Day 293, 294 -Montevideo - Saturday 4th, Sunday 5th August 2012

We woke up to a very cold, wet and grey Montevideo. After wrapping up in too many layers, we walked around the main town for an hour or so before our feet became so numb we had to seek shelter and food. And we so arrived at the Puerto Mercado; this is a little market on the port which is famous for its parrilla restaurants (bbq's). The smell as we entered was amazing and everywhere we looked there were copious amounts of meat being roasted by mean and old looking men. After circling several times, we finally decided on a spot and waited for a couple of the bar stools to come free. Ad ordered what he thought was a bottle of red, which instead turned out to be a very cold rose wine and not ideal in the already freezing temperature, and we carefully looked over the menu. With so much choice we were a little unsure and so when the guy came over we quickly just ordered the BBQ for two - that way we thought we'd get to try a bit of everything. Now when I say everything, I do actually mean everything as when it turned up as well as the usual steak and sausage suspects, there were also some guts, intestines and blood sausage thrown in for good measure. We picked our way through; Ad was game and tried everything but I just couldn't get the intestine in my mouth - especially when Ad explained that it felt like he was chewing on a bike tyre filled with pate - yummy! After our lunch to wandered around for a while more and tried to take in some of the sights but to be honest we were both feeling very cold, damp from the fine rain and a little miserable so we went back to our hotel, opened a bottle of red wine, watched the Olympics and settled down for the afternoon and night!

We woke up today with the aim of making it a positive day! We've been in the cold for over two and half months now and the truth of it is we're just fed up with it and sightseeing is definitely not as fun when you're cold and wet! God, we sound like such moaners don't we?! Anyway we decided today that we were going to give Montevideo a fighting chance and so headed out early to the Sunday market to have a look around. The market was a mix of pretty much everything you could imagine; first up was my favourite section - the animals! There were tiny little puppies everywhere of all different breeds and they were soooooooooooooo cute - I literally wanted to buy every one of them and think that if a market like it existed in the UK, there would be no puppies left and my nickname would be "the dog woman". Some were so small and it was so cold that they were shivering so their owners put little jumpers on them - even cuter!! As well as pups, there were fishes, turtles, cats, rabbits, mice - you name it, it was there. Then the market opened up to pretty much everything else you can imagine - some of the stalls were literally like someone had had a clear out of their house and decided to sell it on the street. Who buys a half empty and used bottle of shampoo?! Ad was desperate to buy a mate cup and straw and after looking at about a million he finally decided on a nice brown leather one. After wandering around for a while longer, we stopped by a little café for some coffees and medialunas (croissants) and chilled there for a while, then it was back to the puppy section to oh and ah some more! In the afternoon we stopped for some food at a, not very nice, veggie restaurant and then headed back for an evening of skyping our family, oh and cutting our hair - Ad shaved the side of his head and then put off the bottom of my hair as it was driving me so crazy! Can't wait for a proper haircut!