Some of you may be wondering "What's there to do in Uruguay?" THIS is what there is to do in Uruguay.
But we'll get to that later. Let's start at the place where all things originate - the beginning.
We took the 9AM Buquebus boat from BA to Colonia, a little seaside town full of winding, cobblestone streets and Portugese history. The town, in fact, was originally a Portugese smugglers port to ship goods to the embargoed Buenos Aires.
Very pretty town... especially if it wasn't raining. Pouring as it was, the town was dead, but your favorite intrepid travelers braved the elements to wander aimlessly through the streets of lore and stone to visit the ruins in the Plaza de Armas and the Iglesia Matriz, Uruguay's oldest church. We also climbed the lighthouse for some views over the river and the town and strolled down the picturesque Calle de los Suspiros - the alley of sighs. Not much was going on there and our hostel had the slowest internet known to man, so we moved on after one night to the place all things Uruguayan call "the capital of the country" - Montevideo.
Which was freezing. Seriously, seriously cold. We first tried the recommended hostels from our book, the first of which had gone up about 25% in price and the second of which actually looked really awesome, but neglected to mention that they only had room for one night until we were almost done checking in. So we wandered and found a place significantly cheaper with a private room and bathroom for three nights. But we had no pesos Uruguayanos, so we had to venture out in the frostbitular cold (and soakatular rain) to find a Citibank, which we eventually located after walking through the dodgy area of town.
Kate was feeling sick, so we went to get food and ended up walking literally all over the city trying to decide where to eat. We settled on Bar Hispano as they were cheap and had an extensive menu. Kate played it safe with ravioli and orange juice, but I wanted to try the Uruguayan speciality - chivito... which turned out to be a heart attack on a plate. Greasy fries topped with a fried steak topped with a couple slices of Canadian bacon topped with melted cheese topped with a fried egg with a runny yolk. Mmm... or something.
As we had a TV in the room and Kate was feeling not unlike [EDITED BY KATE], we fell back into our routine of watching movies at night instead of doing anything productive/destructive (to our health). During the days, however, we were all over the tiny, tiny town. We ate a meal at the Mercado del Puerto, which, while overpriced, served me a steak the size of my forearm (literally) and had a great atmosphere, especially when a wandering guitarist walked over to the table next to us where he met up with some friends of his and they sang for about two hours.
We also checked out the ultra-modern mausoleum of Jose Artigas, Uruguay's national hero, before going to the Museo Torres Garcia which, frankly, we could have done without (but at least it was free). More museums the next day - Museo Romantico and Casa Rivera - as well as walking the promenade along the waterfront and getting some veggies for a homemade pasta sauce back at our hospedaje.
And now that we have done the beginning, we can do the end - or at least the middle two-thirds: Punta del Diablo.
Punta del Diablo is a tiny fishing/surfing village with dirt streets and a population of 700. There's nothing to do there except eat, walk in the nature preserve, and, of course, go to the beach. Woe were us.
We arrived around, needing to find accommodations, and wandered into the main square (i.e. largest dirt patch - in a good way) and asked around. People kept telling us to find Señor Nelson, which we eventually did. He showed us to our cabana - a two-story log cabin with a thatched roof whose only residents since the summer before were some friendly silverfish and a couple spiders.
But it was fun and we had the whole place to ourselves, even though it slept six - and check out the view from the front porch. Anyway, that night, we went out for dinner - seafood, in fact, which was a welcome change of pace after the artery-clogging cuisine of Montevideo. We walked the beaches a bit, figured out the layout of the town, and went to bed just before it started to storm.
But the storm blew itself out before we were up in the morning, and that just mean better waves. So we went to the beaches, ate some food, and generally just hung out. We also realized that we hadn't brought nearly enough cash for our time in Punta del Diablo and found out that the nearest bank was a 30 minute bus ride away. Luckily, we discovered that one of the markets in town would change dollars, so we were bailed out and got to spend the next couple days relaxing on completely empty beaches that stretched for miles in either direction. It was pretty much paradise, especially when you added some cerveza and fresh, handmade empanadas... and though it was only spring, the water was warmer than the Pacific in the summer!
The only "strenuous" thing we did while there was to go on a hike in the nature preserve. There is supposedly a fort somewhere in the preserve, but we couldn't find it, despite walking for about 5 hours. But that was just along an even more deserted beach with even warmer water.
