Another country - all by myself

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- Food: Tarte tortin at the Richmond by myself, the best empanadas, enormous licuado, fatty chorizo. Montevideo is similar prices to Argentina for food but the portions are all HUGE with heaps of french fries with everything. Mate rules here more than in Argentina. 80% of the population are hooked and everyone carries around a pouch containing the flask, huge supply of mate leaves and the decorative bowl type things with a pipe that they drink it out of.

- Area: The smallest capital city (only took about 2 hours to walk it), very old fashioned. Lots of stalls selling socks for some reason and lots of 'hair extension' beauty parlours!

- People: Old and old fashioned with it. Hardly saw a young person and certainly no other English speakers. Felt like an alien and got treated like one. Lots of horse and cart men!

- Weather: Similar to Argentina but cloudy.


Fri 8th: Tracy left me (boo hoo). Of course nothing is simple and it took us ages to find her bus station. And then ages for me to find the Buquebus terminal to buy my ferry ticket to Uruguay (yes, I´ve changed my plans already).

They were incredibly unfriendly at the Buquebus place and the ticket was 3 times what I thought it would be. Of course after all this trauma I had to have relief - The Richmond!! The previously grumpy waiter was very smiley - I think he saw the distress on my face - but it just wasn´t the same having tarte tortin (which was the best) on my own. TRACY COME BACK.

Luckily the nice La Perla men booked the Hotel Royal in Uruguay over the phone for me as they didn´t speak a word of English and even the La Perla man couldn´t understand them.

The Buquebus was very relaxing and took about 3 hours to get to Montevideo in Uruguay - with a lovely view of the city in sunset as the ferry pulled in.
Feeling proud of myself for having done all this by myself I got carried away when I saw the huge taxi queue (full of Americans who I´ve been trying to avoid) and so followed some young people who seemed to be walking into the centre.

Unfortunately, I forgot that the sun sets very quickly and before I knew it, it was dark, I´d lost the young people and I was wondering around empty streets on my own feeling very vulnerable with my rucksack on. I´d read that the old part of the city was dodgy at night - guess where I was?!
I´d taken a photo of the map of the city at the terminal but didn´t want to get my camera pinched so used gut instinct to find the main road (don´t worry Mum if you´re reading this - I won´t do it again!). I suddenly felt very alone so took bliss in an internet cafe! (modern technology is good for something).

I´d still decided to treat myself with hotels rather than hostels but regretted it when I found my hotel. It was so dark and dingy with a weird old woman and younger man (couldn´t work out the set up there) who were very amused by me and my suspicions at leaving my bag alone while I looked at the room. There didn´t seem to be anyone else in this old fashioned gloomy place and I thought of the Rocky Horrow Picture Show.

But the room was fine and had a cable TV. I thought I´d been so sensibly changing all my Argentinian pesos into Uruguyan pesos but as there´s 8 Uruguyan pesos to one Argentinian one, I got a bit confused. Thinking I was loaded enough for a slap up meal after I´d paid for the hotel in cash, I realised I actually only had the equivalent on one pound left. And I hadn´t seen a single cash point anywhere and had no intentions of wandering around the dark streets on my own again.

But as the wise words of a few friends who have travelled went round in my head - "Don´t worry when things aren´t going too well, it´ll all work out in the end", I found an empanada shop doing a special deal for the exact money I had! HOORAY. The best empanada´s I´ve had were made for me and I took them back to the hotel and watched Frasier! Perfect (even though I´d seen it before).

Sat 9th: I discovered that Montevideo is full of horse and cartmen, is very old fashioned with no young people and is the tiniest capital city I´ve been to.

Breakfast, as it wasn´t served in the hotel, was a enormous jug of banana licuado - that filled 3 glasses!
My money problems continued with Lloyds '24 hour' bank being closed and the next cash point was giving the guy in front of me problems. My sensible thinking of getting an odd number out so that I´d have small change didn´t work and I ended up with huge notes that even the cambio wouldn´t change.

The horrible tourist Leicester Square street of Montevideo is Avenida 18 de Julio - full of shopping malls and street sellers. Instinct took me down a road that was Borough market - LOADS of fruit. Work people will know what this meant to me - heaven. They had kiwis too so I was ecstatic.

I discovered that my perfect pronounciation is not so perfect when asking for a litre of water and being given powdered milk!! (litro/leche - is it so hard?). Thank god the universal language of laughter and pointing worked.

The old fashioned streets of the city were too much for me so I found the park. Which was nice but SO empty. Also found the tacky amusement park and the only places to eat which were right next to it. Decided to try a Uruguay speciality - chorizo sausage but it was a mistake as it was full of fat and arrived with the hugest plate of french fries ever. And foul OJ.

The beach was my next stop as I´d heard the beaches are so beautiful that all the Argentinians come here on holiday. Not the beach I found - it was full of rubbish and the word 'JESUS' grafittied all over the walls - just what I was thinking.

The sea front walk was very depressing but then I found Plaza Indepencia which is full of street markets and Covent Garden type performers. Unfortunately, the market was full of the same crap San Telmo had.

Determined to get something better out of Montevideo, I went to a restauant the Rough Guide recommended. Feeling a little lost eating on my own, it was a good choice as it was quite empty. But within half an hour it had packed out with lots of old people with interesting hair 'do´s' who all looked at me as if I was an alien.

The waitresses practically ignored this strange English girl sitting on her own and when their eyesight returned, I got the biggest portion of food ever. A greasy breaded meat thing that filled one whole plate, a soggy salad that filled another whole plate and a mound of chips that filled another whole plate with 2 fried eggs on top! I´d eaten so much bread (which was yummy) as I wasn´t sure what I´d ordered and didn´t want to be left hungry that I could only eat about 2 mouthfuls! I managed to move the food about the plate rather well I thought so it didn´t look so bad (after gulping my 2 mouthfuls down with wine - I´d asked for a glass and they said they only did it in quarters. Yes, that is glass in my books - not in old fashioned Uruguays terms where as in Hotel Castelar, the wine glasses were tiny). I got out as fast as I could after yet more strange looks being cast my way and took haven with more TV - I´m getting addicted.

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