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Published: February 28th 2009
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Back in Buenos Aires we ended up staying at Ayres Portenos again. The flight had been delayed by a few hours, so the familiarity was good late at night. We even got into the Argentine way of doing things and went for a big steak at 12.30am. I’m still not convinced that going to bed on a full stomach is the best way of achieving a svelte look, but when in Rome.
We took the opportunity to see some more of Palermo and visit the Evita museum before catching the ferry to Colonia in Uruguay the next day. The Evita story left us with mixed feelings as we really couldn’t work out whether she was a force for the better or an egotist. Perhaps a bit of both.
We also experienced our first close call at being pick pocketed on the underground. Luckily we realised why the two people behind us were so close and jostling us when it wasn’t that busy. However, it was a bit of a wake up call as we’ve felt fairly relaxed so far.
Colonia del Sacramento
Colonia was founded in the late 17th Century by the Portuguese on a strategic point
of the Rio Plato. The old town is just as you’d imagine it. Narrow cobblestone streets, remains of city walls and shady squares to escape the heat. It really isn’t very big, so we just wandered around for the morning. You can also buy a ticket to visit all of the random little museums the council has established, so we had a quick look at collections of original tiles, stuffed birds and mammals and perhaps more relevant, remains of the colonial time like maps and cannon balls!
Colonia also has a pleasant beach on the river front, so we headed there on useless bikes we’d hired. Knackered, we sprawled on the beach to let our pasty white skin properly feel the sun’s rays for the first time in South America. After 40 minutes we couldn’t stand the heat and retreated to a bar to cool off.
We were also able to marvel at the wonders of Skype yet again, and to see everyone at Sarah’s baby shower. A little bit emotional at missing all of the excitement, Lynne decided we now need to invest in a webcam so she can see her Dad on his birthday in a
few days time.
Montevideo
Just 2 hours down the coast from Colonia is the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. Like Colonia, it was established for its strategic position on the Rio Plato, but this time by the Spanish. Also like Colonia, it has an historic old town called Ciudad Vieja, so off we went to explore.
We wouldn't say there are too many must see sights in Montevideo. The main square, Plaza Independencia houses the underground mausoleum of Jose Artigas (who we think fought for Uruguay’s independence from Spain) and a recently renovated theatre, Teatro Solis is impressive. The carnival museum is also worth visiting, where you can see all the incredible paper mache creations on display.
Our favourite though was eating at the old port market. This has been converted so it now houses scores of meat restaurants. Each has an open grill, where all manner of cuts of meat, sausages, blood sausages and probably loads of offal gets expertly cooked. We picked one at random and ordered steak. Out comes a big joint of beef, from which the chef (called Tino in our case) then slices off your steak and you watch it flame grill before
your eyes. We had a really good time and chatted in pigeon Spanish with the staff. The food was also superb. We washed ours down with a bottle of cheap sparkly, which meant we had to go back for a mid afternoon kip. It’s a hard life!
Otherwise we spent our time in Montevideo looking around the newer part of town (not much to recommend), visiting a gaucho museum which was interesting but all in Spanish and then spent a day at the beach. We walked it to the beach, in reality this meant about 4 hours slowly getting there and a couple of hours sunning ourselves. Still, having a beach right in the city is great.
The jet set at Punta
More beach time was to be had at Punta del Este. This place is ridiculously expensive, so we ended up about a 20 minute bus ride out, at a beach called Manantiales. In hindsight this was a stroke of luck, as in our opinion, there isn’t much to recommend about Punta itself. It is like a South American version of Benidorm but the buildings aren’t quite as high and there isn’t a promenade.
Manantiales
on the other hand has one very small main street with “boutiques”, bars and restaurants and not much else. It feels a bit like a sunny Devon. The beach there isn’t called Bikini Beach without reason. The Lonely Planet says of Punta, “tan it, wax it, buff it at the gym and then plonk it on the beach”. It’s a pretty accurate description and the smaller your swimwear the better…and that counts for men and women! It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re not quite in peak condition either, just let it all hang out. In such a setting were we conspicuous by a) our extreme whiteness and b) the size of our pants.
We’re not quite sure what to make of Punta from our 5 nights there. We enjoyed it and it was good to get some sun. We even purchased a sun umbrella so we could stay on the beach longer than 30 minutes in the intense heat. However, the beaches are really packed, everything is relatively expensive and the setting is not a patch on a Thai beach for example.
In January it effectively becomes Buenos Aires on sea. Speaking to people it seems it
is an important place to do business as well as take a holiday. Maybe that explains it’s popularity and reputation. It also has good surf and supposedly a great nightlife in a place called Barra. We only really sampled it once, when we ate, then had a kip until midnight and then went out until 4am. It takes a lot of getting used to!
The definite highlight though was meeting a great bunch of people in the guest house. Martine and Lucia were a lovely Argentine couple, who gave us a real insight into living in Argentina. Carl was a bloke from Oxford who was just going to start a solo bike ride from Buenos Aires down through Patagonia and back up again! Mad! And Frances was a French-Canadian who’d been travelling for almost 2 years. Other than the Antarctica boat, it was the first time we have spent a few days around the same people, so I’m sure Lynne appreciated a bit of rest bite from my sparkling wit.
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