Across the river to Uruguay!

I had another great weekend down here, although not in Argentina, but in Uruguay. It’s just a 3 hour boat ride across the river and then there you are, in another country all together. My first night I spent in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. For being the city with 70% of the country’s population, it appeared to be a bit of a ghost town from what I saw. I stayed in the historic part of the city, I guess that might have had something to do with it. The hostel where I spent the night was two thumbs up for sure. Friendly staff and a cool building. I met people there from all over the world, and it seems that a lot of people just decide to travel. They’ve got rough plans and go til they’re broke. That night at the hostel there was a big BBQ on the roof. About 10 of us sat around chatting, eating meat and sharing travel stories. The next day I wandered around a bit more in Montevideo, but it was Sunday so it really was a ghost town. We did find a big market in the middle of the city to wander in, but nothing out of the usual market merchandise.

I hopped a bus that evening back to Colonia, where I came in from the boat. Found another hostel, and wandered a bit there. Colonia is a much quieter, quainter and definitely smaller than Montevideo. I loved it. Again the hostel was in the historic neighborhood of the town. Cobblestone streets, tall trees lined the streets and antique lanterns lighted the way. I have decided I’m retiring in Colonia. Monday the rest of the group showed up, so I met up with about 40 students from the program. We took a short bus ride out to the house of the program director and honestly my jaw dropped. This house was incredible. Absolutely amazing. Giant gardens, pool, pond, silly dogs, vine covered house. (I’ll post some pictures.) I had another BBQ, and ate probably way too much. After lunch we walked down to the beach, proved to be a bit longer of a walk, but it was worth it. the water of course was a little brown…it is a river after all. But the beach was abandoned and practically perfect. As we walked down the street, all the neighbor’s dogs came out and followed us down there. We tried not to get in their way when they shook off from jumping in. Uruguay over all was very relaxing, and again like my beach weekend last weekend, it was nice to get out of the city and see some new stuff. I think I’ll be wandering about Buenos Aires this week with some of the people I met from the hostels, maybe sharing a maté or checking out a museum. I gotta get my city legs back…do those exist?

Anyway, besides traveling…school is going. It’s nice to only have 3 classes. I’m about halfway done with the program, that’s hard to believe. But it’s even weirder to think that my peeps at Lake Forest are graduating in 2-3 weeks! Que raro.

I send my love from the south!

Until next time…