VISA RUN!
As the 90-day mark drew nearer Stuart and I tried to plan a small get away for our next visa run. 1 trip to Colonia is enough to last a lifetime. 4 times would start to feel like torture.
A few days after Chip left Stuart and I booked overnight ferry/bus tickets from BA to Montevideo. The fact the Uruguay has a population under 3.5 million compared to Buenos Aires’ 13 million made this trip a great opportunity to unwind.
That is until we arrived and I discovered I had to leave the next night to be back for a wine tasting…
We made good use of the time we had. On the first day we explored the city stopping at a few museums and lingering in Plazas. We found the Uruguayan people to be very friendly, laid back but also curious.
With Stuart blonde hair and our travelers’ backpacks people stopped to ask us where we from. On one occasion we met a very jovial fisherman who had lived in the states but is now retired.
The next encounter was an Italian dj working in the city. He talked with us in a main plaza and gave us all sorts of advice. His flattery about our language skills and his eagerness to help were well received at first.
He offered to show us the beach. Wrapped up in conversation we followed. When we came to a part of the city with not many people around we began to feel uncomfortable. He was nice enough, but the empty beach and run down apt buildings felt how most bad stories must start.
To give a made up example of how the conversation went
“You like squirrels?”
“I know everyone who sells squirrels in the city, come with me and I get you a squirrels.”
When he told us he had to make a call to one of his contacts Stuart and I decided it best not to follow him any longer. When the call was finished we said good-bye and bee-lined back for the city center.
Once there we stopped for lunch; ordering a Chivito and a cold Patricia beer.
Back to the museums Stuart found the Montevideo Carnival museum. We practiced our Spanish reading plaques and exploring the museum. It sort of reminded me of Las Fallas in Valencia, Spain, especially the harlequin in the entrance. 
They displayed typical costumes, photos and floats. My favorite of all had to be the feathered centaur legs.
Pretty exhausted from the journey we stopped at an information office to make plans for the next day. I highly recommend using these tourists’ offices. Usually they are government run and give great advice. We walked away with maps and plenty of information about what to do and see.
One focus of the trip was to explore part Uruguay’s wine trail. Heading the advice of the friendly travel agent we rented a car. It is only fitting that our first car rental experience would be in South America.
Keys in hand we called our Couch-Surfing contact and arranged a time to meet. We were given directions to his office and met at 5 pm. Getting there was an adventure. Stuart’s adrenal glands went into over drive and we dogged buses and mopeds in the busy city.
We arrived unscathed and met our host; a certified doctor who opted not to practice but to go into marketing for himself. He instructed us to follow him. Rather than heading straight to his home he wound us around to several of the city’s parks and places of interest.
We took Las Ramblas which hugs the beach back to his house in Ciudad de la Costa, about 15 min outside the city. Sun sand and water (dirty water, but water.) I could not be happier to escape Buenos Aires.
We arrived at his lovely home where he showed us our room. He invited us to have dinner with him and his wife. And left us to get settled in.
As our first CS experience as surfers we were very lucky. Dinner meant a full-blown asado! He and his wife returned later with steak, sausage, cheese etc. He heated up the grill, which uses sticks not carbon like in Argentina. We drank wine and stayed up late chatting with them.
In regards to Couch Surfing I am always to hear strange stories. Most experiences are hardly negative, but being a nice person does not keep others from finding you strange. Our hosts once had a 50-year-old man live with them who had been couch surfing in Montevideo for a long time.
At one house he moved from the house to the backyard construction a small box or shed. On another occasion they hosted a famous jazz musician and his estranged wife who practiced healing with crystals…
We had a good laugh and turned in for the night.
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