Uruguay

We spent 8 nights in December 2022 in Uruguay, travelling to and from Buenos Aires by ferry across the Río de La Plata to Colonia del Sacramento.

Colonia’s historical barrio is picture perfect, with beautiful cobbled streets, big old white Portuguese style houses and is surrounded by water. We spent two days here marvelling at the beauty of the architecture and being treated to some amazing sunsets. Colonia is by far the most beautiful town we have been to in the past few months, with its wide avenues of Sycamore trees and houses covered in bright pink Bougainvillea.

We stayed in El Viajero hostel which was in a nice traditional building with the rooms overlooking a courtyard. This was our first night in dorm rooms and bunkbeds on the trip but luckily we had the room to ourselves on the first night and then just one other person (who snored) on the second night.

We took the bus (about 3 hours) to Montevideo the capital city and spent two nights here. It was so hot during our visit, around 37 degrees. Most of the time we just meandered along the Rambla, which is a pavement with goes the whole way around the city next to the sea, running for 13.7 miles (apparently longest pavement in the world). The city had a relaxed tropical feel to it, with a handful of beeches and loads of palm trees. Our hostel was another good one, with a nice vibe, stylish bathrooms and a good communal living room where we played Chess one afternoon. There was a huge Christmas market a few minutes’ walk from our hostel which opened in the evenings which we strolled around, had some food and a few beers at, while listening to some live music. One day we walked to the old town at the peninsular of the city, walking through the Plaza Independencia, past the Montevideo Metropolitan Cathedral and the Salvo Palace and under the old city walls gateway.

Our final stop in Uruguay was Punta del Este, a seaside city and peninsula on the Atlantic Coast. Punta is known as a holiday destination for wealthy South Americas and is sometimes referred to as "the Monaco of the South", or the "the Miami Beach of South America". There is a massive marina filled with impressive yachts and jet skis. We really enjoyed our time in Punta and made friends with a British/American couple who live in Canada. We met them while watching the England football match against France and ended up spending two really fun evenings with them. In the days we went to the beach. There are two main beaches, one which is on the Atlantic lined with sand dunes and mainly used by surfers and then the other called Player Mansa which is around the corner and therefore has calm water and more of an urban feel. We spent the days at the calm one, where we enjoyed swimming in the sea and relaxing on sunbeds under a parasol. On one of the beaches Punta has an iconic sculpture of a hand coming out the sand, it called ‘The Fingers of Punta del Este’ and is actually rather creepy.

On our final day we got a bus the whole way back to Colonia and then the ferry to Buenos Aires where we had two more nights before moving onto explore more of Argentina.