Uruguay ( no, you're a guay!)

Montevideo felt a bit like East London ( except for your street Warren) -windy, by the seaside, unmaintained colonial buildings... generally a more seedy area than Buenos Aires.

Generally... And this a a vague generalization, we found the people of Montevideo less outgoing and more conservative in their dress and approach compared to the people we met in Buenos Aires. In fact the only people we really spoke to for an extended period of time were some Argentinians who were there on a vakansie too.

Our first night out we had a pretty good meal for alot more than we expected to pay. ( bill included a cover charge separate to the tip and tax!) anyway we went away thinking this place is SUPER expensive and we'll have to live off Marie biscuits and completely crushed up Maggie two minute noodles somewhere at the bottom of our backpacks for the remainder of our stay, anyway we bright sparks were working everything out on the incorrect exchange rate, so in actual fact the prices are similar to that of SA. ( but a cover charge at a restaurant! Please! no music was even playing in the background!)

There was not much more to look at in Montevideo after our 3hr bike ride touring the neighborhood so we decided to take a bus to Puerto del Este - 'the Miami of Uruguay'. Hahahaha far from it, was more like PE to an East Londoner. But we lazed in the sun among the rocks ( real rocks not Afrikaners) and pebbles til we turned a crisp red with white circles around our eyes. Before the day was done (and we could bear any more sunshine) we decided to rent a scooter and explore some more of the coastline. We handed over our SA license which does not indicate that Tim is licensed to drive motorbikes on the road, the guy looked at it with scrunched up eyes for quite some time and then slammed it on the table with a smile...' ok, you go on motorbike! ' and handed us the keys... We figured he couldn't read English ;) hopefully the cops can't either.

The last day we hopped on a bus to Colonia del Sacramento, this tiny town felt like we had tumbled through a time capsule with it's cobbled streets, original colonial buildings all still in use and old model T's ( that's an old car for all the girls - I don't know that kind of useless info.) this was probably the best part of our trip as we strolled around the very scenic town and climbed the stairway to heaven to the top of an old lighthouse.

My best moment must be the final few minutes as we waited for the ferry I decided to spend the last few cents on a lollipop. I point at the picture and the guy nods and says 'ses' (6). I nod and hand him a 5 peso and some cents which make up 1 peso. He takes the 5 peso, looks at the cents in his hand and shakes his head with a whole lot of Spanish, 'blah blah blah blah blah' and hands it back to me. I'm like, what! This is legal tender don't start getting fussy mister! And say no! No! This is 1 peso, and I count it out in front of him ( in English) making my little tower until I get to 1 peso, and then slide it across the table. He shakes his head and again in Spanish, ' blah bla blah blah' and slide the tiny pile back across my way. Eventually some older dude comes out front and they carry on at each other and he looks at me, nods while flapping his hand as if to say go, go. I'm still confused, besides the fact that he is now giving me a 6 peso lollipop for 5 pesos ( beginning to think the curry in Dbn is working) why don't they want my cents! So I try give the older guy the pile. He shakes his head and continues to flap his hand shewing me away. Anyway the long and the short of it is the cents were from Argentina and not Uruguay! Hahahahaha. Spanish is proving to be a tiny hurdle.