Uruguay Recap

Howdy folks. So last night I got back from 7 nights and 8 full days of traveling throughout Uruguay, the very small country directly across the Rio de la Plata from Argentina (it's to the northeast, more or less). In order to get there, last Saturday my friend Taylor and I took a boat at 9:00AM across the river to a city called Colonia de Sacramento. The trip took three hours and it was a beautiful and sunny morning on the deck of the boat. After a really laid back questioning at Uruguayan customs (the man literally just asked us why we were coming there and we said vacation and that was that) we hopped on a bus and within 15 minutes we were on our way to Montevideo. I have always wanted to go to Montevideo, ever since junior high school Spanish class where you are forced to learn all of the countries in South America, be able to locate them on a map, and identify their capitals. I'm not too sure why but I think I always thought the name was cool because it sounds like the word 'video'. After about 2.5 hours on that bus we got into the bus terminal (3 cruces, or three crosses) in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The whole bus terminal complex is also a shopping mall and after we bought our bus tickets to continue on to Punta del Diablo that evening we had a two hour layover so we went to the food court and almost jumped out of our skins when we saw the prices at McDonalds. A big mac meal was about 155 pesos Uruguayos, which translates into about (155/20 = $8 US), so still expensive but not as expensive as it appeared to us. We have gotten used to the Argentine peso exchange rate (approximately 4pesos = $1 US) so when we got to Uruguay with Argentine money it was confusing. The exchange rate is about 20 pesos to $1US but if you are paying in Argentine pesos its about 4.5 uruguayos to 1 argentine peso. Moving on to Punta del Diablo.



The view of Buenos Aires as we were pulling out of port.



This is a picture of the beach and how it looked just about all weekend in Punta del Diablo.



Here I am enjoying the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Although the water was surprisingly swim-able and enjoyable.

It was an almost 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo to Punta del Diablo but it was definitely worth it. The town is right along the coast, not far south of Brazil, and it is beautiful! We ended up meeting some really cool people there, seeing a baby seal hanging out on the rocks when we went for an evening stroll, enjoying 1 full day without electricity when the power went out and staying four nights instead of three. We didn't get in Saturday night until after 11PM so we were pretty tired from traveling all day when we did finally get there and spent the first night just heading to bed early rather than taking a nighttime stroll along the beach. We stayed in the hostel (El Diablo Tranquilo, Playa Suites) that I talked about in my last blog post. We ate some great seafood, we hung out on the beach in the sun, and we played with the sea anemones that we all over the beach. There were blue ones and really small scarlet red ones. We kept cracking open mussels and feeding them to the anemones, which was reallllly fun. After four days in Punta del Diablo we decided to head back to Montevideo so early Wednesday morning we hopped on another bus and spent the afternoon/evening and 1 night in Montevideo. Taylor and I booked rooms in a 6 bed room at a hostel but it was such a slow night that we ended up being the only two in our room.



The view of the Montevideo skyline in the background.

We woke up on Thursday and realized that it was Thanksgiving, packed up our stuff, and headed back to Colonia de Sacramento where we met up with our program for our official Thanksgiving celebration. We ate at our program directors bed and breakfast that was a palatial estate. He has a lemon orchard, a pool and is about a ten minute walk from the river beach. The water at the beach was amazing, you could walk out hundreds of yards and have it still be waist deep so the swimming was great, especially for just hanging out and tossing around a football.



Sitting on the deck at my program director's bed and breakfast with Taylor.

We then spent the next two nights in a nice hotel and exploring the city of Colonia which is the oldest city in Uruguay.



Here is a picture of one of the Portuguese cobbled streets. The city was fought over for many years by the Spanish and the Portuguese, due to the fact that it lies right in the disputed region of land distribution when the Americas were first settled.

We spent Thursday eating and having an evening tour of the historical part of the city, where we stayed, and then we headed back to the hotel for a good nights rest. At 8AM the next day Taylor and I got up and went around taking pictures of the city on our own before we met up with a group of friends and took a bus to the beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon.



