Uruguay (ew you are)

Hi there

So I know our last post said we were in Argentina...but this is mostly gonna be about Uruguay...if you don't quite get this, check a map, turns out they're kinda close.

After a few days in Puerto Iguazu we bussed 5 hours south to a small (read poky and a little desolate) town called San Ignacio De Mini which is famous for some Jesuit ruins.  The Jesuits were missionaries that bonded with the locals when they came over and from what I can gather they were quite into music...this is not really a factual blog (sorry Tim)...anyway, the ruins were quite cool:

Yas doing her best impression of a ruin

The Jesuits were obviously short spanish men...probably with luscious hair and an unbounded confidence to whisper sweet nothings to unknown ladies as they walk past in the street...also note the knock off AB's top picked up for $40

After San Ignacio we decided that we were ready for another monster bus trip so we left our hostel and spent the next 32 hours on 3 different busses, bus stations and a ferry before arriving in Montevideo (Uruguay).  Yas has perfected the art of sleeping on a bus (I don't hate her for this, because hate is such a strong word) whereas I was reduced to the floor (deck) of the ferry:

Montevideo is cool. Not sure why.  It's Marbo...it's the vibe of it all.

Up until we hit Montevideo we had been quite disappointed with the food we had come across so far.  Anything prepared for you (and not too expensive) had been fried within an inch of its life and fresh vegies in the supermarkets were not the norm...then we found the Disco supermarket chain.  Yas almost had tears in her eyes as she gazed open mouthed at the produce department.  We love disco.

But cooking for yourself all the time doesn't really emerse you in the culture of a place and Uruguay is famous for one thing when it comes to food - MEAT.  Their version of a grill (Asado or Parilla) is incredible.  One spot in particular is a must do for all carnivorous humans, Puerto Mercado.  It is basically an old railway station that has 15 or so grill restaurants everywhere...there must be 100 juicy animals grilling at any one time in this meat mecca...ok I'm dribbling on the keyboard:



These are the fellas you want cooking your bbq, awesome guys

I chose to put the before picture of our lunch on the blog...the after pic is both disgusting (we ate a lot) and humiliating (we didn't finish)...we overordered badly and ended up taking the salad home.  We didn't eat any meat for two days afterward.  I'd do it again.

In an attempt to assuage our meat guilts we rented bikes and tiki toured round Montevideo. The weirdest thing we saw was a spot near the lighthouse where about 40 seemingly domestic cats were just hanging out:

Cat lady

From Montevideo we headed to a hostel we had read about called El Galope run by Monica and Miguel (and their dog Tupac).  They run a farm based hostel just out of Colonia.  Our stay there was awesome, we got fondue, semi nudey sauna's with the owner (fully nudey with the German guy who was the only other guest...) a fire in the bedroom and got to ride (sit on) their horses...neato.  Fully recommend this place if you are ever in the vicinity:

Fondue with Monica and the New Yawkers

feeding time

Gaucho Yas and Tupac...the horses name is unrepeatable

Yeah, he didn't feel like moving too much

El Galope recharged our batteries before hitting Buenos Aires, on the way back to the ferry we took in the historic town of Colonia.  It is old.

Right now we are in the snow in a place called Bariloche in the south of Argentina.  In between we have spent a bit of time in Buenos Aires and a little hippy town called El Bolson.  But that's for another entry.  Will try and get that up soon.

Hope everyone is doing great, and don't worry about the AB's, the loss was a tactical move to entice more Aussies over to the World Cup and snap up those leftover tickets...nothing more.

Muchos gracias

Mike and Yas