A Day in Uruguay

Daniel and I wanted to go to Uruguay today but were quite disorganized to do so.  We had no ticket booked on the Buquebus (shuttle ship) and no idea when they leave.  So we woke up early and headed to our favourite neighbourhood café, Desirio, to check things out on the Internet.  Dan called to see if there were tickets left but had trouble communicating with the agent.  Our waitress said, "Oh, the Buquebus office is at the corner right over there at Maipu and Florida".  So Dan decided he would go find this office while I run back to the apartment to get my passport and camera.  


We met up and Dan was discouraged because he did not find the Buquebus (I love saying this word) office and realized Maipu and Florida are parallel.  It was almost 9:20 and the Buquebus was supposed to leave at 9:45 am.  So we decided to chance it and hop into a taxi. 


The Amazing Race began... thankfully we had an efficient and rapido taxi driver.  We got to the Buquebus at 9:30 almost.  Dan ran out of the taxi to the Information desk while I paid the taxi.  When I got in, I looked around and noticed a screen that said 'Ticket Sales'. I turned to tell Dan but he was busy sticking his finger in some guy's face who was trying ask the agent a question before him (it was a very funny sight).

The famous Buquebus

We go to the ticket sales counter and a woman who was probably the fastest I have ever seen on a keyboard, ultimate turbo, printed out our tickets within 2 minutes.  She yelled 'inglès' to a colleague who told us we had to pay at another counter.  We ran to the other counter and paid then ran up the stairs to security.  The security agents asked "Boarding pass !".  What this isn't a boarding pass?  Pointing back down to the counter, they screamed "rapido!" (and of course laughing at the gringos).  Ahhh, so we ran back down, and got our boarding passes (what up with that, three different counter places to do everything?).  We ran back up, "Si, boarding pass" they said laughing.  We quickly went thru security and then had to go thru Uruguayan immigration who were of rapid efficiency as well.  We got our passports stamped and ran up the ramp to get on the Buquebus at 9:43 a.m.  We high-five each other in awe that we made it on.  This was a major Amazing Race achievement. Phewww.

Yeah !  We made it !

The Buquebus was a three hour ride, we had plenty of time to chill and check out the views of the Rio de la Plata to Uruguay.

See you later, Buenos Aires - go away clouds !

Uruguayan flag over Buenos Aires

You don't see this is Canadian ship bathrooms.  Everybody drinks yerba mate tea around here and throws it in the sink.

We are so cool it's ridiculous... except for my hair, what up with that swirl in the wind?  

Colonia, Uruguay, here we come.   Note the lighthouse (we will be there later....)

Yeah !  We have set foot in Uruguay, another country on my list !

Right away when we arrived, many people were waiting for us offering scooters, golf carts and restaurants.  Not thanks chicos.  Right away though, I like the feeling of Colonia.  What a nice change from Buenos Aires.  It's quiet, quaint, wide streets some cobble stone, lots of trees, old colonial style buildings, random old school cars and the water.  It is obviously a tourist town but I like it.  Dan and I were happy because lots of photography potential however I wish it wasn't overcast. 

A beautiful street of Colonia

I love these trees, so much texture.  They had them in Sydney, Australia too.

Tree graffiti

They have palm trees too.

Water is not really clear...

Bustin' a move yo

Old school cobble stone street.

So many colourful buildings in Colonia

We sat at that café.

Scooters and other motorbike type vehicles seem really popular here.

Scooters, scooters, scooters.

Cool ride.

I love how people there say Uruguay - real emphasis oh guay.  It was hard to say it right.

In Argentina and Uruguay, there are stray dogs everywhere.  Especially in Colonia, dogs just take a rest wherever they want even in the middle of the sidewalk.  Good for them.

Looks like a dead dog but she's just taking a nap on the sidewalk.

We stopped for some lunch at an overpriced tourist restaurant but it had a good location in an open plaza type area.

Well that's annoying.  We changed tables.

Feisty Daniel.  That was a good iced tea.

This was a huge piece of salmon, lots of shrimp and the infamous potato balls.  I didn't really like the balls.

I am usually not a great fan of the ravioli however this was very good homemade style ravioli.

We went for a walk up the lighthouse.

Up at the top

Wait... what is Daniel doing? Bloody hell, unstoppable - the cemetery, the lighthouse...

View of Colonia from the lighthouse.

Dan needed his a wifi fix (it's like hanging out with a drug addict), so i wandered on my own...

Cool shadows...

I made a friend along the way.

Agua caliente for those yerba drinkers.  I read that apparently Uruguayans drink more yerba

Alright.... already time to go back.  I wish we would have stayed in Colonia over night.  I liked this place.  See you next time Uruguay.

Dan is in shock.  He doesn't want to leave Uruguay.

