Uruguay - 23.02.2014 - 7th Post

19.02.2014

ARGENTINA

Leaving Argentina today for Uruguay, already have bus tickets for Gualegualychu to Mercedes but not Mercedes to Montevideo (another story) we have been told there should be no problem getting them.  Passed through the border painlessly, through Frey Bentos (yes, it is a town in Uruguay) and arrived at Mercedes, purchasing the ticket with ease as has been promised.

After 1½ hours, we were waiting at the allocated platform with 5 minutes to go, no sign of our bus or even any waiting passengers!  5 minutes over departure time decided to ask someone if there was a delay, she looked at our tickets and looked confused.  Calling us over to the ticket desk, we were informed the bus had left an hour ago.  It transpired our watches were on Argentine time, Uruguay is one hour ahead!

Fortunately for us we only had to wait another 1 ½ hours for the next bus, and bless them, they took pity on these ‘senile backpacking pensioners’ and didn’t charge us for the new tickets.

Another lesson learnt – check the time zones!

MONTIVIDEO – URUGUAY

The city of Montevideo is huge, half of Uruguay live here.  It’s not a memorable place, a few nice plazas and classy streets, but we didn’t see too many inspiring places, in fact, we took the opportunity for both of us to get our hair cut.

Plaza Independencia

Old Montevideo Market, now a restaurant area.

We did visit an interesting museum, dedicated to the event of 42 years ago when a Uruguay plane crashed in the Andes, killing 29 passengers.  The remaining 16 survived 72 days in the Andes by eating the dead.  A horror story, but well portrayed in the museum.

20.02.2014

Punta del Este – Uruguay 

Found this ‘beachy’ place, 150km north of Montevideo.  The place is flooded with residents from Montevideo at weekends, and pretty busy during the summer months, as it is now.  The one downside is the cost of everything, mostly the food, you get half as much for twice the price – OUCH.

We’re now into ‘putting our feet up’ mode, was going to spend just 3 nights here but we like it so much we’re stopping for a further 2.

                                       Sea Lions – feeding from the fishermen in the harbour.

We will be making our way up to Rio on Tuesday, an overnight bus plus a flight.  Seems that the end of ‘South America 2014 ‘ is getting closer and closer.  We still have the Rio Carnival and 6 days in Buzios to look forward to.