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Published: March 29th 2009
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It was time to venture out of BA again. This journey was to Uruguay. First stop Montevideo. A relatively large scale city but not even close to the size of BA. It was the norm...get off the bus try to get your bearings and realize that this is not the bus station you planned to get dropped off at and now the hostel is too far to walk so a cab is necessary. And along with the cab comes payment...normally in local currency...back to the bus station to the atm. We all did something that kind of symbolized the past year of our lives...we took out about 300 Uruguayan pesos thinking that it should be enough to start us off. Soon realized that the exchange rate made that transaction Worth about $10 USD. We have been so many places with some many different exchange rates to remember and currencies to use it all starts to blend. I now use my Chinese money as a book mark and have made a designated pocket for all the coins that cant be exchanged. its starting to weigh me down! Anyway, back to it...a good day or two in Montevideo is all one needs. A
few short walking tours and a view of the unpleasant beach will take no time at all. Where you do focus your time is in the local market chowing down steaks and drinking beer. one steak and a side of fries feed the three of us. The steak was good but nothing compared to the dinner back in BA. This one was a bit tougher to put down. A little to rare for my liking and if you know my family rare is pretty rare...so this was nearly uncooked. Made for a Delicious steak flavored chewing gum. Back at the hostel we signed up for a dinner that was prepared by the staff. Once again...steak and chorizo. so good! this tie it was a little more cooked and when i covered it in chimichurry it was delightfully tasty.
Next stop was Punta Del Este. Now this is a decent beach...back to what i do best...nothing. Sit on the sand read, listen to my ipod, splash in the water to cool off...repeat. The place we stayed was talked up to be pretty good but it was a complete cesspool. the rooms were stuffy and packed in. Mosquitoes eat your face
in the night(krista and i both were victims) and when i went to take a shower after waiting an hour for the one bathroom for 20 people to open up, i was in even more of my personal hell. First it issue was the window is half the size of the door so any passers by could see the business. Im not shy so i could care less but for girls, like krista, thats not very cool. And there WAS a shower curtain until i came along. I tried to pull it shut to start the cleaning process and i riped the whole thing off the wall. it came crashing down on me and made a load noise as the metal bars hit the floor. Cool, im now sanding naked in the front of the half window door with what used to be the shower curtain in my hand. i tried to put it back up but it wasn't working so i stuffed it in the mop bucket that seemed to have made its permanent residence in an already cramped shower. For the rest of the showering stay there was no curtain. Sorry everybody.
After chilling on the beach, eating
some delicious empanadas and cooking some pretty fancy budget meals i started to feel a little worthless so i decided that a few workout sessions were in order. Day one...slow jog down the beach and some push ups and sit ups. Day two, an even slower jog down the beach and skip the push ups and sit ups because my arms wont move from the last workout. I am so disgustingly far out of any sort of fitness it is sad. oh well. Beer me!
on our way out of Punta Del Este we made a stop in Colonia. We picked up a straggle by the name of Gena. Cool American girl that was headed back to BA like us. We arrived in Colonia with the trio prebooked into room, and Gena need to find a bed. Our first thought was that it is Colonia a place you can walk though with one big step if you are not careful. How many people could possibly be there? im sure they have beds at our place. Nope. So the trio checked in stored our bags and while Jeff and Krista went to sort out the ferry to BA, Gena and
i took off to get this girl a place to sleep. It was easy, round a corner pay 10 bucks and she is in. Not the best place but it didnt matter because she could just stay at ours until it was time to sleep. So we headed back to our place and i ran into Jeff and Krista...bad news, the ferry we need is broken for the week and the only other option is way more expensive and a pain in the wazoo! no choice had to pay up. We ran back to the place with passports in hand before it was sold out and managed to get a reservation. Done... lets go see the town and have a drink at sunset and unwind. So we did. A cool little town with a historic feel. A light house and cobble stone streets give it a good touch. Not a bad sunset either. Back to the room...i headed in to get my bed situated and noticed that somebody already occupied my spot. not good. I went back to reception to get it cleared up and they were pretty confused as well. It turns out that they overbooked the room. no
big deal. just give me 1/3 of the deposit back and i will go find a new place. Done. So i joined Gena in her 12 bed dorm where we were the only people staying. I showered and was heading back to the old place were Jeff and Krista still were to eat some pizza and watch a movie. Not so fast...Krista came back not looking so happy...they had just been told that there was a group of 6 checking in and that Jeff and Krista had to give up there beds. Not really sure why this happened because we booked online a few day in advance. lame. So in the chaos of it all they came back to the place where Gena and i were. Gena and i started to munch on the crappy cold pizza that this place talked up as being delicious. not so much. We had to get our deposit back so as we ate reception scramble to get it sorted...or not sorted...instead of the 8 bucks we were due back they gave us the 8 plus 3 peoples stay for one night...another 45 bucks. This kind of thing has happened to us on several occasions
and we have kindly corrected the problem and taken the lesser amount with honesty. This time was different. With quick team work i shot a look at jeff who shot a look at krista and we took the money. They grabbed there bags while Gena and i packed up our pizza. Pleasure doing business with you! They probably thought we were so nice even though they kicked us out. We were...cuz you just paid for my accommodation and my beer! suckers!
After the eventful night was an uneventful ferry back to BA...where the journey will continue...
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