Sunny Uruguay (except for all the rain and lightning and thunder storms)

The ferry ride to Uruguay was really cool. It was a huge boat, that was almost like a cruise boat. There was a duty free shop, an elevator, cafe, bar. It was exciting! We landed in Colonia del Sacramento, but took a bus straight to Montevideo because our couch surfing hosts were going to go out of town so we wanted to make sure we could stay with them. Our hosts were Pedro and Carlita, a young married couple. They had recently returned from 9 months traveling the world with Pedro's architecture school. They were super super nice people, and we had tons of fun. Pedro gave us so much advise on the city and other places in Uruguay to visit. We were really lucky yet again.
 

Our first day in Montevideo we went straight to the Paraguayan consulate to get tourist visas for Paraguay. It was closed. So we took a city bus downtown and walked around. It's a cool city – beautiful architecture and a laid-back vibe, unlike Buenos Aires, which has more of a pretentious “we're not Latin American” feel. And of course, Montevideo has beaches! But we just visited the musems and walked the streets. We ate at a place called The California Burrito Company, but it wasn't very good.

The second day we went straight to the Paraguayan consulate again and filled out the form. They said to come back at 3, so we walked down to the beach and chilled for a few hours. When we got back at 3 we had to wait until 4 for our visas.

We then went back to the house because we were going for a parrilla (grilled meat dinner) with Pedro and Carlita that night. They took us to a very local, well-priced place in their neighborhood. We got beef, blood sausage, and intestines! Ew! Of course I didn't eat them! Or the blood sausage! Then they took us to a cool bar nearby where we tried “grappa”, a local drink made from the stems of grapes.

Campsite after the rain

The next day we took a bus back to Colonia del Sacramento because it sounded really cool, and it sure was. But the arrival was not cool. It started torrentially pouring about ten minutes after we got there and Jesse was walking around looking for a room. He walked and walked, but couldn't find a thing. He tried about 6 hotels and none had a room. So we figured we'd have to camp in the rain. We got on a city bus, but found out in a minute that the campsite we wanted was closed. So we got off the bus. Luckily, we were near the bus station and so went to the information center. But it was closed. However, there was a flier for another campsite. We flagged a cab because we were over buses, and the campsite was very close to the town. So we set up camp! Luckily the rain held off the entire time we were setting up. Then we bought some gnoccis at the little camp store and cooked them up on our campstove.

The next day we headed into town to check out Colonia. It was super cool with it's old colonial houses and part of the old city wall still standing. It was remarkably cheap compared to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It was only about $5 to go to about 5 little museums. Of course everything was in Spanish so I couldn't really read anything in the museums. Then we had lunch at a cute little place that was in one of the old colonial buildings. It was a cheese and salami tapas place. We got a plate that also had vegetable tarts. And we got a bottle of rose wine. It was only $25 for everything. During lunch we were chatting with the couple next to us who were from Buenos Aires. They weren't married, but were celebrating being pregnant with their fifth child, and I noticed the woman was drinking wine!

Then we went back to the campsite and ate the rest of our lunch for dinner. We chatted with the couple camping next to us too. We watched a movie (The Help) in the tent before we went to sleep.

The next day we got up and headed back along the coast to Piriapolis. It is a vacation town for Uruguayans. The campsite was literally across the street from the bus station. It was really cool! We set up tent next to this tiny stream. We quickly learned why no one else was camping in that spot: there were little sharp burs all over the ground from this small tree we were next to. And also, the beetles in the stream made the craziest noise, like kittens crying. I even dreamed about a cat crying that night! We walked down to the beachfront where everyone was out walking around (dinner doesn't happen until 10pm in Uruguay) and we sat and had a breadless burger that was topped with cheese, ham, a fried egg, peppers, and onions. It was actually really good!

The next day we went straight to the beach and laid around until about 8pm, and it was still light! When we walked along the beach we saw a lot of dead jellyfish and one dead stingray.

The following day we went to see the house the founder of the town had built. It was designed to look like a castle. We got out there on a city bus, but the interior of the house was closed, so it was kind of not worth it. We then took a 45 minute bus ride to a neighboring beach town called Punta del Este, which is fancier and bigger. We sat on the beach for a few hours. While walking up the beach we saw a dead baby seal! It was so sad. And strange, to see a stingray and then a baby seal.

The next day we went to La Pedrera, further up the coast, which is listed in the tour book as a small “surfer town.” It was really cool. There were no paved roads and everything was spaced out. We found a campsite which turned out to be full of loud young people keeping us up all night. But it was close to the grocery store, which was good. The first day there we sat on the beach. It was really windy and the waves were almost big. That night I awoke to the sounds of someone throwing up repeatedly. It was really gross. Turned out it was the guy in the tent two spaces over from us, who I then called Pukey the rest of the time. The next day we took a day trip to another small coastal town called Valizas, which was described as a “hippie town.” Again, there were no paved roads, and just houses with horses wandering around. It was really cool. The beach there was even windier and the sand would just blow onto our towels and cover them. There were houses totally surrounded and half-buried in the sand. It was really cool looking. And of course there were huge sand dunes which people would sandboard down.

Then we headed to Chuy, because we were going to take the interior route to get to Paraguay. Chuy is on the border with Brazil. So close in fact, that the main street is the actual border. So I crossed it, and went to Brazil! There are duty free shops lining the street as well. We stayed in the first hotel of our trip since leaving Santiago on January 3^rd. It felt pretty luxurious! And there was a great free breakfast which we ate a lot of. Our bus was at 8:30am so we were up and out on our way through the interior of Uruguay, which is a very uncommon trip for tourists. It was very country. There are only 3 million people in Uruguay, and you can tell! The cowboys here are called “gauchos” and the were their pants tucked into their boots, a pancho, a big thick belt, and a beret. And of course, everyone has their mate cup and hot water thermos.

We got to Tacuarembo, and asked the taxi driver from the bus station to take us to a cheap hotel. We inquired about prices and they were pretty high ($40US) and the guy was being a jerk, so we left. We found the other hotel in town, which was not very nice at all, but it was still $30US. We then got various food items at the supermarket for dinner – cheese, fruit, salami, pretzels, and went to sleep. It was really hot. The next day we had about 8 hours to kill before our bus left. We stored our bags at the bus station then walked around town. It was really hot. We saw a museum and ate lunch and lounged around in the plaza. We then got back on the bus and went to Paysandu, which is on the border with Argentina. We found a local dive bar that served BBQ and we had really cheap sausages. 

We headed to Santa Fe the next day and didn't get in until 1am. We found a cheap hotel near the bus station. It was a tiny tiny room. The next day we walked around Santa Fe. It was typically Argentine, with long, busy pedestrian walkways through shops and restaurants. We visited several museums. It started to rain and we ran back to the hotel. Our bus to Encarnacion, Paraguay, was very early the next morning. We got into Posadas, Argentina, which is right across the river from Encarnacion. We had to then take a local city bus across the border. Because we had to go through the immigration entry line that the locals don't have to go in, the bus doesn't wait for the foreigners and we had to take a cab to our couchsurfers house. It was about 11pm, and we were exhausted.