Uruguay- Weekend from Hell

Todo fue un quilombo! That is Argentine slang for everything was a mess!

Looking back now, I can laugh at how everything progressed…each little thing turning sour in a foreign country. But, thankfully, we avoided the Big 3 (rape, robbery, lost passports). So on with the story and I hope you get a good laugh at my series of unfortunate events…

It all started with a bad omen. I left the office with Julia (this weekend being her first foreign travel…EVER) in pouring rain and hurricane winds, not even an umbrella could battle for me. The two of us with two detailed maps could not find the boarding ramp for ColoniaExpress boat and we ran into a massive intersection of crossing and merging highways that was impossible to pass on foot if we wanted to stay alive. So we took a taxi….it was just 3 blocks south through what looked like trash district of “the hood”.

The ColoniaExpress building is smaller than a house and thus the entrance line was weaved all around the parking lot…outside in pouring rain! When we got to the front of the line they said the tickets we got the day before from the main office were actually NOT tickets (disregarding the perforated portions, stamped and official looking documents we had)…we had to go wait in another line to “check in”. So we were the last ones to finally board the boat. Upon entering the Uruguay border, immigrations thought I looked like a suspecting smuggler and thoroughly searched through all my belongings…unrolling my carefully folded pants and going through my panties! Good thing I wasn’t embarrassed!

When we exited immigrations….no surprise, the rains followed us. Of course the small town of Colonia was built on sloping streets going in every direction to help the drainage of downpours, resulting in mini rivers on every street. There was no way to avoid walking in 4 -inch deep gushing waters so we just sucked it up and walked quickly to the hostel, which I guess it’s custom in Uruguay to ignore reservations. There were no beds for us.

We found a hostel a few streets over but they requested we pay in advance, and only in Uruguay pesos. Welllll, the change house at immigrations was closed and the “street of banks” had only 3 banks with locked doors to the ATMs. Fed up, tired and hungry we went next door to a restaurant that luckily accepted Argentine pesos (I am so glad that at the last minute I grabbed about US $100 worth of Argentine pesos in case something went wrong). After trying to decipher a 12 page menu with no pictures, we just went for the Uruguay tourist special of “chuvito”, which is their slang for a supreme steak sandwich. And for our nerves we topped it off with beer on tap.

We met two other German girls in our hostel…so now our group comprised of 3 Germans and an American Wilhelm…I fit right in with the group just because of my last name, ha. We did make it to “Plaza de Toros”, thanks to Andres and Natalia for the recommendation. It was the best part of Colonia…and it was actually 15km outside of the city. I didn’t think they were serious when they said they snuck in, but there is a wire fence around the entire 10,000 person capacity bull-fighting ring and cars stopped at each corner watching the site. So feeling rebellious and really UNimpressed by the supposedly great city of Colonia that took all of 15 minutes to walk and see, I found some ripped wire and crawled my way through. The rotting and rusting structure and architecture was awesome! We snuck around for a while, then got caught and so we left. We also entered the very, first church of Uruguay. It was a white box. No decorations and no richly decorated altar. We didn’t even bother climbing the lighthouse….we decided that you have to be over 40 years old to actually fall in love with Colonia and give it rave reviews.

So we moved onto another city…Montevideo! The capital of Uruguay! The number one place to stay there is Ciudad Vieja and the number one thing to do is eat a lomo (steak) sandwich at Mercado de Puerto. Well, there were some young ladies that scared the crap out of the German girls by saying how dangerous THAT part of town was and to not set foot near the Mercado. So we didn’t eat there and they changed their hostel to one near Centro downtown. Our first impression of the hostel “why is there a homeless guy napping in the dorm?”

Figuring we were going to be out late partying in the grand city, I went ahead and fixed my bunk bed with sheets and warm blankets. Why is it that Latin Americans can’t afford a heater? Never realized that was an American luxury. My bed must have looked really inviting because when I returned later after dinner, someone had been in it and left alllll their stuff in between the sheets!

We asked the hostel receptionist to map out a plan for us since there were NO walking tours, NO bike tours and NO bus tours…she actually said “why did you come to Montevideo on the weekend? Saturday and Sunday everything is closed!”. To which I automatically and sassily responded, “because it is the CAPITAL of Uruguay and CAPITAL CITIES do not sleep!!!!!” Well, this probably explains why Uruguay is so run down and poor….no one ever works! And maybe why they are thin too, because we couldn’t find an open restaurant to EAT!

