Uruguay

So we departed from Buenos Aires via Ferry. Sadly our maize got confiscated through customs because it didn't have an ingredients list on it! Kinda unfair. The lines were also pretty long, but they moved quickly. Don't listen to the reviews! They just whinge and whinge about waiting in line for 30 minutes.

Anyway on the ferry I tried to convert my Argentinian Pesos to Uruguayan Pesos. The girl at the counter basically said "don't bother, the rate is so bad". I ended up just to blow all my ARS on the shop on the ferry. I now have way too many alfajores.

Colonia Del Sacramento

Colonia is a 'quaint' little town, tiny and about 2 hours ferry from Buenos Aires.

Weirdly enough, I had the best churros of my life here. I request 2 churros which took them ages to make (it was some home converted to a shop and the family that lives there ran it), so I felt really bad that they probably had to:

• Make the dough
• Heat up the oil
• Make 2 churros
• Get... 60 cents? Or whatever it was

Anyway the town was really nice. Like others have said, no point staying there because its soooo tiny, but its definitely worth going through if you're in the area. Lots of little craft shops and all that.

El Galope

From Colonia we took a bus to El Galope, a gaucho, ranch, whatever. One of the owners, Miguel, picked us up from the bus stop.

When we had time, we went on a nice leisurely stroll around the area. Except it was pretty much completely empty, muddy and boring so we went back to our lodging.

Horse Riding

Horses! We rode horses around the area. We had to brush the horses first, perhaps to acclimatise them to us. My horse was a huge white one called Popeye, and Steph had a little one called Gordita.

Normally we would ride out in the forest and back but Miguel had a bad back from decades of riding gaucho style, so he just showed us the basics and we rode around the ranch. Still super fun though!

Enjoying Saunas for Too Long

So the worst, yet most memorable experience for us actually had nothing to do with horses. It was the sauna. What an experience!

Since it was so damn cold in Uruguay, we opted to try for the sauna. This is a traditional wood sauna, built by Miguel and his son years ago.

We'd be jumping in and out of sauna, constantly overheating and underheating, having a cold shower splash on us over and over again.

Halfway through, Miguel came, opened the door slightly then asked us to add another piece of wood to the sauna, then walked away.

Unfortunately he locked the sauna from the outside out of habit.

Now, I'm not sure if you, dear reader, has experienced saunas before, but if you're new to it you won't last long.

When we tried to leave the sauna because it was becoming unbearable we unlocked the door from the inside and tried to open the door. It didn't budge.

Cue some sort of sudden realisation you get in those horror movies.

It reminds me of that scene in "I know what you did last summer" where the killer zip tied the tanning bed shut, while someone was inside, then turned it up to maximum. She was enjoying herself until she tried to leave but couldn't.

Anyway we didn't realise we can open the window so we were getting sous vide-d slowly. The door had a tiny gap so we used it to breath cool air from outside, and we also used the tiny gap to scream for help.

Luckily, I've been gaining lots of weight over the years for a moment like this.

I shoulder tackled the door several times until the lock broke and we were free! The hosts were so apologetic, and apparently Miguel has locked his wife, Monica, in the sauna in the past for an hour! So I guess it could've been worse.

Montevideo

Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay.

Honestly, it was pretty boring. The city is roughly the same size as Perth.

Our previous host told us that our area was suuuuper dangerous. As in, every single place in the entire country of Uruguay was safe, except the one we're staying in.

We were thinking about changing accomodations, but in the end we stuck with it. Good choice too, because it was fine. It was dodgier than other places in Montevideo, but its no Indonesian slum or Harlem in New York.

Our accomodation host was... weird. The place itself is super nice, but the amenties were purposefully lacking. We were provided with a couple of squares of toilet paper (!), and were told we were not getting anymore because they are "not a hotel".

Instead of the weird black bullet things in Buenos Aires, we have brown patty things:

So naturally, they provided us with exactly one night's worth of toilet paper, and one morning's worth of tea. Left a bad taste in my mouth, and a dirty bum.

First impressions here is how nice everyone is. Strangers helped us out, and were generally much friendlier. This is in comparison to Buenos Aires by the way. I'm guessing people in BA are living hard lives, and going New york style.

We had the best asado here in Uruguay interestingly, and not Argentina. Mindblowingly good steak and meat.

We did a walk from our place through to the gateway of the cathedral. Not quite sure about the backstory of this place (no tour guide), but... there was a cathedral, but it was torn down and only the giant gateway remains.

The journey to the actual gateway was actually pretty fun. Reminds me a lot of Perth's arcades and hay st sorat place. Walking paths with shops. It does get someone same-y after awhile though.

We visited parque de rodo afterward which was pointless (closed). Moved on to Carrasco area next.

Carrasco had a ridiculously over the top hotel (and casino) in the middle of it, Hotel Sofitel. We dashed in and took some pictures but it was so imposingly high-end that we felt we were going to get booted out at any second so we left quickly.

Apparently the shops around this area are good but they were... meh? Just not that interesting.

Thoughts and Conclusions

Uruguay is very... Perth. Small town feel in a city. Even the weather is the same. Even the prices are roughly the same! Well, there are less homeless people too, which is good to see.

Its one of those places where you go to chill out, but at the same time this attribute makes it forgettable country, sadly.