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Published: December 24th 2006
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Colonia
the tree is in the car. in the car i tell you 18 December, Monday... Arrived Buenos Aires sometime in the morning after a super fun and long bus ride, the highlights of which included a bingo game with a bottle of wine for the first to fill their card, an A-Ha homecoming concert DVD and four other movies. Apart from waking up with pain in my legs the second night I'd say the whole idea was a roaring success and I think a 20 hour bus ride to Iguazu will be something to look forward to. But time for something different, we thought before that we might pop into Uruguay, to get another stamp in the passport and to say we've been to another country, and on the bus decided to go so off we went from the bus station to the port.
After facing a curious system of four queues (reserve ticket, pay, check in, immigration) we were on the fast boat to Colonia del Sacramento. The boat itself was rather boring and not much to report on, you can't even go out on the deck so I just tried to sleep a little. Then as if by magic we were there and it was rather hot or certainly different
Plata
the river plate runs brown. reminds me of the thames back home to Ushuaia, no actually it was pretty hot and I was reminded of dragging my backpack around Asia all that time ago. Oh well, heading towards the equator now so it'll only get hotter.
Colonia is a funky little place, it was founded by the portuguese and feels more like you're in Europe than South America when you wander about the cobbled streets. There aren't any high rise buildings and it seems all the buildings were built in the 1800s and are still standing. The town's on the Rio del Plata which is a lovely brown colour from where the River Plate flows into the sea so I didn't chance swimming. After ambling about and wandering aimlessly, during which time we saw a church and a car with trees growing out of it, we decided to go to the museum for a bit of he culture (innit). The museums are pretty rubbish but also pretty cheap so didn't feel too bad about the investment. They had a tile museum. No really, they did.
In the evening I had some good local "Pilsen" beer and a dodgy barbecue (Asado) organised by the hostel. Thom spent most of his time
Football
The first world cup final was here. sleeping, maybe a bit healthier.
19 December, Tuesday... We planned to go to Montevideo for a day, thought we may as well pop into the capital while we're so close. And after saying goodbye to a couple of guys at the hostel twice I discovered we were actually on the same bus, small world I guess. Anyway, three hours on a bus flew by and we jumped on a local bus to the old city (Ciudad Vieja) which is where all the museums and, errrm, old buildings are. I think I also read it was a bit of a dodgy area, Kings Cross-esque, which might explain some of the graffitis. So what was there... first up coffee and a sandwich then a kinda art gallery/museum of Joaquin Torres Garcia who was Uruguays most famous artist by the looks of things and invented some constructive style or something (I don't really get this modern art stuff). Then we walked to a precolumbine art museum which was a bit odd but had some cool stuff in none of which seemed very old. A couple of other places were closed but we got into the history museum (I think it's in Casa Rivera) which had the story of Montevideo's recent history. Apparantly the Brits invaded for a bit so they could get closer to Buenos Aires. They also had the whole Columbus story as told by the italians. Oh, I almost forgot, we went to a rubbish musuem about the mint and the Gaucho (ie bank notes and cowboys).
Enough museums I think. We walked to the football stadium to go to the stadium museum but it was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. A bit of a shame as it's the home of the first World Cup final but we had a little luck and someone had left one of the doors to the stadium open so we snuck in. Actaully it looked like someone had booked a room for their six year old's birthday party but we wandered in to take some photos (of the stadium) anyway and left happy that we hadn't had to pay for a tour. The guidebook reckoned 70.000 capacity but I think that's before they added the seats, still an impressive stadium to see - the home of the World Cup.
20 December, Wednesday... Righto. Enough of Uruguay, we woke up and it was raining so decided to go on the early boat back to Buenos Aires. A place we'll call home for more than a week (crazy).
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Senor Davido
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Hola mi amigo
Hello mikey B, I am really enjoying your blog. will there be any updates soon. I like looking at the pictures. They make me smile, cry and laugh (not always in that order). You are lovely man. Have lovely travels and watch out for blisters.