Hola chicos Firstly lets deal with the issue that appears to be causing the most interest. Yes I have purchased 3 vests, they are small, lightweight and provide a direct ventilation stream to the armpits which has proved invaluable. I won´t let you all bully me out of my new way of life, I´m a vest man and proud (although it´s a bit cooler now). We´re now in Montevideo where we´ve been since Saturday and we´re 3 days into our 5 day Spanish course which is...

Since we last spoke we´ve continued our trip through Uruguay and I´m pleased to report Alison has not caused anyone else to strike her. We left Paysandu after one night and headed to Mercedes. There was some kind of event on there so there were no rooms at the inns and we therefore spent the day mooching around town before getting a bus to Colonia de Sacramento arriving mid monsoon. Too be honest not staying Mercedes was no bad thing as Salto, Paysandu and Merc...

My first thoughts about going to Paysandu, a little (despite being Uruguays 3rd biggest town) riverside town in western Uruguay were not favourable. Firstly, we had to wait 3 hours for the bus here and second, a small child hit me while we were waiting for the bus. i swear to god i didn´t do anything to deserve such a whack. i was just sitting there minding my own business in the bus station when a seven or eight year old child just ran right up to where i was s...

Unfortunately Salto was pretty horrible so this morning we checked out and headed to Daymán which is a neighbouring town with thermal springs. First proper sunburn of the trip recorded today as we lay around the thermal baths, Uruguayians must have asbestos skin, I couldn't get in one of the pools as it was so hot, much to the amusement of the five year olds splashing around in there. One other thing we´ll definitely remember is that Daymán is full of people w...

So here we are in Uruguay. We left Colonia Pellegrini yesterday morning at 4.00am and five buses later arrived at a hostel in the Uruguayian border town of Salto. The journey was a bit of an adventure as we didn't really know where we were going. We left on a port-a-cabin on wheels along a dirt track with some fairly alarming bangs and cracks coming from the bus as we bumped our way down the track for 3 hours to Mercedes, somehow I managed to sleep despite being ...