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Published: October 15th 2014
Having spent much longer in Porto Alegre's bus station than anyone needs to, we finally boarded our night bus to Punta del Este in Uruguay at ten o'clock at night. We had really not been looking forward to the trip as we weren't able to sleep at all on our last Brazilian night bus (the two ladies behind us alternated between chatting and humming throughout the night), however, when the cheery bus stewardesses greeted us in Spanish and we boarded the very new bus, we realised we were in for a much more comfortable ride, this was a Uruguayan bus. We settled in for the evening, enjoyed another dinner on the bus (it had been so long since we had received food on a bus that we'd already eaten) and woke up the next morning in Uruguay. All the border formalities had been taken care of by the bus company whilst we slept, so we were given back our passports in the morning, complete with Uruguayan entry stamps. This had been the easiest border crossing of the trip, but we did feel like we'd cheated a little bit.
We jumped off the bus at Punta del Este, Uruguay's most glamorous
beach resort, popular with the rich, beautiful and famous (clearly a place we'd fit in a treat with our tired looking backpacker clothes...). Luckily (for our wallets and self esteem) we had arrived in the winter when the town is almost deserted and after quite a walk, we found a hotel that was open with an owner who was prepared to knock a significant amount off the price of a room. After checking in and making ourselves look as presentable as possible, we set off to explore the town.
Punta del Este is located on a peninsula, so it is possible to walk all the way around, enjoying a sheltered bay on one side (the perfect place for our picnic despite the company of a very persistent well fed hound that insisted he was starving) and the open ocean on the other side. As we wandered around the end of the peninsula we were surprised to see many whales in the water. After months of trying to spot whales, we were pleased to finally get a glimpse of these great beasts and sat watching them until our noses went numb from the cold wind.
The next day, we
decided Punta del Este had nothing more to offer us, so headed up the coast to the small town of La Pedrera. We had thought Punta del Este was deserted, but in comparison to La Pedrera, it was practically heaving. Absolutely no one appeared to live in this town apart from the obligatory scruffy mutts. Not to worry though, this time we'd actually booked a hostel, our challenge was to find it. After hopping over the welcoming party, a big black dog who refused to move despite the bus doors opening almost on top of him, we set off towards the sea, knowing that our hostel was slightly north of the main centre along the beach. Hoping to walk along the edge of the beach, we found there was no road, so we ended up wandering over the sand dunes for about twenty minutes until we found what looked like a road back into town. After coming across an entire brood of very friendly puppies, two rather unfriendly looking big dogs and finally one rather bemused looking human being, we finally saw a sign for our hostel. At the end of a sand road, past a rusting shell of a
Volkswagen campervan, we found our rustic hostel (complete of course with three dogs). Our next pressing issue was food, so after asking (rather hopefully) where the nearest shop was, the owner did some frantic phoning around for us and finally located an open shop in the next village. Originally, the plan had been to go to the shop by bike, however, the bikes turned out not to have brakes or chains attached, so the owner kindly offered to take us in her car. The car turned out to be the rusting Volkswagen wreck! We literally could not believe this car would start, but after a few attempts it spluttered into life, so we hopped into the back, whilst the owner apologised for the mess. We were really not concerned about the mess, but the real possibility of the floor falling out from under us and the exhaust fumes inside were a bit disconcerting.
Luckily, we all made it to and from the shop in one piece (campervan included) and so settled into the hostel for an evening by the fire. The next couple of days were spent wandering along the deserted beach, spotting more whales and returning to feed
the puppies we'd run into on our first day as they didn't seem to have an owner and were clearly hungry.
After a few days in La Pedrera, Ross thought we ought to leave before Liz became too attached to our five puppy friends and insist we fly them all home, so we had to leave them and console ourselves with the fact that we had at least filled their bellies for a few days.
Our next stop was Cabo Polonio, a tiny fishing village set on a peninsula and only accessible by a very bumpy truck ride through the national park. On arriving in the village square, we immediately spotted our hostel by its rainbow coloured roof. There is no mains electricity in Cabo Polonio (except to power the lighthouse), so all the houses have to generate their own power, hence the compact and rustic nature of the buildings. We spent our evenings in candlelight next to the wood burner and the days exploring the national park, watching sea lions at the local sea lion colony and spotting yet more whales in the bay.
After Cabo Polonio we decided we'd seen the best of Uruguay's coast,
so we made our way to the capital, Montevideo. Montevideo has a small old town centre, which was interesting to stroll around, however, there wasn't much to keep us there for long, so after a couple of nights we headed west to Colonia del Sacramento, a much prettier, smaller city.
Originally founded by the Portuguese and having grown in importance as a handy source of smuggled goods, Colonia's old town is now a Unesco Heritage site. We'd booked into a hostel just outside the old town and luckily just reached it on foot before a torrential rain storm hit the city. After quickly dashing to the local shops for a basic provisions, we cooked and spent the evening hauled up in our very cosy room (cosy except for the hole in the roof that let the rain in). During the next couple of days, we were lucky to have lovely sunny weather and spent our time exploring the old town.
