Uruguay, Rain or Shine

We´re in Uruguay and loving it!  The coast in Argentina, Miramar, to be exact, was nice and relaxed, despite the fact that because of off season, oh, probably 75% of the restaurants and hotels were closed.  But you can´t keep us down, we found a lovely little hotel (with a clean bathtub and heat!) just a block away from the beach.  Lately we´ve been getting about two days of rain, to one day of sun (or clouds).  Maybe it´s our training, to ween us off of Austin´s continuous sun, for North Carolina.  I´m learning to layer.  Right now I¨m wearing a long sleeve shirt, a fleece, a coat, and a rain jacket...ha, ha, ha.

Traveling to the coast from Buenos Aires, we´ve experienced the awesome, I repeat, Awesome, buses down here in South America.  Much better than any bus, or even plane in the states.  It´s like lying in a lazyboy, with big fat cushions and plenty of space to put your feet up.  Good thing both Jacob and I are normal size though, because those of you over 5 foot 10 would be out of luck (Sorry William and Allison, yáll should stay in the Land of the Tall :)  Eventually, we´ll be taking up to 24 hour or more bus rides to get to Patagonia.  Eek.

The Pampas go on for ever.  We´ve had 6 hour bus rides, so far, with nothing but flat grasslands for the cows to graze.  The arguements for feed lots in the States keep getting shut down, with Argentina as an example.  The fields are neverending emerald green, and the beaches have been foggy, but impressive.  We took a bike ride through a huge forested park in Miramar, right off the coast.  We could hardly see where we were going because of the fog, with little dropplets accumulating on our hair and noses.  I imagined I was on the beach of Goonies, minus the treasure, sadly to say.

Our hostels have been pretty good so far, but when you get a bad one, it´s pretty bad.  One room we had, the bathroom was about the side of a two foot, by 3 foot closet, encompassing the sink, toilet, and shower all in one.  The shower consisted of a shower head on the side of the wall, inbetween the sink and toilet with a drain on the floor.  No curtain.  We joked about being able to go to the toilet and brushing your teeth, while taking a shower, although you´d have to put away the toilet paper unless you wanted a soggy mess.  We admit, we went without a shower that day, and only stayed one night.  On the up side, Jacob finally got to eat pizza in Miramar, which has been the best so far, in his expert pizza opinion, with a simple cheese and onion combination.

A practice that occurs in Argentina, which we have mixed and confused feelings about, is their giving change.  If you buy something that is not exactly a dollar amount (and what is?) then they always ask you if you have exact change.  Of course, we rarely do, so they give us a reprimanding look, low grumble, and then give us change.  BUT, they always round up.  There must be some sort of shortage in coins in Argentina, and while it´s a negligable amount, it´s still irksome.  Budget travelers, beware, these things add up you know.

In Buenos Aires, on our way to Uruguay, we stayed a couple of nights and one of those nights we had Chinese Food!  We satisfied our strong affiliation with soy sauce (Jacob´s favorite condiment) but our meal lacked two staples of a typical American Chinese food meal.  No rice on the side unless you ordered specifically a rice dish, and no fortune cookies to complete the meal!  So I had vegetables and tofu (yes!) and Jacob had a vegetable noodle dish.  Took a break from meat that night.  Both pretty good, but still had the universal chinese food experience of being hungry two hours later.  The fortune cookie crime though, disappointed me the most.  But we´ll survive.

The sidewalks in Argentina and Uruguay are a mine field.  They´re very small, compared to the amount of people walking on them, and made of tiles of all sizes.  Hmm, if you can imagine, the tiles don´t hold up too well, so you´re constantly looking down, practicing your balancing skills, and when it rains, which it was when we were there, the streets flood, and the loose tiles form a little pool of water underneath, so if your thoughts wander, you get your shoe and sock drenched, the loose tiles foil you again.  Plus, to add to the obstacle course is the poop.  Argentinians love dogs, and big dogs at that.  There´s dog walkers, who are usually big husky guys walking from 5 to 15 dogs at a time.  And there´s no rules about picking up poop.  So if you´re walking in the city, you must be in top attention, in order not to have soggy, poopy shoes.  All in a 5 minute walk to the cafe or corner store.

We´re feeling pretty confident in our ability to blend in as locals.  Why, you ask?  Because every town we go to, no fail, someone asks us directions.  Of course, when we look at them with a ¨deer in the headlights¨ look, and open our mouths, they politely smile, thank us, and walk away.  But the last day we were in Buenos Aires, we could actually help someone.  She knew we were Americans after talking with her for 2 seconds, but we guided her in the right direction.  Before she left though, we had a somewhat confused conversation about Kennedy being shot in Dallas, when she asked where we were from.  For some reason, even though we don´t look like anyone around us, we must look like we know where we´re going.  And that´s the important part really, LOOKING like we´re on top of things.  If only they knew we probably had walked up and down that same street five millions times, looking for a book store, or bus station.

The boat ride from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay, was a wonderful experience.  It is considered a ferry, but to us it was sort of a mini cruise ship, walking into a carpeted lounge with plenty of space and two floors, with the deck on top to sit outside if the weather permits.  We went on a Wednesday, which was good for us because the station is a mad house.  A mad house I say!  We stood in 4 different lines, none of which had appropriate signs, with tons of people in each waiting to either say they want a ticket, pay for the ticket, load your luggage, and then board the boat.  But all these lines are intertwined with each other, curving in and out, with no boundaries to see which line you´re in.  And that´s on a Wednesday!  Our boat wasn´t even half full.  We started to wheap and crawl into a ball when we imagined the experience on a weekend.  But the boat ride was lovely, including a little lunch bar, and of course coffee.

Colonia is the best preserved colonial town in Uruguay, and a very pleasant atmosphere with cobblestone streets, and surrounded by water on three sides with a lighthouse and various old buildings to look at.  We´ve been here for 2 and a half days, and it´s been raining most of the time.  But we´ve get our raincoats to weather the storm.  Can´t keep these Texans down, even though at times we´re virtually the only ones out and about, which again, points us out as silly foreigners.  Tomorrow we´re off to Punta del Este, which is THE It-spot for up scale Argentinians and international travellers.  We don´t have high hopes for sun, but who knows, maybe we´ll get a little tan in this resort town.  Even better, maybe we´ll even get to go to the beach without wearing a coat!