Montevideo, Uruguay

Our first impressions of Montevideo were mixed. The street we were staying on seemed fairly lively with a few bars, market stalls and restaurants but it didn't seem to stretch any further than 100 metres down the road. We were advised to steer clear of the old town at night since it is considered quite dangerous. Advice like that can often be scaremongering, applicable only if you are an idiot who walks around flashing their cash, but in this case we tended to agree. Even by day we were approached by angry homeless drunks (one even asked Harry to share his dinner!) In another instance, a man tried to befriend us with helpful tips and sob stories about his dodgy leg. He then tried to persuade us to hand over our camera so he could take our picture...no thank you. He soon left us alone when he realised we didn't have MUG written across our foreheads.

Our hotel was quite nice....a haunted, post World War II experience is the only way to describe it. However, it was clean and friendly so we embraced the ghosts without grumbling. We were also very happy to discover that we'd arrived in Montevideo just in time to catch their Carnival that took place over Friday and Saturday night. It was a bouncy bottom bonanza with every girl in sight sporting a sparkly thong bikini with huge feather headdresses. Noticing how much Harry wanted a picture with one of the girls, but being too shy to ask, I soon pushed him into the midst of it all for some good snaps. I soon started to wish I had made more of an effort with my outfit (in my defence it was chilly that night). It's not good for the self esteem to stand next to beautiful girls wearing nothing but jewels and body paint.

The following Sunday was the polar opposite of the carnival! Not a soul in sight and nothing open! It took us a few hours just to find somewhere to buy water...not the best day.

We'd been advised to visit another town along the coast called Punta del Este (muchos gracias Joseph) so we headed there for a change of scenery. Millionaires row! We ditched our backpacker mindset and lapped up some luxury for the day. When in Rome and all that! The beaches were gorgeous and the marina was a perfect place for dinner and beers. Anyone would have thought we had just rolled in on our yacht rather than the budget coach we actually used. Surprise of the day was to be greeted by a huge sea lion that had clearly been separated from his clan and had taken refuge by the promenade. We didn't get as close as the silly Americans since it had jaws like a lion's but we got pretty close.

Another amazing day trip we did was to Colonia del Sacramento, a beautiful old colonial port that was used to smuggle goods into Buenos Aires. We fell in love with the town and, in hindsight, wished we had stayed there a few nights. Our dreamy day was temporarily interrupted when we went for dinner.....

( Before I go on I would just like to state that, at this point, we'd only had 2 nice meals in Uruguay the entire week! The food had been very disappointing and I'm ashamed to say that more than a few McDonalds had been consumed. I would also like to add that our diet since travelling mainly consists of bread based products and I am usually a lover of fresh fruit and veg).

My upset, therefore, grew when I caved in to Harry's choice of an 'all you eat grill' for dinner that day. Since Harry is constantly singing 'you don't make friends with salad' (Simpsons quote), I decided to man up and go for the grill. The first three things that were put on my plate were blood sausage (aka black pudding), intestine (which had a dubious coloured substance inside) and kidney! Back to the bread basket for me!

Overall we did have loads of fun in Uruguay but probably should have spent a few nights in each of the places we went, rather than all in Montevideo. Off to Cordoba, Argentina next so more to come from Harry.

We've finally managed to load all our videos onto the website so check them out too.

Nicola & Harry

Copa del Sh*thead scoreboard: NH 62 - 69 HF