Punta Del Esta, a Vacation Within a Vacation!

Hi! I’m writing this to you from a hostel in Uruguay! Punta del Esta to be exact. It is a small tourist town right on the coast. So beautiful!

I was talking to a friend on Thursday night and he asked me if I wanted to go to Uruguay for the weekend and I said I would love to come along.
So on friday morning i woke up and got all packed up, go over to the residencia to pìck up these boys and at about 1:00pm we got a taxi to take us to the ferry dock to catch a boat to Colonia, Uruguay. We thought the boat left at 2:30 but it didn’t it left at 2 and we missed it. Take into account we are
relying on Andrew's guide book and my Friend Chris’s Spanish! So funny! we couldn´t even
figure out how to make a call on a payphone! haha. We finally managed to get tickets for
7:30 pm to Colonia. In the time we had in Buenos Aires we tried to secure some beds at a hostel in Montevideo but couldn’t because, as I said before we couldn’t figure out how to work a payphone! We needed a country code and a city code, we had neither! We couldn’t call Uruguay!
   We got on the boat at 7:30 arrived safely in Colonia and went through customs, they let me walk through’ customs with my huge backpack but because Chris and Andrew had 2 boxes of empanadas they almost didn’t let them in! We thought we were going to miss the bus but we hopped on just as it was taking off. The situation was so crazy; it was dark we didn’t have any Uruguayan pesos, none of us had a real good grasp on the language and we had no place to stay!  We arrived in Montevideo and we   got tickets  for Punta Del Esta but the bus didn’t take off until in 4:45am so we had some time to chill. We got a couple Uruguayan beers, waited for our bus and stayed up unitl the it came! In that time my two friends, who are surfers, made some friends with two people that had a surf board and got us a place to stay for the night at hostel Iguana. So we hopped on the bus to Punta Del Esta with our new friends. and all the sudden I woke up and the sun is rising over the Atlantic ocean, we arrive in Punta Del Esta very sleepy at 7 in the morning. Thank goodness we had our new friends that got us on one more bus, a city bus to take us to La Barra the town right next to Punta del Esta. we get to the hostel and met Chela, the lady that runs it. we slept unitl 1pm.
   We got up and Chela fed us breakfast which only is supposed to go until 11:30 :) We then took a bus into town and checked things out. We got some Uruguayan pesos. The exchange rate is 20 to 1 US dollars. So to take the city bus it was 23 pesos! I have never experienced inflation like that! Wow! we Ended up going out to lunch at a place called La Fonda Del Pesca. We ate a beef with ham and cheese and fried egg on top and french fries.It was the off season so everywhere was very quiet, and we were the only people in the place. That’s how it was almost everywhere, we spent the rest afternoon wandering around town checking things out. my friends looking for a place to rent surf boards and me checking out the out the shops. We went back to the hostel and made raviolis for dinner went out for a bit. The bar we went to had no one in it but the three of us got a bottle of wine and enjoyed the concept of BEING IN Urugauy!
 We got up the next morning and decided to rent bikes. We cruised up the shore, we tried to make it to Casa Blanca which is about 40 km up the shore. We didn’t make it or should I say I wasn’t going to make it, I’m very out of shape ;) The boys were very nice about it and we came back and made a dinner of steak and pasta and just hung out at the hostel, we played cards with Chela and a couple other people staying at the hostel.



The Hand in the Sand!



I ended up going to bed early last night but woke up feeling great! We rode our bikes into town and returned them, the boys went surfing and i did a little shopping around. I went to the fish market and saw these HUGE seals. So cool! Tonight we are just going to stick around the hostel and make some homemade pizza. Tomorrow the boys are going to go out surfing and then we will get on the bus and head home!