’d booked it ourselves online, so why couldn’t we pay by credit card now? These questions they had no answer for. The teller did offer to pay for part of the ticket out of his own pocket which he didn’t have to do, but the damage was already done. We paid cash in full and went back to the hostel thinking how we’d survive on what little money we had.

The next morning we were due to leave Montevideo for Colonia Sacramento, but first wanted to visit the Museo del Gaucho. This was one of the best museums we’ve visited, it ticked all the boxes – it was free, it was interesting, it wasn’t too big, the staff were friendly and the English translations made sense. To make it even better it was situated in a restored 19th century aristocratic house with marble staircases and other plush fittings. It had a great collection of gaucho knives, ponchos, belts, lassoes, whips, guns and other odds-and-ends. There were horse mannequins (yeah they exist) fully adorned in the traditional style saddles, stirrups and other adornments. It really was a great little museum, and a perfect way to wrap up our stay in Montevideo.

We arrived mid-afternoon in Colonia del Sacramento and immediately checked in to El Viajero, a hostel part of the Hostelling International chain. It was nice; the rooms were big, air-conditioned, kitchen was good, big terrace, free internet and comfortable communal areas. We wanted to just hang out and relax that afternoon, Tahlei needed to catch up on journal writing and I needed to catch up on sleep, plus Colonia was tiny and we could explore it the following day before jumping on the ferry at 5pm. Those plans were thrown in to total disarray when Tahlei received an Email from Colonia Express, our ferry company, advising us that the 5pm ferry was cancelled for December and January. We were perplexed to say the least. Why had they sold tickets for the 5pm just yesterday when they must have known the services were going to be cancelled? Great planning and foresight from Colonia Express.

This meant we had to go down to the ferry terminal to change our tickets to the 11am service, and now only had that afternoon and night to see Colonia. So we did a whirlwind tour of the barrio histórico taking in the quaint colonial architecture, city walls and narrow cobble-stoned streets. We climbed the old lighthouse to watch the sunset over Río de la Plata, it was very romantic once we stopped gasping for breath. Further enhancing the romanticism of the evening was the candle-lit dinner we had on the charming Plaza Manuel Lobo. The parrilla we shared was not great, but the setting was beautiful. We were a bit worried when the bill came out as we only had just enough to cover the meal and two bottles of water we ordered, but if they added the dreaded cubiertos charge we’d be in trouble. Luckily they didn’t so we were able to leave the waitress the huge tip of around 10 cents, the last of our Uruguayan pesos. Who says Australians don’t tip?

We woke early the next morning and went for another brief walk around town. We then made our way over to the ferry terminal not knowing what to expect. So far Colonia express had made it unnecessarily difficult to book tickets and then cancelled the service with almost no notice. What drama did they have in store for us this time? We were not particularly surprised to find that our boat was definitely the oldest and slowest out of the three companies that service Colonia del Sacramento and Buenos Aires, but Tahlei certainly was surprised, and shocked, to have her Havaianas stolen from her backpack, most probably by the baggage handers. My advice, don’t use Colonia Express.

Once we passed halfway across the Río de la Plata we were officially back in Argentina, and so ended our Uruguayan experience. We went out the same way as we came in - by boat. But we left with a far greater appreciation for Uruguay, a country we knew very little about before visiting. We ate some fantastic meat, drank a bit of mate, stayed in some really nice hostels and even learnt about the great gauchos. What initially was just a five day excursion to fill in time before getting to Buenos Aires, turned out to be one of the more interesting and fun parts of our trip. Uruguayo! Uruguayo! Uruguayo!



Advertisement



12th January 2011

Happy New Year!
Dears Thalei and Kyle, I am glad to hear from you again and knowing about all your adventures. It is going to an unforgetable journey. I hope you have enjoyed of a happy Christmas and the new year celebration, you haven't told us anything about it. I wish you a very happy and succesful 2011!!! Very best regards, MªAntonia

Tot: 0.122s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.03s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb