The little gem of Uruguay

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Uruguay....not a place we planned on travelling to but we have loved our 10 days of travelling through the south coast of Uruguay. We caught the ferry from Buenos Aires to Montevideo. Montevideo was a small but quite colonial city and happened to be practically deserted as it was Bank holiday. We stayed in a very basic hotel called Ideal Hotel, a 1 star but we had the smiliest, friendliest host. The first day we just spent on the beach and watching the sunset as we didn´t arrive until 4pm. The 2nd day we spent walking around the town and we came across a meat market with restaurants all around. It is just a big market with all kinds of different meats and roasted vegetables on big open barbeques. So we sat at the bar around one bbq for lunch and were served the best steak lunch ever (with roasted peppers) mouth watering....the highlight of Montevideo.

From Montevideo we headed to a beach resort called La Paloma. It was a great little town and full of Uruaguians on holiday with beautiful white sandy beaches and warm blue sea. Great waves so we decided to buy a boogie board.... well not the best investment we have made it was quite naff and everytime a wave came you just went under and got a mouthfull of sea water rather than gliding across the waves like most other people!! Next it was onto Punta del Diablo which was Uruguays little Gem. It was a really small town with just wooden huts all along the beach front. We stayed in a little Gypsy type caravan very amusing...and a lot of fun. The beach again was beautiful white sands and warm blue sea. We had a day of torrential rain but we still headed down to the beach and were the only 2 nutters in the sea jumping the waves but great fun and not at all cold. Only downside to this small little town was no ESPN (channel showing 6 nations) but for me once again looks like no great shame. Needless to say this small town gained a boogie board on our departure.

Next it was on to the Brazilian border. We had to spend the day hanging around Chuy the border town as we just missed the bus and had to wait for the night bus. It is really strange place, one side of the road is Brazil and the other Uruguay and it is just full of Duty free shops, not the most intersting palce to spend 11 hours.

Uruguay really was a great few days of relaxing, great food, friendly people and a hidden gem that we had not planned on fitting in but so glad we did. Now on to iguazu falls only downside is it involves 2 night buses of 15 hours and the bused on the Brazilian side don´t seem to have the buses where the seats turn into beds.... just a seat that reclines like a plane. Hope the falls are worth it.

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