A quick detour

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Nicky: In true travelling style we decided that while we were this close to Uruguay it would be criminal not to hop across the Rio Grande and see what it was like. We took the boat from Buenos Aires last Friday to Colonia, on the south coast. It is a beautiful seaside town full of cobbled streets, stunning squares and views out to sea and back across the river to Argentina. On Saturday the sun was blazing so we wandered from our hostel (which was actually a beautiful private room and bathroom in the back of someones garden with its own terrace!!) down into the old town. We visited really quaint churches with beautiful statues and paintings, a lighthouse that you could climb to the top of and see across the town and the ruins of the old city walls. But it was just the feel of the streets that was the most amazing. All the buildings were traditional and covered in flowers, the streets and squares were cobbled, lined with restaurants and filled with musicians and artists. It was fantastic. In the summer the beaches a bit further along the coast are supposed to be packed and I could definately see us returning here for a holiday. From Colonia we took a bus to the capital Montevideo. As capital cities go it was not my favourite but again i dont think the weather helped because it rained most of the time we were there. We did manage an amazing lunch at a traditional parrilla though. It was in the market on the edge of the port but unlike markets at home this was just a warehouse full of parrillas all vying for your custom. we decided to stick to an unwritten rule we have got, which is to eat where the locals are, so we sat ourselves down on stools at a marble bar in the middle of the room straight in front of the huge barbeque. It is hard to imagine i left England a vegetarian because I managed to munch my way through fantastic steak, chicken, ribs and even tried some black pudding and intestines (uck!).

Neil:

The trip to Uruguay was definately worth the effort; we arrived fairly late in Colonia and the house keeper pointed us in the direction of a good restaurant that the locals frequented, which was brilliant! It had a great atmosphere and the food was good and cheap. A lot of restaurants in Argentina and Uruguay have grills - what us brits would probably label an indoor bbq, where they cook huge cuts of meat and ribs.

The next morning we began our tour of Colonia on foot and as Nicky mentioned, it´s a great place to visit and has a very relaxed pace.

Montevideo was a 3 hour bus ride away from Colonia, and most of our time was spent trudging around in the rain. The Parrilla Nicky mentioned was one of the culenary highlights of our whole trip. The most accurate way I can describe it will be lost on most people - it´s like walking into Bolton market but instead of clothes and fake leather goods on offer, the hall is completly devoted to food for immediate consumption. Each stall has a huge fire and chimney in the centre where the chefs cook the meat on grills around the edges. Surrounding all of this is a bar where the punters sit and watch their food being cooked. The grills were quite big and they had pigs cut down there length and thrown on, huge beef joints, lamb legs, chickens and more. We opted for a mixed grill for two that would have fed 6. Highly recomended.

The four days we had in Uruguay weren´t enough but from what we saw, I was impressed.

Next stop Buenos Aires.

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