Fred's Blog: Fred's world tour week 2 - Uruguay to South Brazil

Fred's world tour

Week 2 – Uruguay and South Brazil

6^th until 12^th of October 2012

In brief:

Wondered the cobbled streets of Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay
Got culturally enlightened in a rainy Montevideo
Explored the surfer and holiday-maker's mecca of Punta del Este. (also in the rain)
Sampled the all you can eat Brazilian Buffet for £4 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.... twice!
Survived my first Brazilian taxi ride with two very near misses.
Basked in the crisp beautiful beaches of Ilha de Santa Caterina, Florianopolis.

After more of a static visit to Buenos Aires (BA) it was time to hit the road, backpack on, sense of adventure in one hand and guidebook in the other (thank you to my sister Steph for the book :-). Well I say road it was actually a Ferry that got Louise and I across the waters of the Rio Plata to Colonia. Louise is a Swedish girl from the hostel that's doing a long Spanish course in BA. Colonia de Sacramento is a quaint little village in Uruguay. Full of history, character and old Portuguese architecture. It didn't really take much time to cover all the sights of the old town so we took our time and had a delicious lunch. A 'chivito' is a dish which comprises of a slab of meat (chicken or beef), topped with a slice of ham, cheese, some bread On the same plate there is salad, a cucumber melange, french fries and a fried egg on top. A cheap, traditional and very filling dish.

From there we took the very confi buses to Montevideo the capital of Uruguay. Things have definitely changed since I last took a bus in latin america or maybe its just Uruguay, but there is wifi on board all long distance buses. It was good enough to have a skype conversation with just minor hiccups! In Montevideo we went out for a stroll in the centre of town, admired the lit up colonial buildings and after dinner Louise called it a night. Excited at the prospect of the new city I headed out to the nearest club. To my surprise at half past mid-night the venue was empty on a saturday night! The bar man said to 'come back in one hour and see how it is'. He was right the crowds just started to come at 01:30-2am. I chatted to some locals and a chap from Rio, Jose. Originally Rio was not going to be on my trip because I was keen on coming back some other time with a grasp of Portuguese but everyone including Jose said that it was a must! The beauty of this trip is that I can be flexible to change plans so.... Rio here I come!

Louise and I spent the weekend in Montevideo going to museums, art galleries, inside colonial building and had lunch at the 'famous' mercado del puerto. Museums and Fred don't usually mix too well but when you throw-in horizontal rain with a cold wind and the fact that for this weekend only, all museums were free to enter. Then, you can find me getting culturally enlightened. On the Monday Louise had to get back to Buenos Aires for her language school so we said goodbye and off I went to Punta del Este a two hour bus trip.

'Punta' as the locals call it, is a special place where it seems every Argentinian, Brazilian and rich foreigner has a house or at least a flat for use only during the 2months of December and January. It has a resident population of 18,000 which swells to 500,000 in those months. Not only that but some 400 additional police are drafted in from around the country to add to the 38-strong Punta police to cope with the masses. It basically means that this beach town is currently an eerie urban ghost town. That afternoon it rained some more but we still got some sightseeing and food with some hostal people including Jose the Brazilian from Rio. The next day I invested money on a mini-van guided tour of the sights. I go to learn some portuguese from the other punters and see sights of the area that are pretty unique. Sights such as the houses of the rich, the wavy bridge, the casa pueblo (home of artist Carlos Paez vilaro) and the general layout of 'Punta'. The wavy bridge is apparently architecturally ground breaking for what was thought was a non-feasible design and now they built an identical next to it. 'Casapueblo' is the creation of artist Carlos Paez Vilaro. Initially a beach side white house has grown room by room over the years to eventually occupy and entire southfacing hillside. In case you're wondering I don't think planning permission existed in those times. A third has become a hotel, a third his art gallery and a third remains his home/art studio. Beautiful especially as a place to watch the sunset which is accompanied by a recording of the artist's poetry. Incidentally he happens to be the father of one of the survivors of the Andean place crash that inspired the film 'Alive'.

From here an overnight bus took me to Porto Alegre where I did an open top bus tour, ate twice at an all you can eat buffet for £4, and survived my first taxi ride to a Brazilian club. Apparently taxi drivers at night don't abide by the speed limits, traffic lights, one way systems and have no hesitation in answering their phone while driving thereby narrowly missed hitting two parked cars!

One night at a funky hostel and one on an overnight bus I found myself in Florianopolis. If Rio de Janeiro would have a lovechild this would be it. A healthy seaside exercise lifestyle, an island full of beautiful beaches nearby, sand dunes to sandboard on and a very very good nightlife!

Next stop was Rio and I had two choices; 20hour by bus or short flight for £74... tough choice :-)