The hostel lady said Montevideo is famous for its “Rambla street”, which it is not the main street, contrary to the picture that Spain has painted. It is rather a 5 mile stretch along the coastline. There wasn’t really anything to see past the black cloudy sky, misty rains and ferocious winds. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see the magical Uruguayan sunset. I did however find a monument to Confucius (which I read his works before my 2010 February China Trip), a fake David statue (I’ve seen the real one in Florence inside Academia Gallery), a memorial of the Holocaust (Jews fled to Uruguay?), the Obelisk (it must have been the proposal model for the one in Buenos Aires) and lots of colorful street graffiti. My favorite part of Montevideo was probably Plaza Constitucion near my hostel…I am a sucker for huge, elaborate, European looking fountains with naked dancing baby statues in the middle of plazas…I had a little too much fun taking goofy pictures to lighten the mood of the depressed group.

We circled the city with a map and saw everything there was to see, of course not entering into any museums, government buildings or old theaters. Everything was CLOSED! By 11pm we decided to scope out a bar….we all needed an alcoholic drink! We went to “Fun Fun Bar”, a well- known young, dive drinkers place…what we found were old people and a tango show! We tried the traditional Uruguayan “uvita” drink, which is much like a thick, super sweet and strong sangria. Later, it was no where to be found to purchase as a gift for my family back at home. It must be just a show for the tourist because the natives don’t drink it….you cant find it at any liquor store or supermarket or duty free shop. We left Fun Fun in search of a real bar….which, shockingly we could not find one! Maybe 11:30pm was still a little too early to start bar hopping? At least in Buenos Aires you can get a drink at 11pm even though the party may not start until 1am. We consulted Lonely Planet and found the huge, popular bar street….of 6 bars (2 were irish pubs). After asking for uvita, medio y medio (another traditional drink- ½ white wine and ½ champagne) and 3 different brands of beer to find out they didn’t have ANY of that in stock…we just requested something alcoholic before we threw an angry punch at the next unsuspecting Uruguay person who walked by. We were fed up with Colonia and now fed up Montevideo….so we decided to get up early the next morning and check out Punta del Este.

Over the course of that night we encountered: muddy and cold showers, bed bugs, rude Brazilians who stayed up talking until 6am, 11 people staying in our 8 bed dorm, car alarms blaring, loud buzzer noise each time someone returned to hostel from partying, and a loud party at the front desk with the receptionist, which was on the other side of our bedroom door.

I was in shock that the Brazilians got up at 7am….I think we all got 30 minutes of rest, not sleep, that night. I was upset at the hostel and the city and so I decided to inconvenience everyone else that I could…..I scored one of the 2 bathrooms on our floor and stayed there fixing my hair and doing my makeup in front of the mirror. No one could go to the bathroom or take a shower. Ha! Then we were supposed to deposit our sheets at the front desk and fold our warm quilts….nope, I just left the mess on my bed. And to help out the hostel, they ask that you wash your dishes after breakfast. I could not extend a nice favor to this awful hostel…I just left them, dirty!

I got an hour of sleep on the bus ride to Punta del Este and when we arrived, it was Uruguay heaven. The sun was shining! There were sky- high beach resorts and yachts everywhere…rich civilization was finally found. This is not a city of Uruguayans, but a city of foreigners vacationing and dropping loads of money into the gorgeous, clean town. Our bus dropped us off right in front of the famous Chilean 1982 monument called “La Mano”…the emerging hand from the sand…and BEACH!!!!!! There was BEACH!!!!! I felt like I was back at home! I skipped around for a while soaking in the sunrays and beauty of the coast until the Germans said the kid-fun was over and we should move onto the next site.

That ended our only 5 minutes of luck. I asked the tourism booth what bus to take to the awesome, Bohemian style “Casapueblo” filled with Carlos Paz’ artwork (he was Pablo Picasso’s student!). She frowned at me and said there are no buses that take you there. But I could wait 4 hours until the 2pm bus to Montevideo and they will kindly drop me off on the side of the mountain 3 miles away. That didn’t sound nice at all, but I was determined to not let Uruguay ruin this city experience as well.

