Finally Uruguay!

Well unfortunately this blog is starting the same as many previous entries… Apologizing for the lack of frequency with which we are writing…Oopsie daisies. But this time, there are some good explanations, and that’s the truth.

1) We totally recorded 2 substantial video blog entries that we have been trying , and failing to upload to the blog for weeks. We thought it was our weak internet connection that made it impossible for them to load, but after attempting to load them using the internet at a café,a really cute cafe at that, it became obvious that we just weren’t supposed to do video blogs. They were full of juicy updates, laughter and embarrassing faces—but unfortunately these videos are apparently useless and we wasted a 40 minutes of our precious time. So, back to writing. It’s better for us anyways.
2) Believe it or not, we have been very busy girls the past few weeks. Not that there aren’t free moments where we are watching American Idol or Gourmet,the cooking network , and think that maybe we should finally update this good ole blog, but you know, things happen.

But enough with excuses…you don’t really care about that. Updates, updates, updates. Let’s see. Now that all of that wonderful newsy information we recorded is useless, I suppose it makes sense to start there.

Well, a long long time ago, during a weekend that now feels like ages ago, we took a trip to Uruguay. Because we only have tourist visas, we are required to either pay some fee and attempt to get residencia OR we can leave the country every 90 days or so and just start at the very beginning. The latter makes more sense for us. So, we left on a Thursday, the 25th of March (long time ago) we boarded the Buquebus, a 3 hour ferry/ 2 bus combination (hence the name Buquebus), and set out for Montevideo Uruguay.

Once in Montevideo, we debarked the ship and head out to get onto a bus but before we had to pass through a metal detector and send out bags to get x rayed. Well, we thought all was fine as we recollected our bags and head out the door, when we were stopped by a short little woman who informed us that she needed to recheck our little plastic food. She then proceeded to remove our newly purchased and too expensive white peach, cucumber, yellow pepper( Jills’ most favorite) AND an unopened container of light queso spread. We were forbidden to take any of these items with us, as they could potentially bring in dengue or some flu or disesase into the country. Even the unopened container of cheese. We considered scarfing the food down in front of her Liz Lemon at the airport style, but decided that the look she gave us when we persisted to question about the safety of the queso meant that we shouldn’t push it. Needless to say, we spend the first hour on the bus ride upset and hungry. No need to discuss this point further ONLY to say that yes fruits and veggies fine, we understand, but cheese, unopened cheese, really?!

Towards the end of the bus ride, we started driving through some abandoned looking, not meant for huge buses type streets and started to feel a bit unsure about where we would end up, but clearly it was fine and we arrived in Punta del Este at 10pmish. ( I suppose a complete play by play isn’t entirely necessary at this point, especially because we’ve told most of you about the trip anyways, but…a few other fun points to make) We stayed at El Viajero Brava Beach Hostel which was conveniently just a few blocks away from both the bus station AND the main beaches. We shared a 6 person room that first night with just one other Swedish woman who insisted that the air conditioner 1) did not work and 2) was not needed which both were complete and utter lies. After sneakily opening the window to let in some air to the sticky humidity of the room, we had membrillo, ricecakes, and cheese ( which we had to buy) for dinner and went to bed. 

We spent the next day entirely on the beach with delicious cloudless,warm breezy weather, pretzels we found in the market ( unfortunately, a rarity here) and were ecstatic to be away from the dirty crowded humid city. Normally Punta del Este is crazy crowded and busy with Argentines, partiers and famous South Americans but because we had come a few weekends after the official end of summer, it was quiet, peaceful and perfect. As we were walking to the beach, we passed a beautiful white hotel/casino/resort and with the hopes of finding a pool, decided to stroll around inside and see what we could see. We put on our hotel faces ( a snooty, looking like you belong sort of face), prepared a last name if we were questioned of our presence there, and went up a few escalators, up an elevator and like seeing the sparkling sheen of the Emerald city, found ourselves walking out to one of the most beautiful, over the ocean, serene looking pools I’ve ever seen.

I, Elana, if you don’t already know this love love love swimming in any pool, ocean or body of water. But I especially and particularly love swimming in fancy, swanky hotel pools. In this time in my life, post college, pre loan repayment and working for pesos, the chances to swim in such a pool are very infrequent, and so at this point, you can only imagine the thoughts running through my head. After a few minutes of debating whether or not it was appropriate, I threw off my clothes and leapt into the pool where I floated, swam and glowed for a glorious 45 minutes, completely alone. Jill lounged back in the sun on a soft pink towel and for a short time, we pretended to belong to this crowd of ritzy Argentines.

Our friends, Jill, Sara and Bliss, met us at the hostel later that night and the next day, after enjoying the hostel’s free breakfast ( white rolls, un monton de dulce de leche, peach jam, cornflakes, liquid yogurt and Tang taking the place of OJ) we decided to take a little day trip to the very gorgeous, ritzy and quite village of Jose Ignacio where Shakira apparently owns a house. ( http://www.jose-ignacio.com.uy/en/know_jose_ignacio.asp ) We walked around, mooned over the amazing beach houses, stopped in a market for some snackies and found our way to the beach for the day. Another day of perfect weather.

In spite of the expensive prices, our hostel’s rule of no outside alcohol and the cheese snatching, it was a wonderful weekend away from la ciudad of BA. On the way back, we had a 4 hour bus ride through gorgeous countryside of Uruguay filled with cows, sheep, horses .rolling hills and landscapes that reminded me of Heidi and her grandpapa.

We want to go back to the beach.