Uruguay: What an interesting country full of surprises. We stayed in a lovely AbandB in Colonia del Sacramento with Isabella who became a personal friend . We hired a car for a few days but would love Isabella’s two beauties , both right hand drive as Uruguay used to drive on the left !
Published by culmstock
South America 
Day 10: Bus to Buenos Aires
We’d enjoyed our time in Paraguay. We returned the car miraculously without incident which was a relief and caught a taxi to the tiny border back to Argentina. The heavens opened before we set off and the taxi drove through deeply flooded roads, mounting curbs where possible to keep his engine out of the deep muddy waters.
We took the same basic ferry across the river and back to Argentina. Again Neil started chatting to a nice looking man with a large Toyota Hilux and plenty of room for our luggage and asked him to give us a lift back to the hotel where we’d stayed before. It was no problem at all. He was a forest ranger and knew all the forests around Argentina including Tierra del Fuego.
The hotel welcomed us back where we rested 5 hours before walking back into town to catch our bus to Buenos Aires. Miraculously the rain abated until we were safely inside the terminal then the heavens opened again.
This time the bus was brand new and fantastic! We had to produce our passports as ID. Our luggage was tagged just as for a plane journey and we were shown to our huge reclining seats upstairs. It felt just like business class on a plane, to the extent that every time the bus hit a pothole, I felt the plane was landing. It even had a TV screen showing some great films subtitled in Spanish. We’d left our earphones below in our luggage so read our books instead. To our happy surprise the attendant brought us a hot meal on a tray and offered as much Malbec wine as we liked! We had a great journey and arrived at Buenos Aires rested and ready for our long ferry journey to Uruguay.
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Days 11-13: Uruguay
We caught the ferry straight from Argentina to Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay for New Year’s Eve. Neil had booked a beautiful Airbnb hotel in the countryside and, on a whim, offered to cook our host his delicious paella. She accepted!! Brave lady!
So there she was with a big welcoming smile at the ferry terminal, waiting expectantly to take her new, unusual guests food shopping.
Uruguayan food shops have little in the way of foreign foods. A good steak might have been a better option (ha ha!). But we managed to compromise on most ingredients and, more importantly, found good wine and champagne to welcome in the New Year.
Isabella was a lovely, elegant Swiss lady. By the time she drove us to her home, we already felt we’d known her for years. Our room was in a charming guest area away from her house, where we could watch the sun set each night. We settled in quickly and soon Neil was cooking in Isabella’s kitchen.
Neil soon discovered Isabella’s love for old cars and he immediately fell in love with her immaculately kept 1939 Nash Ambassador. Since Uruguay had once driven on the left, this car was even a right hand drive car and Neil’s dream is to ship it back to Devon. She also had an old Ford model A pickup truck, also right hand drive. Neil would sit on the driver’s seat and imagine himself driving it to the pub one day!
We ended up spending 3 days with Isabella, gliding through her pool in the heat of the day or sipping wine on her terrace swapping life’s stories. Sadly her husband had died 3 years earlier, but she’d led a remarkable life as a pilot, a healer, a huge traveller and more. Her late husband drove people all over S America exploring the back countries. What an adventurous life they’d had.
She drove us into the small historic town of Colonia with its Spanish cobbled streets and tiny art galleries. We ate lunch at the yacht club and wandered through the bougainvillea lined alleyways. It turned out to be the prettiest town we’d visited in Uruguay.
We were sad to leave Isabella running the little hotel by herself. We felt more like friends staying than guests and we hope she’ll come to stay in Devon one day.
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Day 14: Montevideo- groan
Alas!!
After our restful stay in our beautiful surroundings of Isabella’s home in Uruguay, we came to Montevideo. What a beautiful name for a city and we were looking forward to it. The reviews of our Airbnb were great! “Lovely family, quiet home, peaceful area” etc.
Wrong!
