Piriápolis-apalooza part 2

So, after a couple of days in a tourist town, you begin to find the restaurants and bars where the locals go; where the food is cheap and good. Then you can avoid the places that serve over-priced, mediocre fare and half-heartedly try to recreate hip atmospheres for city-dwellers on vacation.

Last night, wandering around the wharf where all the fishing boats dock, we came across a little restaurant amongst a row of shacks selling fresh seafood. A couple of plastic tables outside on the side of the road. Nothing on the menu that doesn't involve fish - panfried, battered, seafood empanadas, mussels. And I guess when your restaurant is situated like 100m from the water, you cut out the middleman, because the prices were half what they would be 1km down the main drag. Mmm.

We ate well and needed it, because it had been frigging hot. 35C at 7pm. We stayed off the beach until 5pm when the sun's rays were a little weaker. I don't know if you can sunburn a sunburn, but we didn't want to find out if it was possible. Instead we went for a little hike up to Fuente del Toro. It's a fountain of a bull made by someone who supposedly studied with Rodin. The fountain ( though there's no water to be seen) is on the top of a mountain with great views of the ocean and surrounding hilly countryside. The forests here are full of eucaplytus; the pleasant smell helped distract us from the excruitiating heat on the way up the hill.

This morning we took the bus to Montevideo, in the rain. There were a group of teenagers in the bus station that had obviously been partying all night long, and were continuing the fiesta with pitchers of beer and bongos as they waited for their bus back to the city.

And now we're just wandering around the capital, waiting to take the ferry back to Argentina. Uruguay is a lot more laid back than Buenos Aires. But I guess we'll have a 3 hour ferry ride across the river toturn back into stressed -out city dwellers...