We found an apartment

Daniel and I checked out of the hostel today to move into our apartment.  Daniel got put into contact with a fellow Santiago from LetsGo Argentina. Santiago was much more effective that the company I had contacted before leaving for Argentina.  Within 24 hours, he found us some places, we picked one and there you go.  


Since we had to wait a couple of hours, we wondered around the San Telmo neighbourhood.  I really like this neighbourhood.  It's old school, cobble stone streets, tons of stores, restaurants and cafés and the famous San Telmo market. We stopped to look at the Plaza Eva Peron but it was unfortunately dissapointing.  It's in the middle of a large street and I think some homeless people are using the statue area as a home since there was a mattress on it.

Plaza Eva Peron à la homeless shelter.

We then went to meet Santiago at the apartment.  The place is in Retiro which is a very business and tourist up-iddy area.  It was in a great location, on Suipacha Street (between Alvénar and Paraguay) and it has no buses - much quieter.  The apartment is a studio, two single beds, table and chairs, small kitchen and full bathroom including a bidet which I stayed away from  considering my last experience.  It's in a great location close to Subte and 152 bus that took us everywhere.  We even had a supermercado two doors down. Here's a video I took with Dan's camera of our window view on a rainy day (not that interesting).

Dan took off to do his volunteering so I went off in search of lunch.  I went to El Cuartito, a pizza joint recommended by Santiago.  Pizza is really popular in BA.  El Cuartito is a really old school place with photos of famous boxers all over the place. I wasn't sure what alot of the menu was and couldn't be bothered to 'Franklin' (my translator) everything, I was hungry.  So I ordered a jamon y queso (when in doubt, order ham and cheese).  Most pizzas in BA come on a wooden plate and when the pizza came there was so much cheese it just starts to roll off the pizza - crazy cheese.  I like it.  After sweating from my Quilmes stout beer (why do I always sweat!) and finishing my delicious pizza, I kind of just wondered around our neighbourhood.

I forgot to take a photo in the resto, this is my leftovers.  Good pizza.

I walked on Florida Street and Lavallee Street which are both major tourist pedestrian streets with tons of shops and people to harrass you to get 'cambio' (change) or a tango show.  It's nice because there is no traffic but annoying because there are tons of people.

Palacio San Martin - close to our place.  Stunning building but can't go inside.

I later met up with Dan at the apartment and Jonas came to meet up with us.  Jonas and Bernardo are friends of friends that we were put in touch with.  Dan had already spent some time with them but tonight was the first time I was meeting them.  So excited to hang out with some locals.  Jonas is a great person to spend time with because he is always a tourist guide pointing things out and giving history and cultural references.  I enjoy that.

Jonas playing tourist guide on the bus - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

We went to Belgrano which is neighbourhood a little further from the center.  Jonas brought us to an Armanian restaurant where we met Bernardo.  I have only been to one Armanian restaurant in Montreal so I was pretty excited. We had a few dishes - hummus, falafel, potato moussaka and a rice dish.  I was a little dissapointed because they were not dishes that I haven't tried before but it was good nonetheless. We then went for some gelato and braced ourselves in a crazy rain storm that seemed to come out of nowhere and took a taxi instead of the bus.  Off to bed in our new apartment, hopefully with no bed bugs.

Armanian food - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

Jonas, me, Bernardo and Daniel - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

The day I ate cow tongue...

Today was a late start, Dan and I slept until 10 a.m.  Ahhh, felt so good to sleep after the adventures of the last 48 hours.  We finally got going by mid-day and decided to take the Subte to Once neighbourhood and walk to Abasto.  Once is considered the 'multicultural' area of Buenos Aires.  There are alot of Peruvians, Koreans, Chinese and an important Jewish population.  Not exactly what I would consider 'multicultural' coming from a workplace neighbourhood like Côte des Neiges, Montreal which is considered the most multicultural in Canada.  But for BA, Once is multi.

Plaza in front of Once train station

We got out of the Subte and noticed the difference from the more central tourist areas.  It's doesn't seem as clean in the main plaza and graffiti everywhere on the monument statues.  We walked on Peuyrredon Street which was crazy busy with stores and merchants selling stuff on the sidewalk.  The social worker (with refugee claimants) in me noticed some Africans selling jewelry.  I read an article on the Internet saying that some Africans (ex. from Sierra Leone, Sénégal, Ivory Coast) are choosing to come to Argentina because they hear that obtaining status is too hard and life is difficult in North America.  According to the article, they don't have it much easier in Buenos Aires where they live racism, unemployment and poverty.  Sounds like a familiar scenario but nonetheless they would rather live safely in Buenos Aires than in their own country - this also sounds familiar. The majority of Argentians are largely of Spanish and Italian origin with some Germans and Lebanese too.  They also have a Native population. So the idea of multiculturalism is still quite unknown despite being a country of immigrants. The walk between Once and Abasto was nice because we got to see a more residential area.


