Boat to Uruguay

We were optimistic for our second attempt at leaving Argentina by boat. Pablo had agreed to drive us to the terminal and we had purchased our tickets online and printed them at the hostel so we figured there was no way we could fail. We had allotted 30 minutes to get there which we thought was plenty of time, but traffic on a Monday is much different than it had been on Sunday and on top of that, Pablo was in no rush. He kept getting lost and worrying about which Eric Clapton song he was playing for us while I started having a panick attack in the back seat. Luckily, he finally asked a cop for directions and we got there only 10 minutes after we had planned to. We said goodbye to Pablo and waited to check in. Things are always slow and there is always only one person working while the rest of the employees watch- it's just something we come prepared for now. We finally were checked in and then had to go through customs. They had the Argentina and Uruguay customs in the same office right before you entered he boat which made things amazing simple. We got our stamps, boarded the boat and we were on our way!

It was only a 11/2 boat right which went by in the blink of an eye. We arrived in , which was a smaller city in Uruguay. We had originally planned to spend a night there but since we were pushed back a day by missing the boat the day before, we pushed our journey ahead and bought our bus ticket to Montevideo for that afternoon. We checked our bags in at the terminal so that we wouldn't have to carry them around and set off in search of lunch. There were a lot of little street cafes in the old town part of the city so we sat down in one that had a lot of patrons since that's usually a good sign. Alyssa ordered the set menu of the day of chicken croquets and I got a hamburger because I figured that was a safe bet. The chicken croquets turned out to be delicious chicken skewers which I was jealous of when I got my burger which was literally just meat and bun with nothing on it...really? I think the guy at our neighboring table felt sorry for me (and could clearly hear me bitching as he spoke English) and brought me his dessert when he left his table. It was very nice of him and I happily accepted the strawberry ice cream. It's funny how comfortable we get speaking in English in the smaller towns because usually no one can understand us. We should stop talking about people right in front of them because you never know who can understand you.

We walked back to the bus terminal and boarded our 3 1/2 hour bus to Montevideo. Alyssa was able to sleep for a lot of it, but we had Internet on this bus so I was thoroughly entertained by Facebook and Skype for the duration of the ride. Not to mention the scenery was beautiful. Who knew that Uruguay had rolling green hills?

We arrived in Montevideo and took a cab to our hostel. This cab had a meter and luckily a driver who wasn't determined to screw us over. We had made reservations at "Planet Hostel" so it was a very simple arrival. We checked I to our private room, took showers and went out to see the town.
We walked to the main square which Lonely Planet had recommended and laughed out loud when we got there because aside from beautiful architecture, there was nothing there. We walked around for a while, stumbling upon a few restaurants but overall not finding much. Then, this man who we thought was homeless came up to us and in English asked where we were from. In a rare moment, Alyssa happily spoke to him as I stood there stunned. Apparently he had lived in New York 15 years ago and now operated as a tour guide in Montevideo. He said that we were in the wrong area of town for restaurants and insisted on walking us to the right part of town. When we got to the street he recommended, there were many more people but not a ton of restaurant choice. He had taken us to "Pizza World" which was pretty much my worst nightmare so we thanked him and said goodbye and went off in search of other options. He had mentioned that it was completely unsafe to walk around at night but I couldn't figure out why. There were tons of people, young and old, men and women walking around like it was nothing. I chose to disregard this information and we finally found a restaurant that had past for Alyssa and grilled fish with sweet potatoes for me. It was delicious and we spent some time just hanging out in the restaurant since it was clear three would be nothing else to do in the town that night.

As we walked home, we tried to find a store to buy a bottle of water in but there was absolutely nothing open. We asked the guy who worked at our hostel when we got back if there was a store open and be laughed at us like we were nuts. We were so confused and now thirsty. I was ok with my 1/4 water bottle remaining but Alyssa is a camel so she was a little sad. We went to bed around 1:00am which is early these days because no one even goes to dinner before 10:00pm.

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