Colonia del Sacremento & Montevideo

This morning we took the ferry across the river to Uruguay. It took just over an hour for us to arrive to the beautiful, sleepy town of Colonia del Sacramento, an old portuguese smuggling port. We spent the morning walking around the old quarter; with its cobbled streets and stunning 17th century architecture it sort of transports you to a different time. We stopped off for yet more meat - a steak sandwich, the trademark Uruguayan light bite - for lunch, which went down easily with a litre of the local beer Pilsen.

Uruguay on first impression seems cleaner, better organised  and more electronically advanced than Argentina. The tourist office in Colonia was rather impressive and they were great help in giving us some information on the local bus network. We took the last two tickets on the 4pm bus to Montevideo and were rather impressed that we had wifi all the way to the capital. I obviously slept all the way whilst mark worked on his laptop ;-)

We only had one night in the city itself, as we really wanted to head off to the beaches of Eastern Uruguay. After checking into our hostel we had a nice walk around and a bite to eat. For the first time since arriving in South America, I ordered a huge healthy salad and Mark had pasta. I think we had both been on a bit of a meat overload... We also tried the local medio y medio which is produced from mixing sparkling and sweet white wine together. It was quite nice and refreshing and made a nice change from the usual Malbec and red meat combo.