Private dining at devils point, Uruguay

The longer you are on the road for the more blasé you become. We've tried hard not to make too many errors on our trip but our arrival at Punto del Diablo, after a 5 hour bus ride from Montevideo, indicated that the plan we came up with while we were hungover in Colombia about 3 weeks ago, may have not been made with access to as much information as we needed.

The first minor issue we were aware of, it is now Autumn here, we noticed it in Buenos Aires, and certainly in Montevideo (where we got caught in a couple of massive downpours) but it was even more apparent in Punto del Diablo as it was cool, cloudy and the wind was gusting strongly. This change in the climate had lead to a more major issue, the tourist season was over. This was starkly indicated to us as we disembarked the bus by a number of the restaurants in the centre of the fishing village being boarded up for the winter!

Buenos Aires, where dollars are king

We arrived at our final stop in South America, Buenos Aires, after a short ferry crossing from Colonia de Sacremento in Uruguay. Watching the city come into view on the far side of the river was definitely a mixed emotions thing, I am not going to miss the endless packing and unpacking but the day to day experiencing new things is definitely going to be a loss.

On the advice of several people we have spoken to on the road we arrived carrying dollars. I was a bit confused/worried about this as no one mentioned this when we were in Mendoza or Salta, and also because if we withdraw dollars we pay an exchange fee and then (in sane parts of the modern world) you pay another fee when you convert the dollars into whatever currency you are using.

Colonia de Sacremento.

The last stop on our brief Uruguayan excursion was Colonia de Sacramento. This is a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the Rio Plata which was originally set up by the Portuguese to smuggle things into Buenos Aires. It's main function has changed a bit since then but people still flood across from buenos aires on a regular basis with Several ferries a day crossing the river.


Colonia is now more of a holiday location with many people from Montevideo and Buenos Aires owning the beautiful river front properties. The other reason the Argentinians were apparently flocking there was because in Uruguay you can withdraw dollars, which is now impossible across the river (driving the exchange rate sky high) the downside being that the queues at the cash points are usually long and people tend to spend at least 10 minutes in the booth (we waited an hour in a queue of 5 people!). At the time this seemed pretty crazy but for reasons I will cover in my next blog it now makes sense.

Montevideo, it's a long way from Iguassu

So, we're in Uruguay! No idea why, I guess we fancied another couple of passport stamps and trying out a different mode of transport.

Whoever said it was better to travel than arrive has never tried getting to Montevideo from Iguassu. It was not a great deal of fun, it involved an 18 hour bus to Buenos Aires (which arrived at 6:30am) followed by a ferry the following morning at 9.

Now had we been less panicky travellers we could have tried to get from the bus station to the ferry port on the same day, but our tickets indicated that we should be at the dock 2 hours before departure as that is when boarding starts.

Iguassu and the moon on a stick (ok maybe everything but the moon!)

After Rio we flew (I know what you are thinking about budget but this was less than 80 US dollars each) to our second and final brazilian stop, foz do iguaçu or the iguassu falls.

The falls sit near the Paraguayan, argentinian and brazilian border with the latter two countries sharing the falls (80% are on Argentinian land and 20% are on Brazilian turf)

They are massive, to see them properly takes at least a day and a half, and we were told that you have to view them from both sides, on the Argentinian side you get really up close and personal with the falls, there is also a solid 8 or 9 km walk to see all of the separate waterfalls where as in Brasil you can see pretty much the whole falls from one vantage point. On both sides you are going to get wet, if you take a speed boat to get a closer look (i would recommend it) you are going to get completely drenched so take a spare set of clothes or stuff that dries quickly (at least you dear reader are forewarned, we just got soaked and had to live with it).

On the tourist trail in Rio

As our time in Rio was short we decided to spend one day on an organised tour which covered most of the major tourist attractions. We spent 150 real each (a budget blowing 50 pounds) to go to see "Christ the redeemer", Santa Teressa, the tiled Selaron steps and sugar loaf mountain (or rather Rio from sugar loaf mountain) over the course of an afternoon. Entry to Christ and the sugar loaf comes to around 75 real and this was covered in the price so the other 75 went on a tour guide and the minibus which drove us around all day.

Whether this expense was necessary or not is debatable as the bus service in Rio (once you get the hang of it) is excellent and at a set price of 3 real a trip, not particularly expensive. I doubt you could cover all 4 things in 1 day on public transport though.

The biggest problem with deciding to do a tour is that you only get a set period of time at each of the places and both sugar loaf and Christ are susceptible to being ruined by cloud.

When my baby smiles at me...

I go to Rio, de Janeiro (if, like me, this means nothing to you watch this you tube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCYxTg6svXg ). When my fiancée started singing this at me while in the immigration queue at Rio airport I though he was doing a really bad job of singing something I should recognise but actually she was doing a fairly decent impression of the guy on the piano in that video (good luck getting it out of your head, it has stayed with me for days)

Our arrival in Rio was a mixed emotions kinda thing, we were sad to be leaving Colombia and also sad because we only have 4 weeks left of our trip, however the prospect of seeing Rio was something we were looking forward to, despite the fact that it is one of the more costly destinations we planned on visiting.

We chose to stay for 4 nights in the Bohemian Santa Terresa district, which is set in the hillside overlooking the Centro business district, the lively Lapa area which is where much of the partying takes place at the weekend an Rio's funky modern concrete cathederal (which lights up with all sorts of neon colours ay night). Sadly although we arrived on a Saturday because the flight was an overnight one from Colombia we only got 2 hours sleep on the plane and so failed to make the most of the Lapa nightlife, although we did make it as far as Nuevo Chapela, a Lapa restaurant focusing on traditional Brazilian dishes.