After four days days in BA we caught a ferry across to Uruguay. It’s a bit of a sore point for us and one we’re not talking about anymore as we were both a bit stupid, had a long wait for the ferry (like all day) and ended up in Montevideo instead of Colonia. We felt slightly less stupid when a dishevelled Aussie chap turned up next to us saying he’d slept in and missed the ferry he’d paid for and had to fork out double for a more expensive ticket.
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As it turned out, there was a purpose behind all this as waiting round for the ferry and the events that followed set a wonderful course for our brief time in Uruguay. I was waiting with my backpack in the ferry terminal and heard a voice behind me say “I like your sheep”. I thought “Huh? What sheep??” then remembered that I had a big sheep luggage label on my backpack.
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I turned round and got chatting with Lawrence, a Kiwi who is working on a boat in a place called Piriapolis on the coast of Uruguay. While I don’t think Lawrence will ever utter those words about a sheep again in his lifetime, he, Euan and I ended up hanging out waiting for the ferry then travelled across to Uruguay together.
Lawrence was in BA having a look around but also to buy a toilet for the boat. As a result, he was lugging this large box around and all the customs people wanted to know what was in it.
Euan was playing at being translator but didn’t know the Spanish word for an actual toilet. I was most amused but even more so when Euan chose to ask someone, who was completely unrelated to all the toilet conversations thus far, what the word for toilet was in Spanish. This chap just looked at Euan like he was a bit of a weirdo, then said in English “you mean number one or number twos?” at which point I just about dissolved. As it turned out, customs thought we were all travelling together so checked the toilet in under Euan's name so Euan ended up transporting a toilet into Uruguay. Lawrence was happy to deny all knowledge and we were just glad that it actually was a toilet!!
As an aside (and I enjoyed hearing this wee story), Lawrence had caught a lift to BA from Uruguay on a boat owned by a Kiwi ex-farmer. The story goes that this farmer went on holiday overseas, realised that there was more to life than tractors and super hard graft for little gain, returned to the farm, sold it, bought a yacht and took off. They’ve been on the go for years apparently.
Montevideo is Uruguay’s largest city, home to half the population of Uruguay and an OK place to spend a few days (but not many more). The best thing was that we caught up with Matt (who we met and stayed with in Valdivia, Chile) and it was great to see him again. Last time we saw him he was embarking on a 40-hour bus trip from Valdivia to Buenos Aires.
Matt has helped us out heaps; he’s pointed us in the direction of good, cheap and clean accommodation on more than one occasion and even booked and paid a deposit on a place for us in Montevideo. Euan's jokingly started referring to Matt as our ‘Latin America Travel Agent’.
Anyhow, while Montevideo isn’t the most exciting place, there is some cool architecture. This is the main square and the clock tower you can see in the background has the words London-Paris on it.
This was a rather confused museum, housing a collection of Uruguay money as well as a load of gaucho gear.
This is the Palacio Taranco, once the highest building in Latin America and remains Montevideos highest structure. Not the nicest looking building we saw…
We had a look around the theatre but they wouldn’t let us in the main area as there were opera singers rehearsing. I had a rather surreal moment sitting on the polished marble floor outside the ladies loos waiting for Euan. Someone walked past me and into the toilets then I got the fright of my life when this huge booming voice started singing warm-up scales in the toilet! It got louder and louder and higher and higher and when Euan came to find me I just put my finger to my lips and we listened to this woman practicing in the toilet. We waited to see who came out and got a shock when this tiny, tiny woman, no more than 5’2” walked out. It was quite strange as when we went upstairs there were all these people walking around and all of a sudden, with no warning, they’d let loose singing some part of an opera.
Inside this smoky steel structure was a load of parillas (grills). These places do a roaring trade and we couldn’t believe the meat on offer.
This is a typical grill, absolutely laden with ….meat, meat and more meat.
These guys go through the rubbish and collect what they can for recycling. While most of the horses seemed to be treated OK, they seemed pretty void of any personality
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and all wore these ridiculous hats.
Now this was just plain weird. The country is clearly still poor and trying to catch up from the economic crash in 2002 yet there is this massive structure dedicated to General Artigas, father of Uruguay. His ashes are guarded round the clock by armed guards and I have no idea how they stay awake in the dimly lit room.
A few kilometres from the main square, down a dead straight road is the Palacio Legislativo
It is an impressive building in a poor setting but at least it has nothing to compete with
and some of the detailed carving was magnificent
While we enjoyed catching up with Matt, there wasn’t much to keep us in Montevideo. It’s not the worlds most exciting place and isn’t a patch on BA. After two nights we decided to go visit Lawrence in Piriapolis, about 1 ½ hours bus ride up the coast.
