Uruguay, the first week

Welcome to the mate capital of the world! People are drinking this stuff like crazy – they carry their mate cups with a thermos full of hot water all day long. Mate is a very social drink with “rules” for sharing. I tried it once and I’m sure I broke all the rules of etiquette since I didn’t like it and didn’t want to share the straw with the 10 other people drinking it! I don’t even like to share a straw with Wayne so the whole mate thing is out the door for me!

We planned for two weeks in Uruguay before heading north, back to Florianopolis, Brazil to see our friends Anita and Joe compete in the Ironman triathlon. Compared with its neighbors, Uruguay is a tiny country and we were optimistic we had enough time to discover all the hotspots. Wayne has been battling a sinus infection since Bariloche and we were glad to be hitting some very chill out spots recommended by Martin (our triathlon friend from Boca).

The first stop on the tour of Uruguay was Colonia del Sacramento, an hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires, with a beautiful historic quarter designated as a world heritage site by UNESCO. There are original cobblestone streets built by the Portuguese in the 17th century and it was within walking distance of the ferry terminal and our hostel, El Viajero. We soon discovered that Uruguay was going to be far more expensive than Argentina – why couldn’t all South American countries have their currency devalued and a “blue” Dollar!  You only need a day to discover all that Colonia has to offer so by Sunday we were ready to head around the coast to the very fancy beach town of Punta del Este, in summer a hangout for the Argentine rich and famous, and in winter a ghost town.  By the way, Wayne is still feeling like crap at this point – facial pain had been keeping him up most of the nights in Buenos Aires. and Colonia  We self diagnosed and decided to give him Cipro – figured it couldn’t make anything worse!

Sunday night, after making 2 bus trips, the first with free high speed wireless, we arrived in Punta del Este. The hostel was part of the same chain as the Colonia hostel, again quite nice with a good kitchen, big bedroom, great internet, and open common areas with HBO in English….we were stoked! We walked around Punta del Este, checked out the giant hand coming out of the sand on the beach, the sea lions at the dock, and the expensive shopping (which was closed due to the season). Supposedly in the summer, this place is full of the rich and famous from Argentina and Uruguay; however, now its completely deserted, and did I say “EXPENSIVE”! Luckily, we could cook at the hostel to save money on eating out. Even if we had come during the peak season, Punte del Este was not for us. Other than beach, there is not much to do there except admire the high rises, gamble and eat in overpriced restaurants.

Wayne was still feeling bad and it had been over a week with little improvement. Since the bus schedule is not so good in the off season the plan was to rent a car from Punta Del Este and work our way up the coast towards the Brazilian border. We made a quick change of plan and decided to head back to Montevideo to see an ear, nose and throat specialist! Yikes! We didn’t have a hotel reservation and needed WiFi so the best spot we could find was the restaurant at the Tres Cruses bus terminal. We found 2 places, one was walking distance to the ENT and the other was in the old town and required a taxi. We opted for the first since we could walk, but when we arrived it was closed for construction, just our luck today. We only knew the name of the second hotel and the general direction. We tried to hail a cab, but that was a very difficult task in Montevideo. Most had passengers and the yellow ones that were open would never stop for us or anyone else for that matter. We started again on foot and it was probably 20-30 blocks of walking with our packs! Eventually, we ended up at Hotel Iberia, rated #1 on Tripadvisor. The hotel was nice, nothing fancy and no breakfast. We also didn’t think much of Montevideo, there were only a few sites recommended to see and the #1 pick on Tripadvisor was a boardwalk….really? We walked to the old town where we headed to the Mercado del Puerto for lunch; there is an endless supply of meat from many different Parillas all under the same roof, and boy was it delicious! We were very happy that Wayne was given a pretty good bill of health (nothing more than a sinus infection and to give it 10 more days) so we could finally rent our car and head along the coast.