Photos:-------------------------------
Headlines
1. Buenos Aires
2. Colonia
3. Montevideo
4. Punta del Este
5. Salto
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After leaving the beautiful Mar del Plata (and Matt for a few days) I took off to La Plata, about 300km up the coast to visit my old friends that I stayed with last time. Well once again they made me feel like I was part of the family, they are all very warming people and I loved visiting them and catching up what has been happening over the past two years. Went around to all of their homes and ate way too much, saw some more sights of La Plata with my personal guide and went for a great asado at the campo (small hobby farm on the edge of town), we ate like kings and then were blessed with a great little campfire concert over a mate with a friends uncle who turned out to be a professional musician.....very cool experience, I almost felt Argentinian. Another sad good bye and I do not know if I can promise them this time that I will return in 5 years....but hopefully.
Met up with Matt in BA, he stayed in Mar del Plata for a couple of extra days to see to some local business... BA once again we loved, caught a Boca Jr´s game that was totally nuts as the whole cement stadium shook, walked through Boca, San Telmo, cycled Palermo and went out to a couple of great restruants. Caught up with Eugene who we bumped into walking down the street. Well after seeing everything on our list we found out that we do not need a visa for Uruguay and so caught a boat across to Colonia. Well all I can say is get there, it was one of the prettiest little towns that I have seen, old buildings still in tact for the past 400 years or so, all multicoloured as the layers of paint slowly peel away revealing the bright colours of the past. Some of them almost look like marble paintings. Streets are all lined with blue balast stone from the trade ships and of course I went silly with the photos.
Matt and I decided to see the countryside so hired scooters for the day, well endless dirt roads winding through pristine countryside, vineyards and beautiful homes made me thing that I was back in Tuscany.....then the whirl of two high pitched scooters at 70km/hr, powerslides, creek crossings, beach runs and lets just say that if you are in Colonia, by all means rent scooters just not from Golden Bikes, it is safe to assume that our scooters are a little worse off than before. But make sure you stay with Ocscar, the best hostel to date.
Off to another city and Montevideo was nice but had no real attraction for the two of us, the Saturday BBQ market down by the port was a great feed and some of the buildings are amazing but really no hidden treasures...or any that we could find. So after a couple of days we headed off too Punta del Este.
Punta del Este is billed as the Monte Carlo of South America, and while very nice it was more like the Gold Coast in Australia, or a mini Miami beach. But being the low season we had the whole place to ourselves, we hired bikes again and rode for a while out to a point and saw some amazing homes, this is where the wealthy Argentinians come to play, and coastline. Second day Matt has started to feel a little ill and so I took off to get a run and swim in, great to run on the beach again (I miss my flat) and in for a swim. The water was quite cold but I managed to enjoy it, catch a couple of waves and splash around in the Atlantic. Went back and dragged sick Matt out and we lay in the sun and soaked up some rays....got a good bit of colour and then hired some more bikes and took off in the other direction.
Well we are now in Salto on the Argentinian border on our way to Iguazzu Falls, number 2 on the must see list.....can not wait to get there.
Roland
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