Un fin de semana en Uruguay...
From Buenos Aires only one hour across the river, el Rio de la Plata, and you're already in Uruguay... either Colonia or Montevideo... nice.... so that's what I did last weekend... little boat trip to another country.... I still had 2 free days that I needed to use so I could go for a nice long weekend from FRI till MON... :) smile...
went over to Colonia on FRI morning and spent the day there... nice little colonial town - of course... who would have guessed with that name...?? ;) hahha.... bit similar to Antigua de Guatemala, but not as colorful... also, not as busy and not that many tourists.... hhmm, it's low season in Uruguay at the moment.... getting winter here.... ;)
and also, not the whole town is colonial like in Antigua... only a small part really - La ciudad vieja, the old part of the town... but nicer than in Antigua is that Colonia is directly on the water.... well, the Rio de la Plata - or River Plate - as well... ;)
In one day you can see pretty much all the interesting things in Colonia and then I took a bus over to Montevideo in the afternoon cause I was gonna stay with some CS friends there for the weekend and was supposed to meet Laura at 7.15pm to go to the opening of her friend's photo exhibition with her....
The bus ride from Colonia to Montevideo is approx. 2 and 1/2 hours and I slept about half of it, cause still really tired from dancing a La VIRUTA the night before.... but judging by the parts that I did see it is a really pretty drive.... landscape reminded me a bit of Belize and my busrides crossing this country when I was traveling from Guatemala to Cancun... :)
got to MVD in perfect time to meet Laura for that photo exhibition.... really interesting.... the artist was a 23 year-old Bolivian guy who had been adopted by Uruguayan parents when he was 4 years old and spent pretty much all his life in Montevideo.... on a recent trip to Bolivia and Peru he tried to go back to his roots and understand a bit more about himself, the land that he came from, and also his modern city life in Montevideo that he had got used to over the years....
so his pictures were photo collages of Inca ruins in Bolivia and Peru, a lot of MACHU PICCHU of course... (!!), and pictures of modern buildings, architecture and city life in Montevideo.... really interesting ideas and combinations....
Afterwards we walked over to the Ciudad vieja de Montevideo, had some food there and then met my host Gonzalo when he was done with his University work-shop.... after I had dropped off all my stuff at his house we went back to some bars in the Old Town.... everything pretty nice so far.... and not as bad and ugly as sooooo many people had told me about Montevideo... ;)
on SAT Gonza drove all around the city with me to show me Montevideo and although it was pretty grey and a bit rainy later in the afternoon, I saw lots of stuff and most parts of Montevideo and we did have a really nice time.... walking along La Rambla (the boardwalk) in the rain... ;)
relaxing night at Gonza's place.... watching some movies.... and the poor guy didn't even mind too much having to watch Dancing movies with me.... hahha.... ;)
SUN we got up pretty early - well 10.00am for a SUN seems early to me - bought some "Facturas" por el desayuno and drove over to Laura's house (about 28km from downtown MVD) to pick up her and her friend Julieta (also from Buenos Aires) for our tour to Pan de Azucar mountain and Piriapolis.... breakfast in the car, another hour's drive over to Pan de Azucar, also about an hour to climb to the top and we had some beautiful views over Uruguay's coast between Montevideo and Punta del Este (see pics below).... since it had been raining quite a bit the day / night before, it was still pretty wet on the mountain and some parts were more like climbing a waterfall.... ;) but after my good training on the volcanoes in Guatamala last year it was not all that tough... ;)
after enjoying the views enough and also climbing the Cruz on top of the mountain we went back down to Gonza's car and drove over to Piriapolis, nice little beach town on the way to Punta del Este (Uruguay's main beach resort) ... perfect time for some Cafe con Leche and a nice sunset en la playa...
then back to MVD with a "quick" stop at Laura's house to feed all her pets and pick up her and Juli's stuff as they were gonna come over to Gonza's house as well to spend the night there.... well, Juli really only until midnight cause she was gonna take the night boat back to BsAs....
and we had enough time to watch another nice movie when we got back to his place... :)
my last day MON I spent in MVD in the morning.... really nice and warm and sunny.... very untypical for Uruguay at this time of the year as it's actually their winter... went down to the beach again until I had to take a bus back to Colonia in the early afternoon cause my boat to Buenos Aires was leaving from there at 7.00pm.... another nice bus ride through the Uruguayan country side, enough time in Colonia to spend my last Uruguayan pesos, then a quick ferry crossing over the Rio de la Plata again and I was "back home" in Buenos Aires....
was a great weekend, but it also felt nice coming back to Argentina.... like coming home..?? a little bit maybe...
Laura and Gonza kept telling me that I should come back to Uruguay when it was summer there so that I could enjoy their beaches a bit more.... hhmmmm, sounds like a nice plan... ;) entonces - in a few months again... :) xx
