So I probably say this every couple of months but this time I do mean it when I say this has been the hardest goodbye yet, having convinced Jane to bypass Salta and venture to Paraguay was easy but my boyish charms have not been successful in persuading her to samba in Rio with me so for the first time in three months I am going to be all alone with no Spanish. When you spend a considerable time travelling with someone you get to know them extremely well so six weeks with Jane I got to see the good side and the bad side. Of course I will miss travelling with her but will I miss having to repeat everything I say three times (she is 32 so her hearing is shot) or even after going to the same bank three times having to give her direction sagain I probably will. Don’t worry though I will be checking up on Jane every now and then making sure she is not being silly like buying ice skates in South America! As with all the peole I have met you never can tell if you will see them on your travels again or when you get home but with this one I am hoping I will. Jane you are a great girl and I had a cracking time with you and I know you will read this and I can safely predict you are either hungry, tired or want a beer maybe all three! Keep safe.
Also another goodbye to Tim who I have also seen in five countries but this is more likely I will see him again somewhere along the gringo trail.
Jane, Tim and
I got the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia in Uruguay as this is the quickest way most convenient way plus due to the political discord between the countries they have no buses but if you ask any traveller they will always prefer a different mode of transport to buses.
Colonia was originally a seventeenth-century Portuguese smuggling port designed to disrupt the Spanish base of Buenos Aires across the Rio de la Plata. Colonia del Sacramento is a beautiful picturesque town with quaint cobbled streets lined with pastel coloured houses draped with foliage of all different colours. There is a massive café culture here which pleased the coffee hound Jane. Parts of this town resembled other places like a four story block of flats looking exactly like the type that litter my home town of Sidcup to old style pubs on leafy streets that could easily have been Holland Park (London) to a small port with an old BMW motorcycle and 1970’s citroen making that part look like Paris. Tourists scoot around town in all manor of rentable vehicles ranging from bicycles to golf buggies, naturally we opted for the golf buggy where we raced around town down to the beaches not quite knowing if we could take it on the proper roads. Janes drving did induce high blood pressure combined with an intense feeling that I didn’t want to die young especially when she produced a three point turn with a four meter drop with me hanging on the back of the buggy alas we did survive only because I had to shout stop (three times).
Two days in Colonia then we bused our way to Montevideo in time for new years where we got involved with the most random fiesta I have ever encountered. During the daytime we followed the collections of people walking from the main square down to the old quarter and on the way we were walking between tall residential buildings which was essentially the ‘kill zone’ as the residents would hurl water on all the passer bys, kids (infantry) were placed on the ground with buckets, water pistols or water bombs to catch the people hiding under canopies, then you have the adults walking drinking litre bottles of cider randomly spraying people mix this with the sun and you start to smell pretty rotten. It was great fun spraying peole and getting wet although at one point I took it a little too far with this little kid getting me once on the way down and on the way back he went for me again but this time I was armed with a full bottle of cider to which I didn’t hesitate in giving him a point blank full facial shot of cider to the face, unfortunately his elders had not taught him well and he breathed in through his nose and got cider froth up there……he cried, but as I said to Tim he was playing with the big boys. Everyone got involved from a women with one leg in a wheelchair to elderly people.
Montevideo has been the first place where I have not felt safe on all my travels and fair people have warned us that it was not a safe place for gringos to be walking around and even at the street party we were told that we were not entirely safe.
A special thanks goes out to the piece of shit probably currently in my dorm who has stolen my money belt today...........I hope you die in some freak accident where you feel immense pain for hours. All the best!
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