The boat ride to Uruguay went fairly smoothly. There were a few minutes of bumps in the water that made the boat move more than normal. Everything else was fine. I am getting really good at this traveling thing. I found a taxi to go to the hostel. There are no stoplights in Colonia, Uruguay. Not even stop signs. All of the cars stop for the pedestrians so that they can walk across the street. It is such a huge difference in Colonia from Buenos Aires and Cordoba. The taxi ride was 100 Uruguayan pesos which is about $5.25. I found my friends José and Guilherme in the hostel. I had José check out my Argentina jersey to see if it was an original or not. (He paid more than twice what I paid for his jersey.) After inspection, we decided I definitely did a great job buying my jersey. Mine even has Messi’s number and name on it. Poor boy. Haha. I left my bags in the main room and the three of us headed into town to see what was up. The two guys arrived in Colonia the day before, so they kind of had an idea of where things were. It is so peaceful and chill in Colonia! I loved every minute there. It very colonial looking, which makes sense because of its name, and it was a lot cleaner too. First we stopped at a shop that was selling the Uruguay soccer jersey. I made sure to tease Jose and tell him to be careful with how much he spends on his jersey, and he might actually be better off having my buy it. We did a little more window shopping and headed towards the boat docks. José encountered a cute little kitty that looked a lot like the cat from Shrek. We walked around a little more and found an aquarium that we could go to the next day since it was closed. We skipped stones in the ocean for a few minutes. I used to be very good at this. I swear when I was in elementary school I could get to stone to skip six or seven times. I think my record was two this go-around. Another boat dock and some more pictures. (I really hate that I am having trouble uploading picture for us all.) For lunch I had a chivito, which is the typical Uruguayan sandwich. It was pretty tasty. It was a hamburger with a more steak-like patty and it had boil eggs on it. The only problem was that it was very difficult to bite through the meat. I had to cut some of it with a knife, but I still liked it! In order to work off the chivito calories, we rented bikes to go searching for museums. I kept on trying to encourage just walking to the museums, but my subtle hints never really caught on. I haven’t really ridden a bike for maybe 10 years now. And someone told me that I was never really good at riding bikes, so my confidence was shot. You know who you are…sometimes you go by the name “Mother” at home. Cough. Cough. But I rode the bike anyway. It was so difficult to get started. To give you an idea on how long it has been since I rode a bike: I am much more used to the bikes that break by peddling backwards. These handle breaks are tricky. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I felt like I was learning! Besides that fact that I felt like awkward 10-year-old Kendall again and was worried I would crash, I had a great time on the bike ride. We rode along the beach and the view was beautiful. Guilherme was taking video while he was riding his bike; I was lucky to adjust my sunglasses while trying to steer. We found an old bullring, but it was closed and we couldn’t go in. It was the Coliseum of Uruguay. Then we went to a pirate/buried treasure museum. Sounds cool right? Hahahaha…it was the most boring museum ever! And I have been to lots and lots of museums. The saddest part of it all is that you could tell that a lot of work was put into the museum with all of the decorations. It looked cool. I made it back to the hostel alive on the bike. I actually started getting the hang of it at the end. The three of us hung out in the patio of the hostel and tried to connect to the internet unsuccessfully. I took a shower and siesta then we went out for dinner. I had the pizza of course. The need to compare Uruguay pizza to Argentina pizza was just too overwhelming. Argentina wins, but Uruguay put in a good effort. Then we walked around town trying to find a pub of some sort to chill in. Colonia is small, and therefore there really aren’t any pubs with lots of people. So we just walked around town more, found Paseo de Suspiros (semi-famous street in Colonia), and played on an old fort. There was a shop that had some good souvenirs and the lady working at the shop was super nice. We went back to the hostel to find out more about going to somewhere, but the only place we could find didn’t really get started until 3 am. We felt too tired from all the walking and bike-riding to wait until 3am, so we called it a night.
