Hola amigos, hope life´s peachy? Now Friday night, cream-crackered after just getting in from a cheeky jaunt over the water. Caught a fast ferry over to Colonia in Uruguay, only an hour away, early this morning, and got chatting to a real nice girl called Lisa from Toronto. She´s in Buenos Aires for a few weeks on a volunteer project, working with super-poor kids in some day-care centre in the city centre, then jets off to Israel to work for the Jerusalem Post. Cool yarn eh!? I love people´s stories, can listen for hours. Anyway, I digress.

So Lisa and I and half of Japan land in Uruguay at about 10am, wandering the quiet leafy streets and enjoying the slow pace. It´s an old Portuguese colony, all preserved for yours-truly-the-endless-tourist in all its cobbled-painted-cute grandiosity. Very nice (Lisa used the term ¨quaint¨), but if truth be told, you wouldn´t want to spend more than a day there, you´d be bored out of your mind. Twas a bit like Eastbourne in the UK, the big white beardy fella´s waiting room. But just easy-going, a sort of walking-off-the-Sunday-roast amble. Lunch was tasty as, steak again (it´s so good down this way it´s rapidly becoming the only food I´ll eat), and chilled as, by the old church in a dappled shady cobbled square. Very gentle people the Uruguayans - softly spoken, polite and mega-tolerant of our distinct lack of Spanish. Took about a million photos but, as is the seemingless constant case in this neck of the woods, can´t upload any of them so you´ll just have to wait and see. Caught the 7pm ish ferry back, where we got chinwagging to a cool couple who live in Peru, Paul (who´s an Ozzy) and Paola. They live on one of the surf beaches in Peru, and the way they described it, sounds as though you could literally drop everything and move there. Another mouth-wateringly intriguing story, can´t get enough of ém. So Peru´s definately on the hit-list of places now, just give me the word! Couple of beers and 3 hours later, we´re back in Buenos Aires. Great day - knackered... so no bevvies tonight. Booked a monster bus journey to Mendoza for tomorrow night (leaves at 7.15pm Saturday, gets in at 9.30am Sunday), but first gonna explore a bit more tomorrow. Keep you posted chiefs and chiefesses...manly hugs and girly kisses