After our long bus ride to Uruguay, we set out on a hour long walk to our hostel to give our legs a chance to move around. Our hostel was THE perfect crappy hostel! Located in the beautiful Plaza Independencia across from the Presidential Office, it was complete with peeling walls, leaking roofs, people sleeping until 4pm, broken bathrooms, and a bar.
After dropping off our stuff, we set out to walk the streets of Montevideo, only to discover that on Sundays the city is COMPLETELY dead. No shops are open and everyone pretty much stays in their house sipping their mate and roasting up some parrilla (BBQ). Luckily, we met a nice couple that taught us all about mate (the national drink), and we bought a gourd and yerba. You cannot imagine how surreal it is that everyone in this city walks around sipping their mate. You see people in business suits holding these wonderfully traditional gourds filled with steaming hot water and tea leaves. We calculated that about 1 out of 5 people walking down the street will be drinking it!
We ventured around the Rambla, a path filled with bikers, runners and walkers that goes along all of Montevideo´s beaches. Sadly, we mostly found brown contaminated waters filled with dead fish. On our way back to our hostel, we decided to explore the beautiful and luxurious Radisson hotel, where all the foreign dignitaries stay. We explored the top floors, spas, pool, workout room and... CASINO! Nicole gambled for the first time, winning $170 pesos!!!!!! (about $8.50!!!). It was quite the rush!!! Tomer and Ziv arrived around 9pm, and from there we chilled, ate and went out to check out some night life in the local bar.
The next day we woke up to a busling city, blue skies, and smiles. We walked through Ciudad Vieja (old city), walking through markets, crumbling builidngs, and the famous Mercado del Puerto (Port market), where we ate meat, plus meat plus meat (our vegetarian tummies are still recovering :) ). The four of us continued to walk through the city, made a delicious Israeli salad, and again hit up the casino!!!! We did end up loosing 10 pesos :(.... about 50 cents.
The following morning we left for three amazing days in a tiny beach town called Punta Del Diablo. It has beautiful small beach houses everywhere, shacks, fishermen, and only dirt roads. PERFECT. Our hostel was a little haven for us, with incredibly nice and friendly owners, Argentinians, and other foreigners. That night, we taught out Israeli friends the wonderful card game of Kings.
The true adventure, however, took place the next day. Tomer and Stacen, only talking in caveman voice (quote) ¨We men catch fish, feed women. Spread seed and flourish¨ So the men rented some fishing poles, and the four of set out to the windiest beach imaginable. The sand swept across the beach, cutting our legs-- still, we continued. After two hours of choppy waters, tangled fishing lines, sand in our eyes, cuts from our legs from rocks (Nicole), spirits were down. Then... Tomer yelled: a fish. And goodness was it a FISH!!!!! Over 3 feet long, weighing 20 pounds!!!!! We were all shocked. We had no idea what do!! The cooler and the bucket we had brought simply were not big enough!! so we carried the poor dying fish, running toward the village to get huge bags of ice.
(As a sidenote, we both did have a bit of trouble watching this big, beautiful creature gasping for breath. We truly tried to be as respecful as posible that his life would feed us.)
We got some ice, dumped it in, and the men victoriously carried their beast back to the hostel. They began washing it, gutting in, seasoning it. Stacen built a big, powerful fire. The men felt like MEN.
Then as the hours passed, our fish began to burn, crumble, yet remain raw. Tomer and Stacen got sadder and sadder, Ziv and Nicole got hungrier and hungier. In the end, the beautiful fish lay in the trash, and we dined on rice and salad.
The fish truly got the last laugh.
The next day was truly all about relaxing. We read, sat, and walked around the cool sand dunes and beaches around town. We settled into a relaxed sleep, and left the following morning (after a nice long walk looking at the town´s architecture)to our final stop in Uruguay: Colonia.
The bus ride was awesomely latino: we broke down halfway to Montevideo!!! Impresively, we got new buses in less that an hour and we were on way (after some confusion that left Tomer on one bus and Stacen, Nicole and Ziv outside. Tomer stopped that bus!!). We got to Colinia late that night, and some pizza and headed to bed.
The next day, the 2 of us walked around the picture perfect town, enjoying the cobblestone streets, painted houses, artesan shops, and an extremely friendly cat. We loved it. Before we caught the awesome ferry to Buenos Aires that night (a yacht speeding across Rio de la Plata!!), we brilliantly rented a ... SCOOTER!!!!!!!!!! We were both so happy and had missed our old scooter so much!! It was such an amazing rush. We felt like badasses. We had to return it after one blissful hour, where we headed to the ferry station- which was more like a beautiful airport.
After a fast 75 minutes, we arrived in the gorgeous Buneos Aires, off to new adventures....
Me encanta como cuentan sus cosas!!
ReplyDelete