Dan and I parted ways at Abasto Mercado, a shopping mall.  I'm not a great fan of malls but I appreciated having a cappuccino in the air conditioned McDonald's since it was so hot out (my standards of course).  Yes I know McDonald's !  Who would of thought but they actually have a good café section and it was cheap.

This is what $4 can buy you in McDonald's.  In BA, a coffee always comes with
a small 'agua con gas' and a small biscuit.  Love it!

I do sometimes like walking around malls to see what kind of stores they have and what kind of American influence and presence is around.  This Mercado actually has BA history as it was considered an important marketplace way back when.  It is now transformed into a mall and has an impressive art deco ceiling.  So after a wonder around, I had enough because despite being hot, it was gorgeous outside.

Not the McDonald's I went to but never seen a kosher one.

Buenos Aires is a great city to get around by foot especially since the format is very grid like. I decided that I would walk all the way back to the hostel.  Why not.  I walked up Corrientes Street which is really busy, full of shops and restaurants and has alot of theatres.  I noticed a synagogue that was quite impressive on a side street and decided to take a photo but a police officer told me I couldn't.  Apparently there has been a bombing before or bomb threats against the Jewish community... oops.

The synagogue I wasn't supposed to photograph.

I know another McDonald's but this time in a beautiful building next door to Tramps !

I then decided it was time to eat.  So I stopped at La Opera, a corner restaurant that is typical BA - huge, in existence forever (1934 to be exact) and a huge menu.  What I learned in BA is order less first because the meal always comes with minimum a basket of bread (even for one !) and maybe some extras.  This place gave me bread, bread sticks, marinated aubergines and some little empanada.  Too bad I ordered an empanada also.  I also got a salad that had all kinds of goodness - eggs, beats, potatoes, tomatoes, carrot, lettuce, etc. -  but it was huge.  I love BA.

This is what I got for free.

This is what I ordered.

Full to capacity, I walked over to Congreso where there is the beautiful building of the Argentine National Congress.

Congreso building

Of course there were protesters.

I then walked all along Avenido de Mayo, one of my favourite streets (because it has wide sidewalks so more place to walk). It took me three lights to cross the famous 9 de Julio - the largest street in the world.   You can't be in a hurry to cross.

The huge 9 de Julio Street, crazy traffic.

Almost to the other side...

Once I reached Florida Street a famous cobble stoned pedestrian street that is full of tourists, I stumbled upon some football (soccer) fans getting ready for a match.  They took over the street.  I made a video of this (notice i jump at the sound of a cracker).

Those crazy football fans.

After many hours of walking, I arrived at the hostel, blister on toe to prove my efforts of the day.  Since my feet felt so dirty, I decided to use the bidet to wash my feet.  Bidets are usually meant to be used to wash the fanny area but I my feet needed washing.  Again, courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca, here's the video he made of the adventure (by the way, it is really embarrassing that You Tube picked my heaping cleavage as the image to use to display the video):

Tonight we wanted to go out and eat some tapas type thing.  My guide book recommended Bar El Federal in San Telmo.  It is another place of Les Notables cafés.  Really old school, circa 1856, we like it. Only Dan had the camera tonight, so all credit goes to him (www.danielbaylis.ca).

courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

They have the same menu than La Poesia.  We couldn't understand everything on the menu.  We used 'Franklin' for some help but he couldn't help with all the words.  Who is Franklin you ask?  He's a European translator device that I bought ages ago when I was living in Europe.  Franklin has been useful when I was in Spain and so I brought him along with me.  Anyway, we wanted to eat some cheese and some meat and you know tapas stuff.  We saw there were queso dishes but we didn't want to eat just cheese.


Our waitress who seemed utterly bothered by our existence said that yes the plate we were ordering was an assortment of stuff.   When she brought our plate we realized that we ordered a plate of just meat (ham, salamis) and one queso de campo (country cheese).  Oh well we said, not what we wanted but got to eat. I started with a meat that was kinda beige and marinated.  Tasted similar to roast beef I told Dan.  Dan tried and said 'it tastes gamey'.  Then he says 'actually look there are taste buds, I think it's tongue'. OMG OMG OMG.  All of a sudden I feel sick.  I type into Franklin 'tongue' and press 'Spanish' and 'lengua' appears.  I checked the menu again, look at our dish and last ingredient... lengua. 

OMG, now I felt really sick.  I have eaten many kinds of animals in my travels - zebra, crocodile, gemsbok, impala, etc.  but for some reason eating things like tripe, liver and now tongue, it grosses me out.  For some reason, I felt responsible (because I am like that) and kept apologizing to Dan.  Dan said it was just as much his responsibility because he agreed to order it.  I think I just kept apologizing because it was my way to deal with how nauseous I felt.  So I downed my beer and we ate the rest or what we could of all the meat.

Lengua is the beige looking one next to the cheese. Photo courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

We headed home tired and me continually visualizing the tongue.  This day will forever be the day I ate tongue and didn't know it.