Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

I only got a quick look at Uruguay, but what I saw was great!  There is always the smell of roasting beef drifting in on the wind and Uruguayans cannot live without their mate- literally everyone has a cup of mate and a thermos of hot water with them always, even in an ambulance with its lights on!  Uruguayans are much more friendly and more laid back than porteños (BA locals) and finally, there seems to be some strange obsession with owls in the tourism industry.  Every souvenir shop has little owls made of ceramic or wood.  I cannot figure that one out!  Anywho, that´s the general stuff, what follows is what I did while I was here!
 
I got up bright and early on the morning of 1/27 to take the ferry to Colonia del Sacramento.  Colonia is across the Rio de la Plata (literally "the river of the plate") from Buenos Aires, but the river is so huge at this point that it took 2.5 hours to get here!  The ferry was pretty typical except that half way through the ride, a woman with a full band started singing covers of top hits.  At first I thought it was a cd or the radio, but then heard all the applause and sure enough it was a live performance.  She destoyed "Oh Darling", but was otherwise pretty entertaining.  After disembarking, I walked a couple blocks to the hostel through shady, leafy, tree-lined cobble stone streets.  This hostel is awesome.  It´s in a great old house just a couple blocks from the UNESCO world heritage site in the old town.  My room has AC (!!!!!!!!!!) which I am REALLY excited about.  There is again a kitchen and fridge.  This hostel is really clean and quiet (the one in BA was a party house!).  It is much much cooler here and there is always a nice breeze coming off the water so it is very pleasant.  As I was checking in, a girl walked in behind me and was standing in the lobby for a little before asking where I am from.  Turns out she´s from Bend!  How random!  She (Nicci) is also traveling alone, and has been only in Uruguay thus far.  After getting settled she and I decided to stroll around downtown and grab some lunch.  We ate at a great little cafe at a table on the cobblestone Plaza Mayor 25 de Mayo.  All the buildings surrounding the plaza are painted bright colors with little rod-iron balcony´s, arches and shutters and lots of bougainvillea. On one side is also a park with a bright green lawn and lots of trees.  One of the streets off the plaza led directly down to the water where there is a promenade with white arches and railings.  It was so beautiful!  After lunch we walked down to the water and on the promenade out to the marina and then just wandered around town.  All the streets until you get to the outskirts are cobble-stoned and lined with tall trees.  It is touristy here, but for a reason!  We got some ice cream and then went down by the water at the Bastion de San Miguel (a crumbling wall of an old fort) and sat for awhile in the sun watching a local catch fish after fish out of the river.  It is much slower paced here and very peaceful and relaxing. After this, Nikki went back to the hostel to rest and I walked out to the sea wall by the river and sat below on the flat rocks right above the water to watch the sunset.  There were about a dozen or so locals fishing off the rocks by me as the sun set.  It was gorgeous.  I read my book for a bit longer until it got dark and wandered back through the old town.  It is nice during the day, but with the lights and all the little tables with candles out in the plaza it was really pretty.  A great first day in Colonia!

On 1/28, Nicci and I walked to the city lighthouse to get view of the city from the top.  It was really cool.  We could see the little tiny buildings of BA way in the distance, the Rio de la Plata, all of old town and out towards the beaches just NE of town.  There was a really nice breeze coming off the water so we sat in the shade up there for a bit.  After this, we decided to go visit the abandoned Plaza de Toros (bull-fighting arena) NE of old town.  It was a beautiful structure with lots of arches and pretty open windows, but it is starting to fall apart so we couldn´t go in to look around in the middle of the arena.  It was still cool though.  We then walked along the beaches of the Rio de la Plata back towards old town and then took a bus back the rest of the way.  The beaches have white sand and palm trees, but the water is pure brown and Nicci and I weren´t too sure about swimming in it, so we just looked instead.  Once we got back into town, Nicci had to go back to the hostel to get her stuff and catch the ferry over to BA.  She will be taking a Spanish course there for a couple weeks and will be staying in Recoleta by the cemetery I talked about in the first entry.  I said bye to Nicci and made some lunch.  After lunch, I decided to buy a bus ticket to Montevideo- I wasn´t planning on going there at all, but decided I had seen everything I wanted to see in Colonia so I will just do a day trip there.  I walked to a nice grassy, shady park and planned out my Montevideo day, read, people watched, and relaxed under the trees.  After a bit I went to a beach nearby to check out the massive thunderheads forming over BA.  They were so tall, they blocked the sun here in Colonia too.  I think BA must have a had pretty big storm!  There were lots of puppies at the beach playing with sticks, rocks, and the odd plastic water bottle so I was entertained watching them for a while.  There are lots of dogs here too like in BA.  After returning to the hostel for a shower, I went back down to the water to watch the sunset again and walked around the marina envying the yacht owners spread out on their boat docks sipping wine with perfect views of the sunset. 

This morning (1/29) I caught the bus to Montevideo at 8.  Montevideo is a city of about 3 million and is NE across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires.  The bus ride took about 2 hours and was actually pretty nice- rolling fields interrupted with eucalyptus forests and lots and lots of beef cows of course.  When I arrived I took a city bus to Plaza Independencia in the heart of Cuidad Vieja (Montevideo´s old town).  The plaza is overshadowed by the enormous Palacio Salvo which is 26 stories high and was the tallest building in South America at one point.  Next to this in the columned Palacio Estévez which served as the main government building at one point.  It looked a lot like a Greek temple with its columns and pointy front facade.  In the middle of the plaza is the Mausaleo Artigas, a monument to and a final resting place for General Artigas, the national hero.  Artigas died in 1850 and ever since his remains were placed in the mausoleum there are always two guards standing at attention 24 hours a day, every day!  After the plaza, I walked down the pedestrian avenue to leafy, shady, green Plaza Constitución surrounded by cobble-stoned streets and street cafes.  In the plaza there happened to be a Saturday antiques market.  I spent quite a while browsing their offerings and ended up buying my first souvenir.  Most vendors had your typical antique coins, jewelry and knives, but one vendor had a shrunken head for sale!  There were also some local artists with things for sale there as well.  After this I continued down the pedestrian avenue towards La Rambla (promenade) along the shore of the Rio.  Heading away from Plaza Independencia towards the water, the neighborhood changes quickly from cobble stones and pink, white and blue churches to the crumbling, half constructed buildings of impoverished countries.  Some buildings were at one time very pretty I´m sure, having been made in the same french style as many in Buenos Aires, but have since fallen into disrepair.  Once on La Rambla, I watched a few people catch some fish with HUGE fishing poles and was almost soaked with a couple crashing waves.  After walking along for a bit, I returned to Plaza Constitución for some lunch and ran into two Americans, a Brit and an Aussie.  After lunch I joined them in Pocitos, an upscale beach neighborhood with lots of pretty houses and plenty of expensive looking ocean front apartments.  We had some ice cream and then sat in the shade in the sand until I had to take the bus back to Colonia.  I am really glad I went to Montevideo!  I had a great time.

Tomorrow I head back to Buenos Aires for 2 more nights and then I´m on my way to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego and eventually Patagonia!!!!  Hope all is well at home!  Love you all!

P.S.  I got accepted to grad school (WSU- M.S. in Limnology)!!!!!!!!!!