Day 295 - Travelling day & Uruguay sum up, Salto - Monday 6th August 2012

We spent the whole day and night travelling! Starting at 5.30am in Montevideo with a bus bound for Salto, then another bus over to border to Concordia in Argentina, then a five hour wait before getting on another bus, a night one this time, to take us to our final destination of Puerto Iguazu! When we came to the Uruguay / Argentina border we were greeted by the usual friendly and chatty customs office (this is me being sarcastic, just in case you hadn't guessed), I swear the Argentinean border guards are rivalling those of the USA for making you feel welcome into the country! Our five hours in Concordia were pleasant at a warm twenty degrees and so we wandered around and spent a lot of time in a little coffee shop. One thing the Argentinians do well at is coffee shops; you order a little coffee and get presented with not just your coffee but also a glass of fizzy water plus a little sweet or cake - UK coffee shops need to take note. Come 7.30pm we waited for our posh and expensive night bus and we waited and waited………….eventually it turned up an hour later but alas we were welcomed with dinner and red wine before settling down to sleep ready for our morning arrival into Iguazu.

Uruguay sum up

We literally whizzed in and out of Uruguay, only taking in the famous historic town of Colonial, the capital city and of course the Estancia, but even these few places gave us enough of an idea as to what a lovely little country it is. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side, but I suppose it was winter so what did we expect, but it didn't stop us having a great time - saying that, the sentence "wouldn't this be beautiful in the sun" was murmured more than a few times! The Estancia was the highlight for us and really gave us an insight into the country way of life - especially when we saw all the gauchos riding along with their horses, little beret hats and trousers tucked into their boots! We both agreed that we'd love to go come back to Uruguay in the warmer months and explore it more and maybe spend some more time by the coast and in some of the many Estancia's dotted around the country. But for now, we had a great time and enjoyed our visit. Our favourite pastime of Uruguay - watching the locals go about their day to day with of course, the obligatory Mate cup in hand!