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Montevideo

Monday, August 10th, 2009

The typical route north out of BA is to follow on up to recoleta before heading to the falls of iguazu. Its a route I was interested in but one which Marilyn was not, I was happy enough to go along with her ideas as she spoke of a fishing village along the north eastern coast of Uruguay which sounded a little bit like paradise. So we took the ferry across from BA to Colonia. Now this is where the tourist conspiracies kick in, there were two ferries which we could have gotten,  the first would have gotten us to Montevideo in time for a bus that would drop us off in the town of Punta Del Diablo.

Of course we slept in and didn’t make it on time to catch the quick one, so we ended up on the slow one and were left with the prospect of a late night arrival in a strange town. Thinking caps on, I sat on the boat and the mind started to wander, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the number of soccer jerseys being sported around the place. Now I know that south America is a soccer mad place but this was disproportionate especially considering that most of the jerseys were the same. Finally it clicked, Copa Liberadetores!! The team that shocked Boca Juniors a couple of weeks back were from Montevideo, it figures that the team they were playing were juan Sebastian verons Estudiantes!!

I nudged Marilyn and suggested that a night in Montevideo might not be a bad idea after all. Montevideo is a run down city, there doesn’t seem to be alot to the place. Now to be honest we only spent 1 night there and that was spent exclusively between the area the governs the route from the football stadium that hosted the first ever world cup final to the hostel to the bus station. All tourist guides point to a completely separate part of town said to contain all manner of cultural attractions but given our timescale we did have the chance to visit the place properly. More important things were afoot. From the bus station the football stadium is about a 20 minute walk, set in the middle of a city park you don’t have to get too close to see that its a dilapidated wreck of a place. I attempted to make the process of ticket purchase as quick as possible as there were a few shady characters about asking for pesos and what not. As a result I ended up getting the cheapest tickets going which after a few minutes occurred to me that I had bought tickets right in with the ultras, i.e. the hard core set of fans. Oops, oh well. We ventured off, tickets in hand to find some accommodation before tucking into some chow and returning for the game itself.

We missed most of the preamble, well when I say most I mean we missed the entire thing. Arriving just in time for kick off the back of the goals was a flood of ticker tape and confetti, fireworks and chanting. The stand was grossly oversold so a view point took a while to find. While walking along looking for such a place a guy fell from the top of an exit tunnel to the ground below, a good 12 feet to concrete, it had to hurt. Eventually we got a spot to watch the game, the atmosphere was electric. The home team was up against it from the start and despite the phenomenal home support they succumbed to a 2-1 defeat. But even in defeat they sang louder than you could imagine, it truely felt like an amazing experience. Copa liberadetores right in the heart of south America.

Punta del Diablo

Monday, August 10th, 2009

The name conjures all sorts of fantastical images, what could make a port so diabolic. Luckily enough given the size of Uruguay we didn’t have too long to wait. A change of bus was necessary in a town I didn’t take time to note the name off but all in all the journey was quite simple. We did some research the night before on a hostel that was in the town, on its website was a map of the town which displayed a grid like formation for a town. So what I expected and what we were met by were two completely separate entities.

The town was a mesh of sand tracks and old ramshackle housing mixed in with some prodigious new development set wonderfully on a wild nub of the atlantic coast. Some Rocks turned into a sandbelt which joined again with the sea at a mass of of sand and grass dunes. We made our way via the aforementioned tracks following some friendly promptings from locals and weather weary wooden signs to the Diablo hostel. A hippy german and a young surfer American dude met us and got us into most wonderful room complete with ocean, sunrise views, fire place and balcony with hammocks rocking in the breeze. I really felt like I had found paradise.

Over the course of a couple of days we took to exploring the beaches to the north where we found a perfect crescent completely abandoned but for ourselves, we watched the sun drop over the hills before building a fire out of driftwood to keep us warm for another couple hours. Other days we picked up some fresh fish of the dope smoking fishermen that seemed to spend their days staring out to sea waiting for something that might never come. After a couple of days the weather turned and we were hostel bound. The guys in the hostel turned a little strange also, coupled with the fact that we needed to head on up the coast quick smart we had to make our way out of punta del diablo, make our way to brazil.