After an amazing dinner with our program and getting up early a second day, Taylor and I decided to rent a go-kart/bugy type deal and cruise around the city. We ended up actually leaving Colonia because we were going on the highway but we didnt quite realize until we re-entered the city and saw the welcome sign. It was a fun experience to say the least.



On Saturday evening around 7PM we headed back to the boat terminal and struck out for Buenos Aires once more, after a long week of the intense Uruguay sun and relaxation. Now I have 1 final this Wednesday and then I am on SUMMER VACATION for a little over 3 months!!! I will definitely be keeping you all updated as I travel through Colombia, hopefully Venezuela, Ecuador and the Galapagos, Peru this summer (South American summer) and potentially Brazil, Chile and Bolivia next semester.

If you want to see more of my photos from my trip I put up two Facebook albums and the links to them are:
(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067983&id=1280460131) for the first album and (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067981&id=1280460131) for the second album. I hope you enjoy them!

VACAY!

A big hello to all of my avid blog followers, I know I have caused you many frowns in the past few weeks, every time you came to my page and there was NOTHING NEW TO READ! You have had to give up stalking me and my wonderful life and living vicariously through me and start living your own lives, but alas, I have decided to resume my blogging. The period of final papers and final exams has wound down, leaving me with 1 paper, 6 pages in length and 2 weeks to write it. Hence I have no excuse not to update my blog.

Tomorrow morning at 9:30AM Argentina time (6:30AM Midwestern time) I will be embarking on a grand adventure. I am heading to Uruguay for a week. Tomorrow (Saturday) I will arrive by boat in Colonia, Uruguay around 1PM and from there I will head directly to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) on a bus. Once in Montevideo my friend Taylor (from upstate New York) and I will need to buy bus tickets to take us further into Uruguay. Our final destination for Saturday night is Punta del Diablo, a beach town along the northeastern coast of Uruguay where there is a hostel run by UW-Madison grads. The translation of the name of the hostel is "The Tranquil Devil: Beach Suites" so it should be a great couple days. We plan on staying there and sunning ourselves until about Tuesday morning, when we will transfer to Cabo Polonio, another beach town about 15km away. You have to enter Cabo Polonio in a horse drawn carriage or on a 4wheeler, you can't use a car to enter the area.



This is a picture of the eastern coast of Uruguay. You can see Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio on this map. Look up a world map if you don't know where this country is folks (sigh).



Alright, I included a full map of Uruguay, (note that Punta del Diablo and Cabo Polonio are not marked on this map) but here you can see where Colonia and Montevideo are in relation to the other places I will be staying.

I am pretty stoked for all of this beach time, even though the weather forecast is saying it'll be between 75 and 82 all week, I still think it will be great to relax on the beach, read some books, and sip some piña coladas. After spending Tuesday day and night in Cabo Polonio Taylor and I are planning on heading back to Montevideo for Wednesday day and night. We planned this itinerary because we then have a Thanksgiving celebration in Colonia, Uruguay with our program that commences around 1:30PM Thursday. We will be in Colonia from Thursday morning until Saturday night, when we will return to Buenos Aires by boat.

Too bad none of you will be here for Thanksgiving because we are allowed to bring guests from the United States to Colonia with us FOR FREE!!!!!!!!! (You would have only had to pay for your boat passage which is ~$50 round trip). Also, Taylor has an 8GB memory card for the Canon camera that she had until recently but that got stolen. I am going to buy the memory card from her tomorrow morning, so expect LOTS of photos!!


Love you all <3 Julia

So I kind of stopped writing in my blog, unintentionally. But I did just upload a lot of photos to facebook!

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066746&id=1280460131) This first album is called 'Argentina lately' and should give you a glimpse of what I've been up to.

(http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2066747&id=1280460131) This second album is called 'The rest of argentina lately" and it should round it out a little more.

Enjoy :)