We (Simon, Barry, Francisco and Rodriguez) were meant to take the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay at midday. Its midday and we are one man down. I can´t find him and no one can. (It feels like a scene from the hangover because the night before was blurry and messy and he is no where to be found, not even on the rooftop).We decided to leave it and get back to the hostel for around 5pm to catch the 6.30pm ferry. Again no luck. At this point, Rodriguez decides that he does not want to join us and may come to Uruguay the next day.

Its around 10pm and we are adamant that we don’t want to miss our ferry and therefore leave early to make our 3 hour midnight ride. As soon as I got onto the ferry, its nothing like
Iv seen before. The boat/ferry was hugeee. I am over exaggerating when I say it was like the interior of the Titanic but it was – and it was really smooth.

We get to Colonia at 3am and get straight to our hostel to find that we are rooming with a grandma and a man who snores – life can´t get better than this!

Early (11am) we get out of bed and start our adventure. I have to emphasise the fact that Uruguay is filled with street dogs. There are street dogs everywhere and you can´t go to the street without seeing atleast 5-6 dogs. Francisco gets out the map and plans a little route for us to explore the city. Colonia is really beautiful. We watched the river for a while, entertained a mime and stopped atleast 4 times for beer and food.

Over a mug of beer, we decided that it would be a great idea to rent a car and have a road trip to Montevideo, I mean its only two hours by bus and it would be super fun to have our own car and the luxury of it. A road trip sounds freaking awesome to my ears! I haven’t been on a road trip in forever (Driving from Bristol to London alone doesn´t really count). As Barry gives his details in for the car, we buy some snacks for the way and we are ready to head off.

Barry isn’t used to driving on the right hand side of the road, but he did a really good job on getting grips with the concept and got really familiar with it. Its around 10pm and were 20 minutes out of Colonia into the motorway when all of a sudden (really) out of no where a dog runs straight into our car. There was nothing we could do and I don’t really want to elaborate on the rest but lets just say that the police, a vet and the insurance company spent 3 hours in total trying to put our pieces together.

When everything was sorted, half a car later, we continued to drive to Montevideo and It was honestly a ghost town at night. No one was on the streets, a few guys that stank were around the corners, it looked creepy as hell and we were lost. The earlier incident, I think shook us all a little bit as we did not expect to be dealing with the police who one ´happened to know the owner of the STREET dog´. We asked one of the cab drivers directions to our hostel. He honestly stank of booze but weirdly enough he pointed us in the right direction. We got to our hostel super late and ended up in a dorm with 12 other people.

It was around 4am when I heard a ´thud´ sound on the floor. The guy on the bunk above me fell off, got up, pretended like nothing happened and started walking. I first got scared when I heard the sound but as soon as I realised what had happened, I couldn’t contain my laughter (its a little mean) but it was soooo funny!!!.

The next morning, Montevideo completely transformed. You could see sunshine, (lots of dogs still), fountains, happy people, music on the street. I have no idea what’s going on but I really like what I see. Apart from getting told off in Spanish that I was sitting on an important Monument, we walked around the city exploring and I had a chance to reflect on the crazy two days. I don´t know if I am clearly explaining my experience (baring in mind that I am two weeks behind on my writing) but It was a lot to take in and I am so glad things went the way that it did.

We drove back to Colonia and took the Ferry back to BA (where we partied that night too). I’m in Ba for one more night and then I’m off to Mendoza..