Lafayette Montevideo

... 20 years, thanks lonely planet. So we didn't stay there long, walked back along the beach, fed the horse and got our bus ticket out of there for the following day.

The bus to the Uruguayan capital Montevideo was only 2.5 hours and again the bus was comfortable. I was keen to see the place with my own eyes after telling an impressionable you kid in Thailand that the place was a hole. His dad was none too pleased as he was about to be transferred their in his ...

... Not very interesting I have to say. Given it´s the holiday location of choice for the BA elite, I would have envisioned somewhere with bars that stay open beyond, I don´t know, 18:00 and the odd restaurant other than McDonalds at which to have dinner! The place was dead and I mean deserted. To cap it all off the hostel was charging $13 a night (compared to $7 in BA) which really was the last straw.

However, the next day I decided that I really had to give ...

... probably also less than half full! We set off on time at 9.30am for our 3 hour journey. (You can do the journey in about an hour but its about 4 times the cost!). Not long after setting off some Latin American dude started up the on board singing and musical entertainment that continued for the full journey. He was pretty good to be fair. The journey itself was really smooth and I even nodded off at one point - can't be bad. We ...

... on the ride. Then H n H gave us both another ride ticket and we all went on the dodgems. It was a laugh being like a big kid on the fair. After the rides we had a donut type thing with some kind of evaporated milk in it which was really sweet (but nice), then headed back to the hotel as it was getting late. Watched a bit of TV and then hit the sack. Can you tell I'm playing catch up with my blog as it's all boring lol.

... stalls and the locals drinking their mate - a kind of herb tea which is made in a special cup and drunk through a silver perforated straw .... very common in Uruguay and Argentina and you see many people walking round with cup(mate) in hand and thermos flask under their arm. It also has many many colonial buildings, but after spending so long in South America, they seem to become so routine it's harder to be swept away by them. Some are in good condition, others not so ...

... day. I luckily arrived in Montevideo on the first day of Carnival, so I spent the evening watching the precession of samba drummers, dancers and flag wavers. Great to watch the different bands and groups slowly meandering down the closed streets of the capital. Watched the carnival for many hours before returning to hostel for a sleep. Not sure what to do tomorrow, I'm in two minds to stay in Montevideo for another night or maybe move ...

... very European (more Italian influences). It was really good to see traditional Christmas decorations up in the shops, homes and office, and in the streets with a huge Christmas tree lit up on the main street in BA - reminded us of Oxford St. Nothing really gets going at night in BA until at least 10pm, including dinner - it was a real shock to the system after the rest of S.America which was generally packing up and going to bed at 10pm, we needed a bit of adjustment and a ...

... a look at. It was cool with lots of model heads and costumes. Then we walked a bit more around the city. We were on our way back to the hostel when we ran into 2 problems, the first being that I stepped on a fish hook that was lay ont he pavement and so Ed had to extract it form my foot. Lucky I have had a tetanus hey?!! The second problem was more serious in that as we were walking up the hill a guy ran up behind us ...

... from Brazil who were on vacation and than some locals...and men playing guitar and all singing...was just soo super fun afternoon...ended up staying there basically for some 3-4hr just drinking wine and chilling Museo Garcia Torres...not too wide of the selection there but very nice indeed...its open until 8pm which is a great thing about it...many art galleries here and I really am enjoying the art here. I was curious how come I cant find ...

... I was most appreciative of his kindness. We got off as planned and walked the 3 blocks or so to the travel agency, to meet Monica and Rosario. The first floor office is teeny-tiny; we walked up a set of very steep stairs to a 2nd office, which seemed a bit more spacious, to discuss trips, Montevideo, Monica´s daughter (attends a British school where being on time is extremely important), and misc. We got details on the two-vineyard tour, from 2 ...