I found the only taxi in sight and bargained with him for the long drive to Casapueblo. This was a spiffy taxi compared to those in Buenos Aires. This guy was dressed in slacks with a button down shirt and drove an American Ford car with leather interior- this reflects how uppity the city was. And the heat worked! On the ride up the mountain I told him our Montevideo and Colonia experience, I was secretly working my girl charm. He said he would wait for us while we explored the marvelous Casapueblo and he then took us to various picture sites like the lookout cliff for a complete city and coast view! He then drove us alllll the way back to the harbor where we decided we must have fish for lunch in Punta del Este! I couldn’t believe that prices were over $15, we were not in the USA! So we consulted Lonely Planet again and found a fantastic hole-in-the-wall colorful, family-owned restaurant. The boisterous owner greeted us in German and served us beer right away…was “bad travel experience” written all over our faces still?

We made it back to Colonia and got stopped in immigrations. My passport stamp looks like I came in on June 2, which means that I have overstayed my 90 day limit and I am in big trouble! Does a bribe work like in Mexico? Julia had lost her tiny exit ticket and they asked for 700 pesos fine. After questioning me why I was going to Buenos Aires and consulting other patrol offices on the “stamp date” they let me pass. We raced up the escalators and got in line right away to board the boat; we were ½ hour early. When we got to the door the guy said our boat was not here! He told us to walk back to the waiting room and take a right….problem was that room was the country entrance room through immigrations from the boat that just landed…so what did I do? I jumped the rope to find someone else to ask help and 6 officers started running after me! Everyone was yelling at each other and I was trying to talk over ALL of them in Spanish about where the hell is my boat! I want to leave this awful country! After being escorted around to various locations from boarding to docking to entrance and exit immigrations, we ended up at the ticket counter of some other company. My immigration papers were already on the “missing” boat to Buenos Aires so I could not just change my ticket and switch to another company’s later boat. After 15 minutes of phone calls to immigrations and 3 boat companies, they said I had to stay another night and immigrations will need to meet with me the next morning to sort everything out. They apologized, said everything was their fault because they do not have an organization system, then laughed at me because I was now illegally in Uruguay and they reminded me to not do anything stupid over the night. Thanks Uruguay!

Well, here I was again. In Colonia, already changed my pesos back to Argentine money, no banks open, no hostel, in pouring rain…..sounds like repeat of Friday night. We returned to the same hostel and explained what happened….hoping she would have sympathy on us and forget to charge us up front in Uruguay pesos, as is usual hostel policy. We returned to the same restaurant and used what little money we had to buy a snack and then begged the waiter to secretly change the rest so we could pay for our hostel. Julia’s phone wouldn’t send international text messages, she didn’t have enough credit to call our boss saying we were stuck in another country, and then her phone died. And this time, we had a drugee in the hostel who kept following us around to computer room, bathroom, the showers and then he pretended to walk to the “wrong” dorm room. And, I ran out of toothpaste. It’s the worst feeling in the world to be covered in Uruguay yuckiness and rain and humidity and then not be able to brush your teeth! That was the icing on the cake and I curled up in my hostel bed clicking my heels and wishing I were home in Buenos Aires. Then I realized, wait, I am American. Shouldn’t I be wishing to be home in the USA? Nope, definitely not. Buenos Aires is where my heart lives.

We returned to the boat terminal the next day and I had to explain in Spanish to 8 company people why it was their lack of organization that sprung all the events of last night…I then requested that the company staff escort me to immigrations and be there for the meeting. (What foreign country would believe a single, female 24 year old anyways?) I did not want to be stuck any longer or have to pay some kind of fine. Immigrations was not happy to help me….but I got the boat! I thought I was home free! I was wrong…

Our boat was being tossed around like a hot potato in all directions. At first it was fun…felt like a rollercoaster ride. But then it never stopped and I kept being thrown from my seat….the staff came by with barf bags and told us to move to the back of the boat. The boat was uncontrollably zig zagging across the river and water was gushing up over the boat! I told the staff he accidently gave me 2 barf bags …to which he responded “oops, here is 1 to protect your passport, 1 for your camera, 1 for your cellphone”…..”wait, wait, are we going to sink?” I responded. Most of the passengers stayed in the back with life vests on and vomiting the entire 1.5 hours. I found out when we arrived at the office that all boats were cancelled for the day because of bad weather. Last year a boat sank and people died and there is still a law suit over it. Apparently everyone else knew about the weather conditions and they changed their ticket free of charge….explains why there were only 40 passengers.

I did not know that crossing borders in South America was this risky….lesson learned and "experience" added to my book.