I´m no anthropologist but I don´t reckon that Uruguay is as wealthy as Argentina. The ferry terminal in BA was all tinted glass and coffee shops; big, shiny, dual-language signs and computerised check-ins. The terminal here was a metal gangplank and a muddy car park.
Still, Colonia´s pretty pretty. It´s an old Portuguese smuggling town and most of it is Unescoed up, so it´s a bit like wandering round a museum. The peeps in my dorm had thought this was a bad thing, so they´d hired a golf buggy and were whooping from it to startle gringoes. As one does.
Had a chivito last night. It´s the local dish, they seem to have decided that a steak´s not meaty enough, so they add bacon, ham, cheese and a fried egg. Meat-tastic.
My second installment of Buenos Aires was suitably Milhouse-esque. I´ve never stayed in a hostel which stamps its personality on your soul so completely. 18-30s hell. Or a concentration camp. Or Basildon. Or a mixture of the three. Either way, I won a walking tour in a quiz, which was good, but then I had to spend the next day lingering on street corners waiting for un-gormed wideboys as they waddled along with their haircuts flapping, which was bad. Saw Le Boca, which was a faux-vibrant tourist trap, and the stadium, which was a bit like a multi-storey car park, only with less soul. Apparently it´s less depressing when there´s 60 000 people chanting and the pitch isn´t being returfed.
On the plus side I managed to swap my Rough Guide for a Lonely Planet. I really don´t see how Rough Guide are still in business. The book I had was painfully bad. They told you nothing worth knowing and the maps had been drawn in orange crayolas by chickens. It was marginally less useful than guessing.
Right, off to drive a go-kart into a swimming pool, or something equally debauched.
Still, Colonia´s pretty pretty. It´s an old Portuguese smuggling town and most of it is Unescoed up, so it´s a bit like wandering round a museum. The peeps in my dorm had thought this was a bad thing, so they´d hired a golf buggy and were whooping from it to startle gringoes. As one does.
Had a chivito last night. It´s the local dish, they seem to have decided that a steak´s not meaty enough, so they add bacon, ham, cheese and a fried egg. Meat-tastic.
My second installment of Buenos Aires was suitably Milhouse-esque. I´ve never stayed in a hostel which stamps its personality on your soul so completely. 18-30s hell. Or a concentration camp. Or Basildon. Or a mixture of the three. Either way, I won a walking tour in a quiz, which was good, but then I had to spend the next day lingering on street corners waiting for un-gormed wideboys as they waddled along with their haircuts flapping, which was bad. Saw Le Boca, which was a faux-vibrant tourist trap, and the stadium, which was a bit like a multi-storey car park, only with less soul. Apparently it´s less depressing when there´s 60 000 people chanting and the pitch isn´t being returfed.
On the plus side I managed to swap my Rough Guide for a Lonely Planet. I really don´t see how Rough Guide are still in business. The book I had was painfully bad. They told you nothing worth knowing and the maps had been drawn in orange crayolas by chickens. It was marginally less useful than guessing.
Right, off to drive a go-kart into a swimming pool, or something equally debauched.