Sunday morning started off with some pastries for breakfast that were filled with none other than dulce de leche. Found a flagpole with a huge Uruguayan flag…pictures. Went to a hippie fair and I got another trenza because the one I got in Bueons Aires in January had fallen out. Then we revisited a lot of the places we saw the night before because they were open. I got a new maté for sweet maté! It is ceramic with blue paint that says “Maté Dulce/Colonia, Uruguay”. So perfect. Maté is a billion times more popular in Uruguay than it is in Argentina. There are families walking through the streets carrying their maté drinking it 24/7. Checked out this cool place that had a big wooden curly thing that we could take pictures in. I have no idea what it has to do with anything, but we liked it. We went to the aquarium, a cathedral, and then the big lighthouse. José and I went down closer to the beach the get better pictures of the flagpole because the wind was moving the flag perfectly. The sun set and we went back to the hostel. I got on the hostel computer to check up on how the rest of the world was doing. Then we went to a hotdog stand to get dinner. We made plans for the next day for going to Montevideo and to meet up with Jacobo. Bedtime.
Monday morning I got up at 4:30am to catch the 5:00am bus to Montevideo. When I got the hostel, Jacobo was already there. We went to the beach for the morning. There was gross and sad thing happening on the first part of the beach we came upon. I think it was due to the shape of the bay. There were lots and lots of dead fish washed up on the shore. So many poor little fishies dead on the sandy beach. It made walking on the beach kind of like walking through a land mine field. The crazy thing we saw washed up was an eel of some kind! It had big scary pointy teeth and everything! I definitely never want to encounter one of these suckers alive. Its eyeball didn’t seem real. We also saw three jellyfish, at least that it what it appeared to be. All we could see was the top part. The rest of it was under the sand. It kind of seemed as though they were stuck in the sand, and I wanted to help! The possibility of getting stung kept me from doing so. They were just little jelly pods on the sand. We did try to save a little string fish thing that was still wriggling around. Even though we tried to help, Mother Nature ended up doing all the work. Two large waves came in a swallowed the little guy back into the water. Jacobo and I chose a place to sit and soak up some Uruguayan sunrays. All of the people at the beach at 10 something in the morning are old people. These old people were not ashamed of their saggy boobs or wrinkly butts. I never felt so young! We went back to the hostel to take a shower so we could enjoy lunch without getting rubbed raw by the sand. We continued to find sand in our ears throughout the day though. We went to a recommended Italian restaurant to have some seafood. It was quite the trek to get there, and I cannot really say it was completely worth it either. The service was super slow and they gave us waaay too much food. I took a picture of the food before and after I was finished eating. There is hardly a difference! It did taste pretty good though. Jacobo had a seafood ravioli dish and I had a seafood spaghetti dish. I recognized the shrimp and calamari, but there was one thing with little grey hair looking things that I didn’t know what it was. It was tasty though. We walked to the mall to look around for a bit then headed back to the hostel. José and Guilherme arrived at their hostel a few hours before. So we made plans through good ol’ Facebook to meet up that evening for a goodbye dinner. Jacobo and I rested and computered. I had to re-pack for the 58,301,863th time and the final time. Then we went to José and Guilherme’s hostel. We went to the same chain restaurant that we ate the chivitos at in Colonia so Jacobo could try it. The three of us who were in Colonia all agreed that Colonia is better mostly because there are lots of museums and the food service is faster. I must go back to Montevideo to give it another try though. The beach was wonderful (except for the dead fish on the shore thing) and I don’t think 24 hours is a fair time to make a judgment on a city. The conversation at dinner was so great and funny! I am going to miss these guys so much!! We headed back to their hostel for a bit then Jacobo and I went back to our hostel. We had to say goodbye to the beach before we left, so we spent an hour or so there. It was very cool at night with no one else there. The water looked black and there were lots of white waves. Back at the hostel we went to sleep.
Tuesday morning: my last morning in South America. I did not want to leave at all. The taxi came to pick me up at 5:45am. At first I was taken to the wrong terminal and I had a panic of some kind of ticket error and I would miss my plane flight. Everything got sorted out and I made it back to Buenos Aires just fine. I had a great conversation with my taxi driver. It was kind of like my final exam in what I learned in Argentina. Then I got to spend 3 hours waiting to be able to check in and then a few more for the plane. I managed to sleep during the 9-hour plane ride from Buenos Aires to Miami. Sleeping in public transportation in a new skill I have acquired. Plane ride to Dallas went well. I know I was a sexy beast sleeping with my mouth wide open. When I finally got back to Texas, I was greeted by my mom and Lauren at the airport. What a great trip. I will miss Argentina.
