Surprise stop, Uruguay

Having had our fill of overnight buses we cheated and took a flight from El Calafate to Montevideo in Uruguay. Uruguay had not been in our plans but it sounded fun! Uruguay, we discovered thanks to our lovely taxi driver from the airport, is the same size as Wales with the same population size, so Ed felt right at home!

Gluten free meal on plane=rice cakes and for desert? more ricecakes!

We spent ten fun days soaking up the sites of the capital city Montevideo with its fabulous Gaucho museum, went on to the beautiful Punta Del Diablo which being out of season was like a ghost town! Thanks to Wedding Gift no.19 and Kate, Nigel and Lyra and the Bridesmaids we upgraded our room to a sea view and it was fabulous, waking up to see the waves. We ate well and drank well and soaked up our last beach time on the trip. Next beaches will be beautiful Pembrokeshire and Dorset coast-just as gorgeous but not nearly as warm!

hmmmm yum, Parilla!

Lapping up the sunshine and sand dunes

Beautiful sea view, thanks to the Smiths and Bridesmaids x

We then decided to travel through Uruguay back to Argentina rather than get back to BA so it was an eight hour coach up to Salta for Ed’s birthday. By this time we were quite accustomed to the local specialities of Chivito (ED) a breaded steak sandwich and Medio y Medio (SARAH) a half and half mix of sparkling white and white wine, not the most sophisticated of drinks having sampled Argentine Torrontes, NZ Savignon Blanc and Ozzie Chardonnay over the last few months but it became my guilty pleasure, not least because they only sell it by the bottle and Ed refused to drink it ; )
So, Ed’s birthday came around and I took him off to the local thermal pools, a kind of centre parks of a place with dozens of pools all different temperatures. It was a fun and relaxing day out, being a Sunday it was full of locals and being Uruguay and a fairly random spot in Uruguay we only saw one other tourist! It was a giggle of a day. Happy Birthday hubby!