We spent the past week in Uruguay while I was waiting for my passport to arrive from Canberra. Don't worry, I didn't lose my passport or got robbed. It was just coming to an end of its life. And unfortunately, most countries require at least 6 months validity on the duration of the passport to allow entry.
Our first stop in Uruguay was Colonia.
Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay
Colonia was literally just across the "river" from Buenos Aires. Except that the Rio de Plata was more than 50km wide! We went on this gigantic luxurious floating castle to cross the Rio. The port itself was more like an airport in that you needed to check in your luggage etc. The boat was by far the most comfortable, lavish way to cross a border I have ever experienced. All the interior was beautifully decorated with soft carpets and polished wooden floor. It had shops, cafes, outdoor picnic/bbq area on the top deck. It even had a lift inside! The 3 hour boat ride cost us around 125 Argentinian Pesos.
The old part of Colonia was Unesco Heritage Listed. We visited many of the Spanish/Portugese colonial buildings (it changed hands a few times in history). Yeah, the town itself was interesting and it seems like a big tourist spot with cobble streets and small houses made out of rocks. We were there just for 1 night.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Most people find Montevideo boring. I actually found it quite relaxing and pretty. We stayed in the ciudad viaje (old city). It was quite attractive again with the ancient buildings and cobble streets. We were also on the penisula which means we were like 2 minutes walk from either side of the sea. I particularly enjoyed sitting on the esplanade and looking at the sunset. Naomi found it too cold again.
There was a huge celebration in a plaza near us (Plaza de Independencia) for the change of presidency. We were on the bus from the bus station to the hostel and everyone on the bus had Uruguyan flags and were dressed up in their national colours. We thought people must be going to a big soccer game or something. But the bus lady told us that it was for the swearing-in of the new president.
All the people on the streets were dancing, singing and drinking! Even I was affected by the cheery crowd despite the fact that I understood nothing of what they were saying!
Oh, we were so glad that we stayed in the hostel that had no young Israelis. It was almost a blessing for us not being disturbed by rude Israeli backpackers who always wanted to smoke pot and get rowdy, and who had absolute no consideration for other guests in the dorm.
Punto del Este, Uruguay
Well, we heard a lot about this well-known beach town 2 hours east of Montevideo. It was supposed to be a holiday destination for the rich Argentinians and Brazilians. MTV even did a segment on this town. Where we stayed was on the peninsula again and on one side of us was the rougher side of the Atlantic Ocean with great surf and on the other side was a calmer beach that felt more like a lake than anything.
The beach was quite nice and the water seemed clean. Unfortunately we didn't exactly enjoy the best weather the day and half that we were there. Sometimes it was cold and rainy and other times were windy but sunny. But I did manage to jump in and swim in the Atlanttic Ocean! The water was pretty cold, but hey, it could be my only chance to swim in the Atlantic!
Meat was very cheap in Uruguay. We got all the backpackers there envious when we cooked up this 1.3kg worth of steak. I was surprised that we finished the whole lot. I told Naomi that we didn't need that much meat, but she insisted that we should eat up all the beef before we leave this part of South America and head up north. She was right. It was delicious and got everybody's attention. :)
I felt like I was back in Byron Bay in Australia when I was walking down the streets of Punta. It just had that beach vibe to it. As we were just there for 1 night, we didn't get to explore other beaches around the peninsula. Apparently they were better in terms of sand and the water clarity. But I was just glad that we were at the beach town. Last time that we were in the beach was back in Thailand in July 2009. So yeah, well deserved beach time!
Buenos Aires, Argentina
We came back here on the bus and a fast boat and decided to stay in a nearby hostel and hope that it was not an Israeli place. It was called Santo Hostel. Boy oh boy it was a wrong idea. We got there at nearly mid-night and couldn't even find the hostel. After finally found the place, the Ghanian manager told us that we had no booking and there was no one staying there. The place was infested with mosquitoes and was very creepy as we were the only guests there. It also had no internet and I was told in the morning that they had no breakfast for us because the manager woke up too late to buy any food.
To our dismay, we went back to the Israeli hostel down the road......
Same drama with the young kids there. No need to repeat myself here.
I did pick up my passport though. I never received the email from the lady in the embassy who promised that she would email when it arrived. I rung them on Friday morning, the conversation was as follows:
Paul - "Hi, this is Paul Chiu and I am ringing about my new passport".
Lady - "Oh yes, can you bring in your birth certificate please?"
Paul - "What? What for? I just applied for a renewed passport last Monday and you didn't tell me anything about birth certificate."
Lady - "Oh, it's you. I emailed you a few days ago to let you know that your passport arrived."
Paul - "Really? I never received an email from you or DFAT."
Lady - "I think I sent it 2 days ago on Wednesday."
Paul - "Yeah, definitely didn't receive anything."
Lady - "It could be yesterday. Umm, it could have gone into you spam email."
Paul - "Nope, definitely nothing there too."
Lady - "Yeah, it may take a couple of days to come through with the Government's email system. Anyway, it's ready for collection."
And why did I pay tax to the Government again????
We didn't do much this time. I went to see a couple of museums including the famous MALBA. We went to see the weekend market near the Cemetery. Frankly, there are a few souvenirs that I would consider buying, but the problem is how would I send them home? The postage here is ridiculously expensive and my backpack is already so full that I had to hang my sleeping bag on the outside.
We are on our way to Iguazu waterfall now. It will take around 18 hours to get there.
Another interesting experience learning Spanish:
The teacher was teaching us adjectives and one of the words was 'molestos'. The example she gave us was 'el nino esta molesto'. We know the word nino means child. But not knowing much Spanish at all, we translated the sentence to be the child is being molested which we were shocked to hear especially that it was a Spanish lesson after all. After some help by our classmates, we figured that molesto means annoying. So the sentence means the child is annoying.
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