Uruguay, Where Buses Wait For No One.

This weekend was absolutely wonderful! After finishing up the last week of midterms (thank goodness), we headed to the lovely country of Uruguay for the weekend to do some adventuring!

We started off our Friday morning by meeting at the university at 7 am... which meant a very long morning for all of us. We took a van to the Buquebus boat port where we would get on our boat to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay! We originally thought we were going to take the slow boat (about 3 hours) but we ended up on the fast boat which took about an hour to get there! I was super excited because now I have new stamps in my passport... it's the little things.

Once we got to Colonia we headed to a tourist center where we watched a multimedia presentation about Uruguay as a whole, which was really cool because it was projected onto all the walls. After that we took a walk with our director and headed into the old area of the city, which is really well known. Along the way we stopped to look at the Uruguayan view of the Río de la Plata, which looks way more like an ocean because of how big it is.  We hung out down by the water, and then the sun started to go in and it got kind of overcast, unfortunately. After that we went to see their little harbor, and eventually headed out for lunch. After lunch the group split into those of us who would continue to travel in Uruguay, and those that were going to take the boat back to Buenos Aires that night. All in all there were 8 of us who were going to stay in the weekend in Uruguay.

After taking a little time to go see the lighthouse, the 8 of us went to the bus station and bought our tickets to Montevideo, and our transfer tickets to Punta del Este. Taking buses in Uruguay is much cheaper than in Argentina, and the buses aren't a bad quality either. On the bus ride to the capital I noticed that the country side reminds me a lot of home in Pennsylvania. Lots of rolling land in farms. At the same time, it feels a lot like going back in time because of the old cars and machinery. There was even a moment where I saw a man with a sheep tied to a tree that he was using to eat the grass on his lawn for mowing. Overall it was a nice bus ride.  For our bus to Montevideo, we would have about a half hour time between when we arrived and when our next bus would depart to Punta del Este.

Here's where things go bad. 

After the 3 hour bus ride, we arrived and were all pretty much starving. We decided to go to the McDonalds in the station and grab something quick.  By the time we were in line we only had a few minutes until the next bus left, so we were a bit crunched for time. In line, one girl in our group said she wanted ice cream, and when the mcdonalds told her she had to go upstairs to that one to get it, we told her it was a bad idea because of time.  Usually, in Argentina things are always late and never leave on time. Funny thing is, this isn't Argentina. Even though we told her not to go, she went anyway and the rest of us went to get on the bus.  First, we got on the wrong bus and were informed by the people in our seats that we had 2 minutes to get onto the other one... and to "hurry" if we could. So we ran to the second one and got on.  One other girl waited in the doorway and told the bus driver that we were missing someone and she would be here any minute. As it turns out, that means nothing to them.  

The driver literally closed the door on our friend so she had to come inside, and pulled away leaving our other friend in the station. There was a momentary panic among the group, so we emailed our director, who then called us and told us that he couldn't get ahold of her, and neither could any of us. Basically, we needed to trust that she would buy another bus ticket to Punta del Este for that night, and we'd find her at the station later. 

After the 2 hour bus ride we headed to our Hostel in Punta del Este and checked in. A few people went back to the station to wait for the other girl, and the rest of us just kind of sat around wondering what we should do. About an hour later they came back to the hostel WITH our friend so there was a collective sigh of relief with the group. We wanted to go out and explore the town that night, so we started off by spending the night hanging out with the guys that worked at the hostel, but eventually some of us were too tired to go out so we went to bed while others went. 

La Mano!

The next day would be our day to explore Punta del Este. The city is what south americans believe is the equivalent of Miami, but much smaller. I can see what they meant, but the weather wasn't exactly in our favor. Normally there are blue skies and beautiful beaches, but it was rainy and miserable for the majority of the day. Originally, our plan was to rent scooters and explore on our own, but the lady at the hostel advised us against that and also told us we'd be much better off on a bus tour. We were all kind of disappointed because the scooters seemed awesome, but scootering in the rain seems less than fun.  

We ended up booking a bus tour for 3:00, so we had some time to kill before that started. We went to La Mano (The Hand) on the beach that morning, which was sculpted in 3 days in the early 80s. It was so cool! Despite the rain, we had a lot of fun taking pictures with the hand as well as the beach. After that we walked across the peninsula and saw the river side of it and walked on a boardwalk along that. We had a constant companion for this portion of our day, which was a stray dog who followed us everywhere, but he was pretty cute. At one point Jenn and I walked under a pier where Jenn found some sort of bone... so that's the day Jenn became a paleontologist. 

We then walked towards the harbor, which was really nice, and after decided it was time to go to the grocery store to buy food to make lunch. It was a successful meal, and then it was time for the bus tour! I have to say, I normally fall asleep on bus tours but this one was great. The woman who gave it was really engaging and nice and we could understand her completely. She showed us around the town, and then off into other areas of a surrounding town, Maldonado. We got to see the Beverly Hills neighborhood, as well as stop off at lots of look-out spots in the rain. Eventually, we made it to a look out spot and it stopped raining! As soon as the sun came out the scenery changed and it was so beautiful. We then took the bus to Casapueblo, which is the house of Carlos Páez Vilaró, an Uruguayan artist. It was absolutely incredible! The sun started getting lower and the orange and yellow light was shining on the white structure. I could have spent all day just looking over the water there, but eventually we needed to head out to our final destination where we would watch the sunset on the beach. Luckily the clouds had broken so we could see the sun, and it was a great ending to the day. 

Casapueblo

We went out for dinner that night, and then got back to our hostel where we decided that we would go out that night, but unfortunately I started to get a headache, and pretty much everyone was too tired to function so most of us went to bed.  The next morning was another early day because we had a lot of traveling to do. We came outside to an absolutely beautiful day in Punta del Este, and had to get on the 8:45 bus to Montevideo. After getting to Montevideo, we had 4 hours until our next bus, so we decided to find Plaza Independencia which was recommended to us by our tour guide. Turns out, the plaza was WAY farther than she told us, and overall not that impressive. We grabbed some lunch, eventually reached the plaza and decided to go find the water. We walked along the water for a little bit back to the station, where we ran into a man selling puppies on the street. Naturally I grabbed the fluffiest one and was instantly smitten. I wish I could have stolen that puppy but that would probably end badly. We also saw a little fountain with tons of locks that couples add to (like the ones in Europe), and I thought that was pretty awesome.

Plaza Independencia in Montevideo

Smitten

We got on our bus to take us to Colonia, and we had a pretty uneventful ride. Straight off the bus we got back onto the boat (yay more stamps!) and headed back to Buenos Aires. Unfortunately we were stuck on the slow boat, so it took over 3 hours. Luckily, we were able to go up on deck and watch the sunset and see the moon. We arrived back in the city around 10, and caught a bus back to our apartments and finally got some rest! After lunch yesterday I had started getting a little sore throat, but by nighttime it was absolutely terrible. I convinced myself that it was a result of all the traveling/buses/weather/dehydration/tiredness and that it would go away overnight, but I woke up this morning to it being worse, unfortunately. I ended up not being able to go to class because of my headache, so I'm really hoping that I start to feel better tomorrow.  

In other news, my Dad comes to Buenos Aires on THURSDAY!! I am so excited to get to spend some time with him and I can't wait to show him the city on my long weekend! :) Also, Exactly one month from today is my last actual day of classes, and the week after that I have finals, and then I'm home... what? This is going way too fast.  

As always, I miss everyone at home! Ciao ciao! :)

- Meagan