Uruguay

May 19 - 24

Picture links:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lotanc/Uruguay

Arriving to Buenos Aires on May 19 I met Oren, and we left (that day) to Uruguay..

Taking the cheap (and more adventurous way) we took a train to Tigre, Argentina, then a boat to Carmelo, Uruguay, and then a bus to Colonia..

Colonia, is a very nice city, with a very nice old city which we walked around:

From Colonia we went to Montevideo where we walked around the city, and saw a lot of people drinking Mate. Mate is similar to tea, it is drunk through a small cup which is always refilled by a thermus. It is usually drunk with a group of people. I would say it is the national drink around here, and I think in Uruguay is the worst.. Anywhere you go you see people walking around with a thermus and a cup of Mate while drinking..

Besides seeing people drink mate we ate great meat, saw a very nice bear show in the main plaza, etc.

In the bear show artists from various countries had to paint a bear representing his own country. This is a very nice exhibition that goes around the world..

From Montevideo we went to Punta del Este. This is one of the most famous resorts on the continent, but being out of season, there were not many people there. Having nice weather we used the time mainly to go to the beach, read, go out, and relax..

I went into the water once for a few seconds - It is pretty cold!!

Unfortuantely there were no good waves for surfing the days we were there..

After a few days in Punte del este we took a bus to Montevideo, we were there for a few hours. We went back to the central market to have great steaks, walked around the city, and went to a artistic video show we were invited to in our previous visit to Montevideo in one of the museums in the city. In our first visit the museum was closed, and we were told we could come and watch a show on Sunday evening. Arriving for the show (since we were in Motevideo) we realized this is a pretty small, but nice show.

That day we took the night bus from Montevideo to Buenos Aires (this is neither the shortest - about 11 hours, or the cheapest way to return, but we wanted to be the next day in Buenos Aires for the ArteBA show which will be in the next post..)