Be Sure to Order a Side of Meat with your Meat

On our 4th day in Argetntina, we got the bright idea to leave Argentina. So, we headed out on a ferry across the River (so wide at this point you can´t see the other side) to Colonia, Uruguay. After the busy city of 13 million people the last few days, it was a breath of fresh air to come over to this small historical town. The old part of the town has cobblestone streets, charming houses, and more plazas (the South Americans love plazas). While we´re on the topic of things South Americans love, we´ll tell you quickly about Mate. Especially in Uruguay, everyone is walking around with a cup of Mate. It is a strong, bitter tea that they drink from a gourd with a metal straw. They carry around the loose leaf tea and hot water all day and just keep filling it up. We´ll let you all take a swig from our gourd when we get back. We´re still learning the ropes of how it´s really done, but we´ll be pros with a couple more weeks of practice. After a very relaxing day of wandering through the streets of Colonia, we headed to bed early (11;30pm is early for Buenos Aires) so we could get up early for a day trip to Montevideo.

The trip to Montevideo was a 2 hr bus ride through the countryside. We thought of our very good friends the Lesters the whole way. We walked all over the old city - very unusual architecture of which we´ll post pictures later. However, our favorite part was a trip to Mercado del Puerto. The old port building was turned into a carnivore´s dream. It was stall after stall of Parilla - wood fired grills cooking every kind of meat imaginable, and the occaisional red pepper or cheese. We pulled up a couple of chairs to the counter and ordered a sausage and what I think was a filet. Wow! The food was absolutely amazing and the people watching was just as good. The cooks were having a great time along with everyone pulled up to the counter. Our thought was Pike´s place market for the meat eater. We bused back to Colonia for the night and we´re back to Argentina and an overnight bus ride to Mendoz tomorrow night. Don´t worry, it´s first class.