Today we said farewell to our Tauck Patagonia friends and headed off for Uruguay. After a nice lazy morning, we checked out at noon and got a ride to the Buquebus terminal. Buquebus is the ferry service from BA to Montevideo. We bought business class tickets and the service was very nice. They had quite the duty-free shop on the boat, and the seats were big and leather upholstered.
Upon arriving at Montevideo we cleared customs (immigration was done back at BA on departure), collected our luggage and caught a taxi. All was fine until the taxi blew a stop sign and was hit by a bus. Our taxi was totaled. Fortunately, Stacy saw it coming and braced for impact. I, however, was bent over trying to figure out how many Uruguayan pesos the taxi ride was going to cost, so instead of bracing for the impact, my head impacted the glass separating us from the driver. I was a bit stunned. The whole thing was a mess. To our driver’s credit, he immediately got us in another cab, and we were on our way before we might have been detained with a lot of questions. Miraculously, no one was hurt. And we arrived at our lodgings, Casa Sarandi, minutes later.
At Casa Sarandi, we were met by our landlady, Karen. Karen is a delighftul woman originally from the UK who, with her Uruguayan husband, Sergio, manage some rental properties in Montevideo. She is a great hostess, and totally briefed us on all the ins and outs of Montevideo, especially the old part of the city where we were located.
She gave us a wonderful dinner suggestion for a restaurant called Dueto, which we took her up on and had a fabulous meal served by the couple that own and run the restaurant.
Vaya con Gringos 