Cobblestones and lots of charm

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We went from Salto to Montevideo where we stayed a few nights. But we didn't do much sight seeing and took absolutely no photos. This was not because Montevideo was a bad place, in fact we quite liked it, but we had 3 problems. First, Pieter was sick in bed most of the time with the flu. Second, it was raining all the time we were there. Third, it was bloody bloody cold!

Moving on to Colonia, the rain stayed with us but Pieter was feeling better and we determined to enjoy this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Arriving at the bus terminal we walked to the main drag where the tourist info office gave us a list of hotels without actually recommending one. We went to the Hotel Posada del Rio on the edge of the old town where we got a nice room in the courtyard of an old building for US$33.

We found quite European style cafes with lots of waiters and waitresses and spikes on the table to collect bills. Hot dogs and hamburgers and chivito which, in Uruguay, is a plate of meat, ham, cheese, eggs, olives, salad and chips. During our time in Uruguay we did not encounter much in the way seasoning but with fresh ingredients the food was good.

It stopped raining and we started a walking tour at the old city gate. It is a tourist town with boat loads of Argentinians coming from Buenos Aires for the day. But the most touristy thing we saw were a bunch of guys dressed up as Portuguese soldiers, pretty in yellow and black.

We then visited the street of sighs with its old cobblestones and 17th century Portuguese buildings. Beautifully warped and plastered with years of different coloured paint. Around the corner were more old cottages with the stonework exposed which were gorgeous. Very rustic and quaint.

The first museum we visited was the Portuguese Museum. We were sold tickets that included all 7 museums for $25 pesos (just over US$1) each, an absolute bargain, and were given a map and description of all the museums. Housed in a pair of lovely old buildings this museum had uniforms and other military stuff as well a nice collection of maps. Best thing was the stone walls of the buildings, one reconstructed with small slate stones between wooden supports. Lovely.

Casa Nacerelle was a lovely old Portuguese building with a some colonial furniture and a scary ticket lady.

Next door, the Municipal Museum had been the 2 storey home of Admiral Brown and contained the usual paleontology and stuffed animals and colonial bits and pieces. But upstairs is a fantastic big armadillo shell and a giant sloth skeleton. Here we met a couple of Aussie Londoners also travelling for a year. We swapped stories and chatted for a while. It was nice to have a talk to some other travellers. We had not met many recently. Behind the house were some whale bones.

The Tile Museum was a little weak with just a few pretty tiles. Mostly blue and white. Portuguese, Dutch and French.

The Archives Museum had a display of archaeology from the excavation of the Governors House. They collections of bones with little pictures of pigs, chickens etc to illustrate their origin. It must have been from the kitchen waste pile.

The Indigenous Museum was full of old stones and flint.

The Spanish Museum was really good. Housed in two old buildings of Portuguese and Italian origin we found military, colonial objects and ceramics inside. The buildings were beautifully restored. We saw the before photos and it had been a mess.

The town is packed with souvenir shops and we spent an afternoon browsing. There was lots of variety and some really nice crafts but in the end we only purchased a present for our friends in Sao Paulo who we were going to visit. The only shop that something in it we wanted was a bookshop. The shopkeeper was off sick so it was closed and in the window was an English-Portuguese phrase book that I really to have before going to Brazil. Sods law it was the old closed shop in town.

We started a new habit while in Uruguay. Some evenings we would have a bottle of wine from a supermarket in our room. Much cheaper than ordering wine in a restaurant. We bought two metal cups in Montevideo for the purpose. Great for warming you up on cold nights.

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