The Timaru of Uruguay and Punta del Este

Breakfast of champions, this lasts about one hour until an emergency pastry is required. The jam has been supersceded by dulce de leche [caramel condensed milk]

Our travelling roadshow has continued on its happy way from Montevideo [forever remembered for the discovery of empanadas, whose quality remains unsurpassed to this very day, 3 days later]. Due to impossible time constraints between sleeping and eating, this is reduced to a sensational highlights package.

Highlights include:

1. Empanadas. See above.
2. Cycling through the Timaru of Uruguay. Bustling, busy, and never ending.
3. The sun. Sunny, but not too sunny.
4. A magical town that sounded a bit like Atlantis. It was right where the map said it was, there was a supermarket right at the start followed by a tourist office where a super helpful english speaker pointed us towards a campground. We met another cyclist there. His notable characteristic was his large calves. That will never happen to us as we are too weak to bike large distances.
5. There were no highlights in Piriapolis. No one should ever go there.
6. Swimming in the Atlantic at Punta del Este even though no one else was, it was 10am, and we were all wearing our woollen undies, which got saggy when wet. We are blending in with the locals seamlessly.
7. Anna G tasted mate for the first time.
8. Anna F managing to stay up past 8pm, once. For one night only.

Lowlights include:

1. Mosquito bites all over Anna Gs face.
2. Anna F falling off her bike while completely stationary. It was like a tree falling.
3. Anna G riding 50kms with her front brake on and wondering why it was so damn hard.
4. Anna F being allergic to the grass and breaking out in a rash.
5. Two consecutive lunches of condensed milk and slightly stale/squashed bread. Good at the time, but its a bit tough to look at bread right now. But we´re having again tomorrow!
6. The constant headwind in every direction we ride. This is 6th equal with the first three occasions we tried to stay at a ´beach resort´ it was either windy, raining or the water was mud brown.
7. Possible, yet to be proven caffine and laxative effects from Anna G tasting mate for the first time. Watch this space.
8. Bens refusal to buy jandals, resulting in him walking around on the beach in 24 degrees with woolen socks and shoes on.

The campground at Atlantis*

*not its actual name, but similar.





Ben looking relaxed at Piriapolis, where it rained for the first time.

 

A man, the supermarket, here

We started our bike trip by getting the ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento. Immigration was super easy; we were toleave our bikes leaning against the ferry terminal, in the hope that they would be loaded onto the boat before being stolen. We boarded and the bikes were duly ridden off the ferry on the other side by the ferry staff and hand-delivered to us. What service! We then proceeded to bike around trying to find a campground which apparently didn´t exist, or had possibly closed until the summer then eventually found another one, leaving a poor Spanish woman confused when we rudely asked for directions in English. Anna G then proceeded to argue with the proprietress to INCREASE the price because she thought a campsite meant a tent, therefore we needed two campsites. Regardless, it was quite cheap (450 uruguayan pesos which is about $30 for all of us) and pleasant.








The next day we rode about 76 km to Colonia Valdense and obtaineda free campsite by way of an old man approaching Anna F while we were outside a supermarket (people approach us all the time, we are quite the travelling freak show!). He then went and found an English-speaking young man who took us (by us following his motorbike) to a free campsite. However, part of the way there he taps his bike and says "Can´t go further, police" and sends us onwards. Turns out the "free campsite" was some kind of Christian organic farm, to which we could only communicate tot he owner "a man, the supermarket, here, camping" and, not surprisingly, she turned us (politely) away, after a spanish-english-french debacle of a communication breakdown for more directions and thus we continued. On the way out again our amigo with the motorbike rides up again, this time with a new promise of a free campsite. This turned out to be a winner as he led us to "Club Nautico", where he jacked us up some free accommodation by talking to the owner in spanish. He even got someone to mow some grass for us! This kind of sums up the Uruguayan people so far, everyone is so friendly and helpful. And very tolerant of our poor Spanish.




The next day we rode a hideous 86 km to a (brilliantly signopsted upon entrance to the town) campsite by a beach that was also free, but riddled with trash and fecal matter. We learnt 86 km is too much into a head wind, with no fitness. Anna F and Anna G were a bit cranky by the time we got there, needless to say. The sunset was amazing and waking up to waves lapping the albeit rather estuarine coast and imbibing jam and porridge on the sand was not too shabby either.




We proceeded to ride about 77km into Montevideo. The scenery was remarkably unremarkable with paddocks of cows and grain and countless tankers with what appeared to be the Uruguayan Fonterra branding screaming past us. Also, the dogs! About 35 stray dogs have chased us to date, which is probably better than the minefield they leave in the cities. The last bit of the ride was a bit much, with a motorway, a lot of traffic and kids in the slums thinking we were some kind of freaks.

Montevideo was a laid back city with our usual lack of spanish making things that little bit more challenging including buying a 500 peso bottle of wine with dinner (it was good though). Photos were on the other camera so may have to wait till next time

Montevideo is nice though, we stayed here last night and will again tonight before heading towards Punta del Este. This will probably take about three days, we are trying to stay at 50 km days so as to not wear ourselves out too much in the head wind.

Bohemian BA

After a late night (2am) arrival in BA we gratefully collapsed into the hostel beds. I (Anna G) then proceeded to sleep most of the following day with the expected adverse effects later that night, while Ben and Anna F sight-saw. BA is a nice city, quite European and, judging from the vast number of women who carry their handbags in front of them, possibly quite full of crime. But we escaped unscathed after a nice couple of days sightseeing, buying fuel for both our stoves and our bodies and setting up the bikes ready to ride off into the early sunrise for the start of our trip. Wish us luck!

Buenos dias Buenos Aries!

We flew out of Auckland on the 8th and our inadequate spanish was exposed immediately when the flight attendant asked us what we wanted to eat in spanish and we didn´t recognise a single word of what she said. we just stared blankly back and said english? in english.

We were stuck in Santiago airport for 10 hours, where we were accidently in the middle of  a drugs bust. We were sleeping in some chairs minding our own business when there was some voices around us. We opened our eyes to see three armed policemen with two dogs searching another passengers bag in the seat over. They found some too, Ben only woke up when the drug dog sniffed his face (no dugs there). The dogs were friendly but we were unsure about the etiqette of patting police dogs. About 20 Chilleans were watching on with disapproving looks, we were quite the centre of attention.

Getting into town in Buenos Aries was relatively straightforward, we ordered two taxis to account for all of our gear. All of our gear arrived safely, our only gear failure was that we all brought pants that were a size too small making the flight both hilarious and uncomfortable. We cannot wait until our pants fit us.