After a few fun filled days in BA Friday we headed over to Uruguay courtesy of Buquebus the major ferry / bus company.
Here's the summary:
1) The journey takes about an hour to Colonia but it was a long hour as we had a crazy set of parents behind us who baby talked their way across the river Plate to a highly annoying toddler. And the getting off seemed to take another hour and involved walking down into the car area and disembarking from there. Hilarious taxi ride into the hotel.....which was literally about 50 metres from the port but in the darkness we had no idea it was that close. Best $4 I've spent!
2) Hotel Ayers was retro but clean and the little lady in reception was very helpful. Breakfast offering was a selection of medialunas (croissants with sugar on them) and some of the Uruguain coffee that could strip your stomach lining.
3) Colonia is a sleepy costal village with some fab restaurants and one hell of a breeze. We climbed up the light house and that fairly swept away the cobwebs....I was clinging on for dear life up there! We had an amazing lunch at a parilla off the square. Steak of course and a great Pinot. Randomly there's lots of old cars in the streets which made it feel like we were stepping back in time.
4) Yet another great coach down to Montevideo and this time it even had wifi. Took about 2 hours to meander down and am loving the coaches in South America.
5) Cala di Volpe hotel was down in Punta Carretas or the posh beachside area of Montevideo and was old style Italian glam. After much tripadvisoring we found a restaurant just a few blocks awand where we had a banquet of squid, tortilla, chips with creamy mushroom sauce and a token salad. All washed down with some Tannet wine, the local grape. If you ignore the annoying yanks at the table behind us, it was a fab dinner and a welcome relief from more steak!
6) Having read up on Montevideo I was a bit hesitant to wander round by ourselves as it seemed to be a bit dodgy for tourists in the old town where all the cool buildings are. Lots of tales of bag snatching and tourists being followed as they stood out. Seeing as how we stand out anyway being 2 blonde Gringas, we opted to get a guide and am so happy we did. Liz was a lovely middle aged British woman who'd been in Monte for 30 years and in the luxury of our private car she showed us around the whole city and gave us lots of the history and current time politics. We wandered through a Sunday market, went out to a winery for a tour and tasting, saw the old town, drove around the outer suburbs to see the huge old abandoned mansions and walked around the port area. Great way to see the city and learn about the culture. It didn't seem as dodgy as the reviews made out, but we were the only tourists and it was kinda sleepy town feel with a gritty edge. i think that tourists are just easy pickings in a town where almost 50% of the population are below the poverty line.
7) Said farewell to Zoe after our tour and she headed to the airport back to Santiago. I checked out the shopping centre behind our hotel which used to be a prison for the political prisoners during the military rule. Bizarre that you still go in via the prison administration building!
8) I caught the Buquebus ferry back in the morning after a fab breakfast involving amazing donuts filled with dulce de leche. Calorific but I'm on holiday! Only tickets left were for business and I was on their new fast ferry and most importantly it was a kid free zone. You had to put shoe cover things on and I can't work out whether it was to keep their new ferry clean or for an actual quarantine issue. Anyway, we all looked kind of riduculous walking around with them on, but the argentians still managed to work it!
9) My taxi driver back to the Fierro hotel looked like Maradona ( the mullet years) drove like a maniac and kept doing his hair in the mirror. Was very glad to arrive in 1 piece.
So here I am back in Buenos Aires, right in Palermo with shops and cafes all around. Looking forward to wandering around this fab city and enjoying my last few days in South America.
