Cordon

Leaving the port of Buenos Aires at 8am sharp, we needed to get up early for our trip to Montevideo, the capital of neighbouring Uruguay. We've become so experienced at packing and getting ready that we could probably rival Julie Bishop and be dressed, ready and out the door in thirty minutes. Well, close enough.

The journey across the Rio del la Plata from Buenos Aires took about an hour and got us to Colonia, a small town in Uruguay. From there, we had a two-hour bus ride to Montevideo. At the port in Argentina, we had to check-in and go through customs, similar to an airport. Once we had gone through customs in Argentina, we were directed to another counter, an aisle away, to go through Uruguayan customs. The formalities and bureaucracy of a border crossing!

The bus ride from Colonia was uneventful with scenery reminiscent of parts of Australia. Jason's reference point is normally Maryborough/Poona or Dalby. This appparently looked like Dalby. The only reason that the bus ride to Montevideo was unpleasant was that someone on the bus - how shall we put it politely - kept filling it with methane gas as if it was a hot-air balloon. Why do they seal the windows shut, trapping people inside?

Once we got to the capital, we only had a short walk to our accommodation. Fortunately, we were close to the Tres Cruces bus terminal and centrally located to the city centre and Ciudad Vieja (Old Town), which made getting around the city easy. We stayed with a gay couple, who proudly shared their Uruguayan culture with us. The rivalry between Uruguay and Argentina is akin to Australia and New Zealand. Uruguay is New Zealand, being the smaller country of the two, with a similar flag to Argentina and situated across the ditch.

Another similarity between the two countries is their dining habits, although they may not agree. Throughout Europe we had gotten used to people dining late at night, but Uruguayans, such as our hosts, don't eat dinner until midnight. Bars and clubs don't get going until 2am and it's not unusual for bedtime to be 5am, even on a school night. Often we would be getting up as our hosts were heading to bed.

The night owl activities weren't the only foreign custom to get our head around. In Argentina, we had witnessed many of the natives indulging in a cup of mate, a tea that tastes like freshly cut grass clippings soaked in boiling water. In Uruguay, the craze has taken over the majority of the population like the plague. Almost every person in the street carries a flask of hot water, gripped tightly under one arm. Even mothers breastfeeding newborns multi-task with their tea cup in one hand and their baby in the other. We wondered whether some people had welded their flask to their arm. The obsession is so great that mate probably should be considered a class A drug.

Ricky came up with a business plan to take advantage of this obsession. There's a entire market waiting to be exploited with designer (i.e. expensive / wanky) slings to prevent tennis elbow. Or the slings could be used more therapeutically to assist recovery from a mate-related injury. No matter how you look at it, there's money to be made from anything to do with mate in Uruguay.

Of course there are many things that set Uruguay apart from Argentina. The former Uruguayan government was considered socially progressive by introducing legislation that legalised abortion, same-sex marriage and marijuana. Certainly, the atmosphere seems quite relaxed and generally tolerant of diversity, kind of like Byron Bay / Nimbin in years gone by.

On our second day in Montevideo, we spent the day wandering around the Sunday markets, which fill many of the streets for kilometres. Each part of the market had different sections from food stalls and fruit and vegetable vendors to second-hand bric-à-brac, some of which looked like rubbish ready to be thrown away – but one person's trash is another person's treasure! At one point, Jason said to Ricky “are they selling a used vibrator?”. Ricky looked down and responds “no, Jason, that is a lamp”. There was even someone selling Caipriniha cocktails. And of course we had to indulge, along with a tasty Chivito, a Uruguayan steak sandwich with bacon, cheese, salsa and salad.

The following day, we walked into the city centre and old town to explore the peninsula of Montevideo. The weather had suddenly turned from almost heatwave conditions to cold, icy winds, which were so strong Dorothy could have been blown back to Kansas. The sea was so rough that the waves crashed against the shore like a mini-tsunami, flooding the walkways.

The beaches of Montevideo aren't exactly world famous, and most of them are relatively small, but it was a relaxing way to enjoy the city. Playa Ramírez reminded us of Nudgee beach, while Playa Pocitos was more like Sandgate crossed with a small beach on the Sunshine Coast. People weren't interested in bathing in the brown-coloured water of the Rio del la Plata. Instead, people were out bathing in the sun, touching up their tans for the summer. It was like a leather factory along the shoreline. It could have easily been Donatella Versace’s latest range, the living leather collection.

Another day was spent wandering around the Old Town markets, gasping at the prices of all the merchandise. We thought Argentina and Brazil were expensive! Even Australian price tags are cheaper. It's no wonder that we witnessed a guy, who appeared to be under the influence of a mind-altering drug, steal a pair of shoes and pants. One moment he was standing around chatting and then took off at a million miles an hour. Next moment he reappeared with the merchandise trying to off-load them to another guy. At the same time, we struck up a conversation with two young guys. Their thick Uruguayan accent was difficult to understand but we understood one of their names was Gabriel, like the angel. We're not sure about the second guy. We never did catch his name or anything that he said. On our way home, Jason stopped in his tracks, turned to Ricky and said: “Did she just urinate in the street? Yes, she did”. Ricky looked across the road and the woman was hitching up her pants as she walked away down the street, a lasting memory of Montevideo.

Next stop: Punta del Este.Read more