Week One

Buenos Aires - Tigre - Colonia (Uruguay) - Montevideo

Arrived in Palermo, Buenos Aires to bustling streets on a Tuesday afternoon. No one in the hostel spoke any English, so it was straight to practising our espanol. Walked a few blocks to a park, grabbed some dinner and then hit the sack in a state of culture shock. The next day we purused the streets of Buenos Aires, including sites such as the balcony of Evitaś famous speech, the old city hall, and the hugely phallic Obelisco. After a day in the busy city (dodging dog poo on the footpath, loud traffic 24 hours a day and a live band playing beneath our Avenida Corrientes hostel every night) we took a death defying taxi to the train station and caught an hour train north to Tigre, an outter suburb of Buenos Aires. We walked along the deltaś (numerous interlinked rivers of a dirty brown colour) and took a guided tour in a wooden boat for an hour (we recognised only the words "black and white tour" and "left window" but enjoyed the ride anyway), then caught the train back into the city. Unfortunately our beginner espanol had us under the impression that we had to back in the hostel by 8pm, which means we haveńt yet experience Buenos Aires night life.
Next day we caught a ferry over to Colonia in Uruguay. Colonia, as the name suggests, is a little colonial style town with a population around 20,000. The streets were cobbled, and the pace of things was relaxingly slow. We took bikes from the hostel along the coast and climbed through a hole in the fence to see an old derelict bull fighting stadium. Ollie stopped to have a swim in the brown Rio del la Plata where we saw our first armadillo, albiet, dead with flies on it.
The next day we caught a bus to Uruguayś capital city Montevideo. Staying at a hostel in Ciudad Viaje ("old city"), again, just wandering round getting our bearings and looking at the pretty old buildings. On Sundayś the whole city closes down, so we headed to a large street market at Av. Tristan Narvaja. This included interesting animals (huge spiders, bunnies, kittens and lots of fish) for sale, fresh food and nicknacks. It was an extremely windy day so we tried to walk to the popular beach, but gave up half way and settled for the smaller beach. Finished the day with a tour (in English this time) around the Teatro Solis (theatre). And here we are today, after sunning ourselves on the big beach, Playa Pocitos, planning to head to Punta del Diablo tomorrow.