View Larger Map
As it turned out, there was a purpose behind all this as waiting round for the ferry and the events that followed set a wonderful course for our brief time in Uruguay. I was waiting with my backpack in the ferry terminal and heard a voice behind me say “I like your sheep”. I thought “Huh? What sheep??” then remembered that I had a big sheep luggage label on my backpack.
.jpg)
I turned round and got chatting with Lawrence, a Kiwi who is working on a boat in a place called Piriapolis on the coast of Uruguay. While I don’t think Lawrence will ever utter those words about a sheep again in his lifetime, he, Euan and I ended up hanging out waiting for the ferry then travelled across to Uruguay together.
Lawrence was in BA having a look around but also to buy a toilet for the boat. As a result, he was lugging this large box around and all the customs people wanted to know what was in it.
Euan was playing at being translator but didn’t know the Spanish word for an actual toilet. I was most amused but even more so when Euan chose to ask someone, who was completely unrelated to all the toilet conversations thus far, what the word for toilet was in Spanish. This chap just looked at Euan like he was a bit of a weirdo, then said in English “you mean number one or number twos?” at which point I just about dissolved. As it turned out, customs thought we were all travelling together so checked the toilet in under Euan's name so Euan ended up transporting a toilet into Uruguay. Lawrence was happy to deny all knowledge and we were just glad that it actually was a toilet!!
As an aside (and I enjoyed hearing this wee story), Lawrence had caught a lift to BA from Uruguay on a boat owned by a Kiwi ex-farmer. The story goes that this farmer went on holiday overseas, realised that there was more to life than tractors and super hard graft for little gain, returned to the farm, sold it, bought a yacht and took off. They’ve been on the go for years apparently.
Montevideo is Uruguay’s largest city, home to half the population of Uruguay and an OK place to spend a few days (but not many more). The best thing was that we caught up with Matt (who we met and stayed with in Valdivia, Chile) and it was great to see him again. Last time we saw him he was embarking on a 40-hour bus trip from Valdivia to Buenos Aires.
Matt has helped us out heaps; he’s pointed us in the direction of good, cheap and clean accommodation on more than one occasion and even booked and paid a deposit on a place for us in Montevideo. Euan's jokingly started referring to Matt as our ‘Latin America Travel Agent’.
Anyhow, while Montevideo isn’t the most exciting place, there is some cool architecture. This is the main square and the clock tower you can see in the background has the words London-Paris on it.
This was a rather confused museum, housing a collection of Uruguay money as well as a load of gaucho gear.
This is the Palacio Taranco, once the highest building in Latin America and remains Montevideos highest structure. Not the nicest looking building we saw…
We had a look around the theatre but they wouldn’t let us in the main area as there were opera singers rehearsing. I had a rather surreal moment sitting on the polished marble floor outside the ladies loos waiting for Euan. Someone walked past me and into the toilets then I got the fright of my life when this huge booming voice started singing warm-up scales in the toilet! It got louder and louder and higher and higher and when Euan came to find me I just put my finger to my lips and we listened to this woman practicing in the toilet. We waited to see who came out and got a shock when this tiny, tiny woman, no more than 5’2” walked out. It was quite strange as when we went upstairs there were all these people walking around and all of a sudden, with no warning, they’d let loose singing some part of an opera.
Inside this smoky steel structure was a load of parillas (grills). These places do a roaring trade and we couldn’t believe the meat on offer.
This is a typical grill, absolutely laden with ….meat, meat and more meat.
These guys go through the rubbish and collect what they can for recycling. While most of the horses seemed to be treated OK, they seemed pretty void of any personality
.jpg)
and all wore these ridiculous hats.
Now this was just plain weird. The country is clearly still poor and trying to catch up from the economic crash in 2002 yet there is this massive structure dedicated to General Artigas, father of Uruguay. His ashes are guarded round the clock by armed guards and I have no idea how they stay awake in the dimly lit room.
A few kilometres from the main square, down a dead straight road is the Palacio Legislativo
It is an impressive building in a poor setting but at least it has nothing to compete with
and some of the detailed carving was magnificent
While we enjoyed catching up with Matt, there wasn’t much to keep us in Montevideo. It’s not the worlds most exciting place and isn’t a patch on BA. After two nights we decided to go visit Lawrence in Piriapolis, about 1 ½ hours bus ride up the coast.
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