Montevideo was a mess of decaying buildings, even worse than Havana where at least we felt very safe. ‘Faded grandeur’ would be a kind way to describe it. We drove through such poor dark areas with drunks tripping around. Our new home was in the heart of this dark sad area, right next to a crumbling shabby hospital and on a busy street.
Our hosts were lovely, if only we could share their enthusiastic Spanish! Their house was clean but full of odd possessions with their little grandson watching loud Spanish children’s TV on a great big old telly. Our room basic with huge old french windows opening straight onto the busy road, and we had to share their bathroom. We quickly dumped our stuff and set out to explore the city.
It too was a disappointment. The government showed no signs of renovating the glorious old buildings. Everything old was left to decay except for one tiny upgraded area near the harbour. It was an old market converted to house many bars and ‘parrillas” – steak houses. It was buzzing with tourists eating their barbecued steaks and enjoying the wine. I ate an absolutely delicious steak and we both enjoyed a glass of Malbec. We returned to the car and headed east in search of a half decent place to watch the sunset. Eventually we came upon a rather grand Sofitel on the far east of the city. It was a huge, impressive Art Deco hotel almost on the beach front where we enjoyed a cup of tea.
But we had to return to our humble dwelling. Our oversized, jovial host greeted us, fag in hand, with a hearty welcome and we quickly went up to bed. The traffic zoomed past our room all night and the bed springs informed me of body parts I never knew existed.
By 7.30 am we were gone!
Some interesting history: (even for non-war enthusiasts like me!)
The story of the Grafspee
In 1939, at the outbreak of war, the first British naval encounter was in Uruguay on the River Plate against the Graf Spee, the pride of the German navy.
It was the most advanced German war ship ever built and was captained by Kapitan Langsdorff. The ship caused havoc in the South Atlantic sinking nine merchant ships. But Langsdorff would first offer the ships a chance to abandon ship on the condition that they would not signal the position of the Graff Spee. Many thousands of lives were spared and the Graff Spee rescued all the sailors from their lifeboats before their ships were sunk.
By clever subterfuge, the British tricked the Graff Spee into thinking it was about to be sunk by destroyers (it wasn’t) so Captain Langsdorff ordered his crew to abandon ship, then sunk his Graff Spee so that it would not fall into British hands. Later, he shot himself leaving a message for his family. What a humanitarian German hero he was.
The sinking of the Graff Spee ended in the Battle of the River Plate. It was a fascinating encounter full of double bluff and great heroism from the German captain. We haven’t covered half in this blog. Have a look at :-
http:// en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Plate
Its well worth a read if you are not familiar with the story
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Day 15: Uruguayan beaches
Wow!! Uruguayan beaches must be some of the biggest in the world. We drove east along the coast towards Punta del Este, leaving Montevideo forever. The roads were wide open dual carriageways with no potholes or police hiding to make a fast buck from unsuspecting tourists. It was easy driving.
On the way, Neil spotted a town called Biarritz, so we turned off to find it down a long sandy track. What a wonderful escape from the city. There were a few simple dwellings along the track and we found a pretty little shack right on the beach to have our breakfast. We chatted easily to the relaxed, tanned owner with his gravelly voice after years of smoking heaven know what. Then went for a swim in the cool south Atlantic waters.
As we drove into Punta del Este, we started to realise what was happening in Uruguay. The government and big private companies were investing in building huge shopping malls, businesses and up market residential areas in brand new areas, leaving the old colonial areas with its rich heritage, to rot into oblivion. Montevideo had a state of the art airport to the east of the city and another near Punta full of private jets. These new areas were where many of the world’s richest came to stay. Wealthy businessmen, actors and super models like Naomi Campbell owned huge villas near Punta del Este. They’d probably never seen the crumbling capital with its neglected suburbs full of poverty.
But as resorts go, Punta del Este was enjoyable with families wandering around the yachts. We expected something more like Las Vegas but this was far warmer and more human.
Our highlight of the day was having lunch at Casapueblo. A wacky hotel of many stories built into the rock face. It looked like some place Gaudi might have designed for a Starwars set. It’s better described by our photos.
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