Sitting down to blog about Uruguay... finally.

This posting might be spattered with a bit of ADD, but alas, you'll probably understand most of it.

As mentioned earlier, I fell in love with Colonia, Uruguay. We arrived there via Buque Bus, a ferry service that takes you from BA to Colonia and/or Montevideo (capital of UR). There are two options: one hour or three hour rides. We opted for the one hour, but mostly because the others were sold out. Loving ride.

Colonia is a quiet little town that sits itself across the river to BA. And in case you didn't know, BA is not really on the ocean. It sort of is. But it doesn't feel like it, because it's not. The water is brown, sediment from the river, Rio de la Plata, hitting the Atlantic Ocean. Want to know more about Colonia, dig my previous post: here.
We rented a car in Colonia. From Thrifty, for just over $200 for the week. This turned out to be a super, super wise decision. Sure, there are a few buses that transport folks to most of the destinations we wanted to visit, but not all. I remember on one tank refill, the bill came to $960!!!!!!! Of course, that's UR pesos. 23 to 1 US dollar.

(P.S. I'm starting to upload pictures of Colonia... see them here: Colonia I)

Easiest way to convert UR pesos to US dollars: chop of the last digit (they almost never use cents). So, let's say something costs $250 UR pesos, like a bottle of Smirnoff vodka (not that I'd know...hee, heet). Whop of the 0. You get $25. Divide by two, 12.5, and now take off a little. So, in the end, that bottle costs about $11 US$. What a fun and easy way to figure out costs. Now you try: this meal for four at this nice restaurant, HOP, in Punta del Este costs $2775!!!!! About how much is that in US$?

We did eat at HOP in Punta del Este. It was yummy! It was also the first time I'd had fish since being in South America. Tuna. It was yummy. I also had some "paella", which they were cooking out in front the restaurant! Paella is very similar to seafood gumbo. Oh, and seafood gumbo is like a big vat of various sea creatures (and/or crawfish). It was very, very tasty.

(this blog is sort of intimidating because there's soooo much to write... TBC)

PHOTOS!!!