Uruguay, Interrupted
Graeme looking longingly back over the Rio de la Plata to Argentina
It was with heavy hearts we prepared to leave Buenos Aires. We packed up our bags, gave Pancho the dog a pat on the head and made our way to Puerto Madero to catch our ferry across the Rio Plata and into Uruguay.
We vowed to come back to Buenos Aires again in future… little did we know we would be back in as soon as five days.
Cute Colonia del Sacramento
We arrived in the small coastal town of Colonia del Sacramento on a sunny afternoon. After an early start we had lunch on our minds, but our hunger was soon shocked out of us - the first cafe menu we looked at listed simple cheese sandwiches for £8. Needless to say, we got out of there so quickly! We eventually found a pizza just big enough to share for £12. I wanted to order chips to pad out the meal, but at £6 a portion it was a pipe dream. After the highs of the past two weeks in Argentina, we had come crashing down to Earth with a bump. Backpacking in Uruguay was going to be hard.
The next day, once we had done a supermarket trip that stocked us up to cook dinner in the hostel, we set out to explore the town. It’s a small place that can be seen in half a day, but it is beautiful. The old town - barrio historico - is a tangle of cobbled streets and colonial buildings, adorned with colourful trees and tiles. Cute cafes spill out onto manicured squares, and you’re never more than a few streets away from the waters of the Rio Plata.
For lunch, we had our first taste of an Uruguayan staple: Chivito. Apparently a kind of sandwich, although no bread in sight. It is a thin steak topped with cheese, ham and an egg, served with salad and chips. Very filling!
Having walked almost every street by mid-afternoon, we decided to make our way to one of many riverside beaches near town. The sand was nice but it’s very much a river-beach experience, looking out to muddy brown water… not at all tempting! The searing heat and lack of shade meant we lasted less than half an hour before we decided to head back to the old town square for some iced coffees and people watching.
It was a really nice place to spend a sunny day and the perfect introduction into the charm of Uruguay. We just hoped the touristy nature of the town meant prices were higher, and that we would find more budget friendly options in the capital.
Left wanting more from Montevideo
It was a short bus ride to Montevideo. We checked into our hostel - the most expensive accommodation we had booked in 5 months of travelling - and felt slightly defeated by the sparseness of it. We bought some supplies to cook dinner and watched an incredible rainstorm come down on the city. Taking it as a sign, we made the most of good wifi to catch up with some tv and recharge.
Determined to try and make the most of our weekend in the capital, we woke the next morning to beautiful sunshine and hopped on a local bus into the centre of the city. We planned on spending a few hours following a self-guided walking tour I had found online, but the whole thing only took an hour.
We walked through the city’s main squares and into the “ciudad Viejo”. Only… everything was closed. It was about 1.30pm on a Saturday, and 90% of the shops had shutters pulled down. A few cafes had tables on the streets but otherwise, it felt a little eerie.
The highlight was walking the 4km back to the hostel along the “Rambla” - a wide path along the bank of the Rio Plata that gave Miami Beach vibes (without the blue water!). At 24km in total, it’s the longest uninterrupted pedestrian path in the world.
Being lovers of food, we tried to save our weekend by forgetting the budget and going for dinner at the highest rated tapas bar on Google. We left £50 lighter and hungry enough to buy a packet of supermarket biscuits on the way home… could Uruguay give us a break?!
We had been chatting to an Irish man in Colonia who travelled in the opposite direction, and I asked him his opinion of Montevideo. His response puzzled me at the time: it was nice, but there was something missing. After spending some time there, I knew exactly what he meant. The city’s squares are beautiful, the history is interesting, there are lovely pedestrianised streets, and even white sand beaches, but… it felt like there was something missing to make it the kind of place people love, and I can’t put my finger on exactly what. The vibe, maybe?
U turn
We had always planned to return to Argentina from the northern part Uruguay in order to visit Iguazu Falls. However, as we looked at routes north from Montevideo we found we were uninspired… and then we saw the costs involved. The cheapest buses north cost more than our daily budget. Add on accommodation and food, and we were looking at decimating our funds.
There was no getting around it. Staying in Uruguay was going to cost us more than we could afford. We sat there and pined for the high of the previous week… and suddenly the answer seemed clear: the best way forward was to turn back.
As soon as we hit “purchase” on the ferry tickets back to Buenos Aires (heavily discounted due to an early Cyber Monday deal) my heart felt lighter: we had done the right thing. If you have read our Buenos Aires blog you’ll know that we are utterly in love with the city, so we were over the moon to have two extra, unexpected days before finally moving on.
I am a little sad to have missed out on what Uruguay could have been. As much as I love Buenos Aires, the reason we came out here was to explore and discover new places.
There will inevitably be places that aren’t for us, but I’m not writing Uruguay off just yet. If we were simply on a two week holiday here our opinion might be totally different, but because we are travelling for so long, unfortunately money is one of the most important factors when it comes to our decision-making. The country’s parting shot was a £2.50 McDonald’s cheeseburger in the bus station… that didn’t even have pickles in. Unforgivable.
We enjoyed the glimpse of Uruguay that we got and we know there are many more beautiful places in the country. We hope to see them one day when we have more resources available, it just wasn’t meant to be this time.
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