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.