Uruguay

OK, we've been back from Uruguay for about a week now... I went to Montevideo and Colonia on 6/9 - 6/10 with a couple of other COINED students. The only thing(s) I brought back to Buenos Aires were some postcards and new stamps in my passport. Basically, it was a whirlwind weekend tour that seemed to be mostly about staying in motion instead of seeing much. Our plan was to take a 3 hr boat ride across the Rio de la Plata to Montevideo on Sat, then take a 2 hr bus ride from Montevideo to Colonia on Sun, and finally take the 50 minute return boat to BsAs at 8pm.

Right off the bat, we were "fogged in" at the port in BsAs and our 8am departure to Uruguay ended up being a 12 noon departure. The airports were shut down as well. As of about a week ago, Buenos Aires has been slightly-to-extremely foggy for 9-10 straight days. Alas, we chose one of them for traveling. Anyway, the weather pattern that brought the fog is officially gone but we're now "enjoying" another wave of freezing, polar air (with all of the associated energy crises that Argentina can muster). Hmmm, I'm off on another weather tangent... back to Uruguay.

As you can see, the fog followed us across the water to Montevideo. This is their iconic building... the Palacio Something. It's right on the main town square (Plaza Independencia). When we arrived at around 3:30p the town was dead. I don't know if it was siesta time, due to the cold/foggy weather or what, but there was a whole lot of nothing going on. So, we opted to find a hotel after looking for a place to get some cash... and naturally all of the exchange houses were closed. Fortunately, a casino in the lobby of the Radisson hotel had an ATM nearby... most likely to assist all the gamblers that are on the cusp of "winning it all back". Whatever.


Alas for me, my stupid ATM card didn't work (although the ATM machine AND the back of my card both temptingly lie to me with the word "Cirrus"). Very annoying... fortunately another student spotted me $1000 uruguayan pesos. Or, about $40 usd. With that mission accomplished, it was time to find a hotel. Which we did right by the plaza (in fact, this is what the other direction of the plaza looked like... the nice-n-slummy building in the background of the commemorative statue is an odd touch).




Anyway, the hotel's location was excellent and just $9 usd per night for each of us! However, there were no private bathrooms... it was dorm style, with a shared bathroom down the hall for the entire floor. Oh well, what do you want for $9 a night? Plus the location was also a double edged sword... as we discovered later on when we also learned why the entire town seemed to be dead. Everyone must have been SLEEPING!


Because when we went out to dinner at 11p, the restaurant was only half full (and I couldn't order anything 'a la parrilla' because it was still way too early for them to fire up the grill). Which was fine, I wanted something local anyway. The local specialty is "Chivito" -- a health food nightmare, but super tasty. Basically it's a thin steak sandwich slathered with ham, cheese, eggs, olives, lettuce, and some kinda mystery sauce. All accompanied by french fries, of course. As we left around 12:30a or so, the restaurant was filling up, as were the streets. Apparently no one goes out on Sat night til 1a or so (mostly for pizza-n-beer with friends from what I could tell). By 2am, the streets were wall-to-wall packed and it was LOUD.

Now, about that earlier "double edged sword" comment... our hotel room was on the main strip. Even though we were on the 3rd floor, it was like being at ground level in a hotel with cardboard walls on Bourbon Street during a really loud Mardi Gras. The party literally went all night and when we left the hotel at around 11a the next morning, there were STILL people in the bar next door working on their drinks and (theoretically) thinking about going home.

But since it was so late, we didn't have time to see much else so we headed to the main bus terminal and bought tickets to Colonia. It's billed as a 2 hr trip but it was more like 3 hrs. We stopped repeatedly along the way to drop off and pick up people (since the Montevideo - Colonia route is a main highway). It was a nice enough trip though - green, a little hilly, and occasional glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean. Plus it only cost $6.50 usd for the bus ticket.



Colonia is a nice little colonial town (can you guess where the name comes from?) that's about 450 - 500 years old or so. Right on the water. If it's a clear day, you can see across the ocean (technically, it's a river) to Buenos Aires. Anyhow, there's lots of cobblestone streets, Spanish colonial style houses, a lighthouse, restaurants, etc, etc. And plenty of extremely touristy, over-priced chivitos. In other words, 4 hours is plenty of time to have "seen it, done it, got the t-shirt".


The 50 min trek back to Argentina was uneventful (luckily no sequels to "Titanic" or whatever), so we were docked by 9p. After a quick walk of 8 blocks plus a subway ride later, I was home by 9:45 or so. Then off to classes again the next morning. Yes, I know it's all so very fascinating... lots happened but I'm getting the typing equivalent of writers cramp while writing this, so enough for now.