As our final destination in South America was Buenos Aires, just across the Rio de la Plata from Uruguay, we decided a great way to join up our circuit would be by boat. However, with a few days
to spare we decided to cross the river slightly further up the coast at Carmelo. This crossing is cheaper than the Colonia or Montevideo to Buenos Aires crossing and passes through the river delta, so it is also more interesting. We made the trip slightly longer with a night's stay on either side of the crossing, in Carmelo in Uruguay (in a rather strange hostel room that had a bust of the owner's head on a table inside) and in Tigre, a wealthy suburb of Buenos Aires on the banks of the river (again in a very strange hostel owned by an eccentric Argentine sailing psychiatrist). The next day we boarded the train to the familiar centre of Buenos Aires, to complete our eleven month circle around South America and treat ourselves to coffee at Cafe Tortoni and one last giant steak dinner (accompanied, of course, with a big glass of Argentinian red), before heading back to the UK for a month to catch up with family and friends and prepare for our next adventure in South East Asia.
Having spent almost a year in South America, we felt it only right to round up our trip and think
back to some of our best and most memorable moments on the road:
- In eleven months we visited eight countries and travelled around 20 000 miles.
- In this time we took twelve flights, travelled by boat fourteen times, took the train five times, hitchhiked twice (although we stuck with our kind lift providers for days on the first occasion), rode in the back of trucks four times, walked endlessly and took literally hundreds of buses.
- During our trip Liz has somehow managed to lose quite a few items of clothing. Ross, on the other-hand has lost nothing but has broken three pairs of sunglasses.
- Our longest journey is a tie between the 30 hour boat trip down the Amazon and the same length journey on the ferry to Puerto Williams through the Beagle Channel.
- Our most hair-raising journey was on the bus in Bolivia to Sucre from Potosi and involved an incident with two buses, a number of cars, a herd of goats and a cliff.
- The best meals we had (we can't just choose one) were our first Argentine steak in Desnivel in Buenos Aires, Patty's King
Crab soufflé in Puerto Williams and Ross' birthday feast in Bariloche. The worst meal we had was undoubtedly in Copacabana, Bolivia - cold soup and raw chicken!
- Our most interesting border crossing was between Villa O'Higgins in Chile and El Chalten in Argentina, involving a hike over no-man's land.
- The coldest night we spent was in a Patagonian barn, accompanied by a cat.
- The hottest night we spent was in a tiny oven-like room with no windows in San Juan, Argentina, during a heat wave and a power cut.
- The highest hostel we slept in was at around 4200 metres during the Uyuni salt flat tour.
- The weirdest item we've found in a hostel room is either the aforementioned bust of a landlord's head or a giant fridge-freezer in the middle of a small Brazilian hotel room that the owner was really proud of. The fridge took up a significant proportion of the room and couldn't actually be plugged in...
- One of our best stays was in a surf hostel on the Galápagos Islands, right next to the beach with a bar that served wonderful passion fruit daiquiris
and was inhabited by iguanas.
- Our least comfortable paid for night's accommodation was in a Brazilian, mosquito filled loft (although Ross would probably argue "the place with the concrete bed" was a close second).
- Brazil was the best country for beaches, buffets and wildlife, particularly giant, weird and wonderful creepy crawlies (we still haven't identified the prawn-like bugs that insisted on entering our room in the Pantanal, even though we kept batting them out under the door with our flip flops).
- Chile was the best country for wonderfully beautiful and remote countryside, white wine, independent travel, avocados and fast food (mainly because avocados feature strongly in almost all Chilean fast food and the burgers are massive), but the worst for coffee (sorry Chile but we never want another cup of Nescafé).
- Argentina was the best country for steak, ice cream, pizza and of course red wine (no wonder we became slighty chubby here), but the worst for supermarket queues and the availability of change (where does it all go?).
- Bolivia and Peru were the countries where the indigenous culture was most obvious, which makes them really interesting to visit. They
were also by far the best countries for llamas.
- Ecuador is the most underrated country. This often forgotten country has a little bit of everything, is wonderfully green and lush, is really easy and cheap to travel around and has the Galapagos.
- Uruguay was the best country for old cars, towns with more dogs than people, Gaucho culture, mate drinking, deserted beaches and whale watching, but it was toughest on our budget.
- Colombia was the best country for coffee, helpful locals, milkshakes, the clearest Spanish, salsa dancing, rum, vibrancy, noise and general South American craziness.
South America has been great. Thanks for reading.
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Jeremyaroundtheworld
Jeremy Chiron
Well, Friends (since I read your last long blog ;-), What a journey!
I hope to follow your steps someday... on my bike! How are you 2 feeling after being on the road for so long? Tired at all? Good luck with getting back to normal life (if that is the plan). Cheers!