We took another overnight bus to Concordia, an Argentinian town along the Rio Uruguay, and the point from which we would enter Uruguay. Fergus slept really well, Lindsay not so much due to the broken speaker above our heads that hummed ALL NIGHT.

There are two ways to get from Concordia to Salto in Uruguay: a ferry across the river that takes about 10 minutes; or a bus that drives north to the bridge and back down taking about an hour. Neither services run on a Sunday.

As such, we needed to spend a night in Concordia. A search a few days earlier had revealed very few options, so we ended up booking into a Hotel at the Termas (thermal waters) about 8km out of town. It was slightly over our budget but was the cheapest of the Termas Hotels.

Upon exiting the bus at Concordia Terminal, we attempted to find out how to get to the Termas. A taxi would be "muy muy caro" ("very very expensive") according to the girl at the tourist info (perhaps about $10). We agreed that was a bit too much, so we were given instructions of how to get to the bus stop for the local bus heading that way.

We walked 4 blocks and found the stop, and sat with the locals waiting for the green bus #7 to the termas. It took 20-30 minutes going through a few suburbs along the way of dirt roads and home made playgrounds. Fortunately, our driver was kind enough do drop us right out the front of the hotel.

We walked along the gravel pathway and past 2 thermal pools where women were relaxing (later they were relaxing in the pool with wine). After checking in we were shown to our room. Such luxury! The sheets were white and matching! The room was clean! Quite a stark contrast to our accommodation in Cordoba.

We dumped our bags and quickly dug out our swimmers, making a beeline for the pools. Amazing. The weather was turning a bit drizzly, but when you are immersed warm toasty water, it matters very little what the weather is doing.

After a long soak, we had a shower and some lunch (after a very interesting conversation with the hotel chef to work out what he was serving we ended up with Gnocci and salad), then spent some time relaxing/napping in our sweet, sweet hotel room.

Hmmm, what should we do now? Why not another soak in the pool. Followed by some more relaxing, and then some dinner. Unfortunately after saying we wanted to share a meal, he made double which didn't help the budget or the waistline!

Monday morning we arose to the included breakfast. Cereal (that looked deceptively wholemeal-ish but alas was just as sweet as every other South American cereal), toast, fruit and about 10 different varieties of pastries and cakes, even chocolate cake for breakfast! The jam was confectionery enough for us.

Sad to leave our little luxury oasis, we returned to town on the local bus, walked a ways to the ferry terminal, and arrived around 11.30 in time to buy a ticket and clear customs for the midday ferry. Passports stamped for exit, we were called for a bag inspection which involved a man marvelling at the number of stamps in Ferg's passport, then pointing at our bags, asking "solo ropa" ("only clothes"), and we were waived on.

With the 10 or so other passengers we made our way to the waters edge and boarded the vessel, a quaint little thing that made a bucket load of noise, and made our way up river to Salto, Uruguay.

LAPFWT