Author: marionvermazen

Today we explored Montevideo a bit. We walked to Independencia Plaza and visited the memorial to General Artigas, the Father of Uruguay.

We visited the Gaucho museum. And of course Duke was inspired to try out his Gaucho skills.

My Gaucho!

For dinner we had steak at one of the barbecue places in the market across from our hotel. When we walked through the market this morning the barbecue fires were roaring.

Here they are bringing in wood for tomorrow.

Our steak tonight was superb.

We had an interesting exchange with our waiter at dinner. It illustrates how much people all over the world follow American politics. The waiter asked where we were from. We said the U.S. and he asked what state. When Duke said Nevada the waiter said “Nevada is very important in the election isn’t it?” He was aware that Nevada is an early caucus state!

Here is the link to the video I made today.

In Salto Tuesday morning we walked to the post office and then explored a bit. Our bus to Montevideo left at one. The six hour ride was comfortable with few stops. It rained for much of the way.

We are staying at the Don Boutique Hotel, a very nice place. We enjoyed a welcome drink while we checked in.

Here is the video I made today.

This morning a taxi driver took us across the Uruguay River to Salto, Uruguay. The temperature was a steady 50 degrees here with rain all day. Crossing the border was easy and the immigration check was fast and painless.

This afternoon we walked around Salto. We visited a small art Museum and went down to the river.

What a difference a day makes! Today was much cooler than the last few days. We continued to head south. Before we left Paso de los Libres we walked into the center for coffee.

When we left for the bus station it was overcast. While we waited for our bus we had thunder and lightening and a few heavy rain showers.

We had a pleasant bus ride to Concordia across the river from Uruguay.

Prices in Argentina have been mostly quite cheap. Dinner last night with steak, a good bottle of wine, and desert was $31. Our hotel was about ten miles from the bus station and the taxi ride was $9.

We are making our way south from Iguazu to Montevideo, Uruguay. The weather has been in the 90s and today we had another six hour bus ride with no air conditioning. Luckily we were carrying lots of water. I don’t think I have ever sweated as much as I have the last two days.

I think we are in Argentine Gaucho (cowboy) country now. We saw a gaucho today and have seen several stores with horse and riding gear. The terrain looks kind of like Wyoming or the Australian outback.

After arriving in Paso de los Libres we cooled off a while at the place we are staying and then walked several blocks to the town center where we had pizza and cold beer for dinner and bought more water for tomorrow. They had a special insulated holder on our table for the liter bottle of beer that we shared.