Though, to be honest, we weren't exactly alone. No, in Punta del Diablo, we were never alone as we were somehow adopted by a stray German Shepherd which we named Dogoberta. On our walk through the nature preserve, we were joined by another stray, Dogathan. These dogs just followed us without us ever petting them (due to fleas) or feeding them. And when we went in the water, they sat by our things and barked at anyone who came too close. Very strange.
Otherwise, we mostly just hung out on the beaches, one of which was La Playa de los Pescadores, which really was covered with fishing boats. One day, we watched a boat come in, watched the fisherman crank it up up the beach via a series of boards and chains, and watched them unload the catch, which included several flat fish (not sure what they were) as well as a six foot plus shark, which was definitely a first for me to see. While we didn't eat shark there, we did go to another restaurant called El Viejo y El Mar, which was run by a crusty man named Ernesto.
Ernesto sat us down, asked if we wanted fish, and brought us out some delicious catfish and a couple bottles of beer. We were a little leery of the loud Americans sitting near us, but the night ended up being really great in the end. When Ernesto - the maitre d, chef, and waiter - became overwhelmed once the restaurant filled up, one of the American girls offered to help him and acted as waitress, which was really funny, especially as she spoke no Spanish. Later, Ernesto came out and played a terribly out of tune guitar and sang for everyone. Classic.
I could go on and on about the beaches of Punta del Diablo, but I'll just give you a couple more pictures (as we don't have pictures for the next couple paragraphs) and move on...
...to Salto. More specifically, to Daymán, a little town filled with natural thermal baths on the border of Uruguay and Argentina. We only spent one night there, mostly just a convenient transfer point on the way to Iguazu. But we spent pretty much all day in the water.
Funnily enough, very little was at the thermal baths as it was blistering hot outside and it's tough to get in a spa when you're already sweating. So we went to a waterpark. It was great, but we were both tired from the overnight bus the day before and ended up napping for a couple hours on some lounge chairs (in the shade). Very relaxing day, which, coincidentally, was also Thanksgiving. Also coincidentally, Kate and I decided we were going to eat only fruit that day (not realizing it was actually Thanksgiving). We got hungry by the end of the day though and caved for some salad and grilled chicken, so don't worry, we still celebrated Turkey Day in South America.
The next day, we loaded up our stuff, bused into Salto, took a ferry across the river to Concordia, Argentina, and spent over an hour in customs as the customs woman made us empty all of our bags and examine every article we had with us. She spent a while sniffing our laundry soap, apparently convinced we were trying to smuggle a kilo of cocaine in the front pocket of our daypack. She was also fascinated by Kate's yoga book and flipped through every page, chuckling at the pictures. But strangest of all was that she was especially confused by our MasterLocks as she could not understand what they were for. This wasn't a language barrier, she just couldn't conceive of using it to lock, oh say, a locker, or a door, or a bag... very strange and annoying. But we managed to get through eventually, only to take our bags to the bus station where we were tied up for another 45 minutes by the bag check guy (as we had several hours to kill before our bus to Iguazu).
This old man obviously just wanted someone to talk to and felt that he had to show us every page of a book he had on Missiones (the province we were in). He then told us two times how to prepare mate, rambled about geodes for a while, and made sure we knew that the region was famous for thermal baths. We deduced that there was something strange in the water in Concordia and set out to wander the town for a few hours (which included a really great meal, incidentally) before returning for our overnight bus to Iguazu.
And that, dear readers, ends this long overdue blogpost and brings you up to speed with our time in Uruguay.
We had our own little apartment (or Chalet, as they called them), complete with a living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom with sunken tubs. Plus, we were on the street Tres Fronteras, or Three Borders as it is right by where two rivers meet and form borders, and we actually could see Argentina (of course), Brazil, and Paraguay from the bedroom window. Here we are at the borders, standing in Argentina with Brazil behind us and Paraguay across the river to our right.
We had to spend about an hour trying to chase this lizard out of the room as he was really fast, really scared, and kept running deeper into the apartment. More interesting, perhaps, were the baby birds in the rafters in the poolside cabana. Neither of us had ever actually seen birds this small being fed by their parents and it was really interesting to watch. And then, at the park itself, we saw the famous coatis eating...
Plus beer and some girly drinks from the bar. We walked down to see the lookout over the three borders, swan in the pool, relaxed in the cabanas, and played some soccer on Pirayu's field. It was a great day, which turned into a pretty funny night when an American girl who was at the resort with her parents introduced herself to us. She always seemed a little strange, but just got weirder and weirder and less and less coherent as the night went on, ending when she got up from the table and started dancing by herself for the men across the pool. Her parents just laughed and dragged her off to bed.
