We ended up spending a week in the capital, Montevideo, but that was mainly because we were waiting for Kurt's Brazil visa. Three days would definitely be more than enough time to see it all. We therefore had plenty of time to check out the city and make a day trip to the nearby town of Colonia. We were staying in a hostel by the port, so it was only a short walk to the historic part of the city known as Ciudad Vieja (Old City). There are also some cool buildings near the main plaza, a real mixture of old and new.
One evening we borrowed a couple of bikes from the hostel and rode down by the waterfront, coming across some sort of festival/tradition. People were walking into the water and floating what looked like little boats made out of cardboard or polystyrene. No idea what is was all about, but there were thousands of people around.
We were also lucky enough to go along to a local carnival event one night, as one of the guys working at the hostel offered to take us with him, his girlfriend and his niece. It was a competition of local performers singing and dancing in different styles. The costumes and make up were pretty impressive, and there was one group in particular that we both liked over all the others. They had a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of look to them and they were a crowd favourite too. It was a really good night, and the guy's hyperactive 6 year old niece was yelling out all the English words and phrases she knew, as well as singing some Abba for us. The poor girl has already been corrupted.
Meanwhile, it was a rather tense couple of days as we waited to find out if Kurt's visa for Brazil had been approved. We had to show proof of exit and entry travel details, so we printed some fake flights and used that. We thought they'd just look at them and tick a box, but the woman kept the printout which made us worry. Our 'reservation' was only valid for 24 hours because of course we hadn't actually paid for it, so we had to hope like hell that if she was going to check the reservation she'd do so before lunch the next day. As it turned out, the new grey hairs we got were unnecessary, as Kurt's visa was approved. Phew!
Our day trip was to a town called Colonia, about 3 hours from Montevideo. It's a popular tourist spot and is a quaint little town with winding cobbled streets overlooking a river. It even has a lighthouse with a gorgeous 360 degree view. We spent a couple of hours wandering around snapping away along with the hundreds of other tourists, but we ended up changing to an earlier bus back to the capital. Clearly we're productive tourists - we get shit done fast.
So as you might have picked up on, we weren't overly impressed with these two cities. We didn't dislike them, we just weren't fussed either way. Plus, things were a lot more expensive than we were expecting which is never a good thing. We were, however, holding out hope that the next place in Uruguay would change our opinion - Cabo Polonio.
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