Uruguay

It´s been nearly 4 weeks for me in Argentina, so it is time to tick off another country on the map and why not Uruguay which the Argentinians rather treat as another province than an independant country. Well, on the map it looks tiny and what are about 3.3m inhabitants if you are squeezed between Argentina and Brazil.

We start in Colonia de Sacramento (2 nights) as this is the easiest place to get to from Buenos Aires. It is literally a 1hrs ferry ride with the great Buquebus over the neverending River Plata seeming like the sea - as it is enormous, but it is actually a river (huge and brown though).

Colonia is old and colonial. We head for the beach and a run, we are actually here to top up our tans, but forget it, it is raining and raining (which some of you might have already read in the blog Simon sent out). A little bit depressing, but what can you do. I learned this living for 6 years in the UK, don`t get moody only because it is raining. On day 2 we go for a nice walk and find this amazing restaurant called "The Drugstore" and hey, the world looks different after a lentil stew and 1 1/2 liters of Sangria.

Punta del Este (4 nights): After 2 nights we decide to pack it in for more action in the St. Tropez of South America, where models, politicans and VIP hang out in the summer (surrounded by Paparazzi) to find more beach (weather). Punta is a peninsula, the season is over, so that we don`t see a face arriving in the rain. 2 blocks down the road is our hostel 1949 where we check in and enjoy having our own TV with some english / american channels which makes all the difference if you haven´t watched TV for nearly 6 weeks.

The Hostel has a great location, really in the midst of 2 beaches and close to the beautiful port (sealions !!!) and we make some good friends on the first night. We were really off to bed, but somehow started chatting to some interesting people who asked us to join them for some dinner and since then we made friends with Nina from HH, Frank from Canada and a great bunch of english (croydon) and Aussies - we have been bumping into ever since....

So, finally, it is party time in Punta del Este as the weather is still not good enough for beaching, hence we drink, chat and meet different guys in the local Moby Dick. The next morning or should i say day, as you tend to sleep in Punta forever and ever (it is the only hostel i have found so far, offering breakfast until 12pm) apparently something to do with the air here...or is it me and the fact i love sleeping forever (...hence another good reason to travel and not to work).

Once the sun comes out, we don`t move from the beach. Our books become our best friends, we just leave the beach to get some lunch and as our new friends decided to leave we spend some time on our own. Still going for the odd run and sightseeing (mainly house spotting as they have some fantastic and some odd places here).

Next stop Montevideo (2nights):
Again a fairly short bus ride, we head for the capital of Uruguay and check in the Che Lagado hostel on the Plaza Independencia. Close to the gateway to the old town, we meet extremly nice staff in the hostel, go for food as we can afford it now (old town, after expensive Punta) and my only effort to start cooking was viciously penalised. I fancied some easy scrammbled eggs and opened the pack only to see dozens of small but horrendous looking worms crawling out of the eggs i just had purchased...i know now need to elaborate any further, or ?? Hope i didn´t put you off.....hey, it is far away...

Montevideo has a huge port, but we mainly head for the beach before flying off to cold and windy Patagonia.