The Whole Nine Thousand Yards : Concordia to Salto to Montevideo Sat 4th Jan

We just ain't getting enough sleep these days. There will come a time, mark my words, when we can lie in bed for hours and hours and won't need to get up to attempt to catch a bus that we don't actually catch because we are just getting the bare minimum of sleep and nowhere as much as our little overheated bodies need. It doesn't matter how comfy the beds are.

Out of bed for 9am, a light breakfast, and plans to make the final steps to Montevideo today. Just got to catch a bus from the terminal in Concordia that will take us across the bridge to Salto in Uruguay in an hr, then take a 1pm bus to Montevideo. We'll be there in plenty of time.

So, for the third day running, it is no surprise when we make it to the bus station with time to spare, but the chap in the ticket office refuses to sell us a pass because we are less than ten minutes from departure (and I honestly mean about 8 and a half minutes). Sarah is once again outraged by the persnicketiness of people here, but theres not an awful lot we can do. Their country, their rules, and I most certainly am not fluent enough in his language to have a pointless argument with him (which he will win).

Our very cheerful receptionist last night gave us a map with at least two hundred wonderful things to visit in Concordia. What should we do? Wander the streets of this attractive town, eat some delicious ice cream, perhaps another steak for lunch, and take the 7pm bus across the border that we know exists? Or should we check into a hotel, spend a day sleeping and feel a whole lot better about ourselves?

How about we ask the grumpy chap at the Information Desk when the next bus to Salto is, and he tells us to go to the port and take a boat instead? That's at noon. Take a taxi. No, advises a friendly Brazilian from Florianopolis (all Brazilians are from Florianopolis. It sounds like an incredible place, which makes me wonder why they are all over the continent instead of in Florianopolis), take a bus to the docks. Out on the main street. "OK" says we, and we head out to the road.

Not all bus stations look like Laganside.

"Let's just walk in the right direction for a wee bit" said Daniel "That way we are at least getting closer to where we want to be" Sarah agrees. We walk for a bit and it is very hot. We pass some attractive houses. The road goes on and on. It doesn't feel like we are getting closer. Eventually a bus approaches and we stick our arm out to catch it. "Va a Las Lanches?" Daniel asks. The driver gives a complicated, though affirmative answer. We jump on, and he doesn't charge us, proving that it is difficult to tar all citizens of a country with the same brush. Not that we've had a lot of problems with Argentinians, just that Posadas was a crap place to draw conclusions about the world's 8th largest country.

We drive quite a long way down this road and turn right. "This bodes well" thinks Daniel, as we drive another distance. A junction looms. A couple of women beside us ask where we are going, and upon our reply tell us to get out here and go down the road to the right. Thank you, friendly women of Concordia, your town looked quite lovely.

We walk past this charming Costanera area of Concordia...

... and, after walking a little too far past a building Sarah had noted "looked like a military place, that can't be it", which was, in fact, it, we found Las Lanches. I have officially gotten over the strange masculine fear of asking directions. On this day I asked directions of everyone. It was the only way to leave this city, and it worked. We queued up and eventually a wee woman showed up and sold up two tickets to Salto for £4 each. The customs man was grumpy and kept banging our passports on the desk, but in the end he stamped us out of Argentina. Once again where are nowhere! One thing left to do is peruse the list of forbidden articles, have the chaps check our bags for fresh fruit,veg, meat, semen and other similar products, and ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY SOIL (this is in big bold letters on the poster). Time to catch a boat!

This is a virgin in an oyster.

And this is a bus that we weren't on.

This, however, is the boat that took us across the river.

ooooooooooh!

What you see when you arrive in Uruguay. Could be better, could be worse.

Once again there are just wild dogs roaming around, unowned and unloved, and barking at whatever they figure won't throw a rock at them. They chase all the cars as they pull away from the customs building, and generally bother Sarah a lot.

Uruguay customs is pretty easy. "Excuse me, passports" says the Customs Man. I hand them over, he stamps them, we are in Uruguay. It is a strange feeling to be between-countries, existing nowhere.

Out onto the street. No Uruguayan pesos, no ATM here, we had better just walk until we find something. Later, much later, I read that Salto is the second biggest city in Uruguay, which makes me feel foolish. I spend so much time with my head trying to absorb as much information as possible, but I only ever know 50% of what I really could do with knowing. Its difficult. I am not great with maps on this trip. When you compare what you are trying to learn, that you will only use it for a day or two before you move on, compared with how you gather information for a week's holiday in a single place, you feel the futility of it. We are learning what we need to know, and what we don't, but it isn't always obvious.

And so, in the paraphrased words of Jim Morrison, we walked on down the street.

Salto is a very attractive city. It suggests Uruguay itself, a country derided for being 'a bit like Switzerland' might also be quite attractive all over. Lots of nice colonial buildings here, glorious blue skies, and the odd classic (ahem) car. At ATM yields $1000 peso notes, worth about £33 each. Not helpful, we think, stepping into a small cafe for lunch and nearly choking. The prices are a little higher here, and that is being polite. We might as well be back in Ipanema in Rio as in Uruguay. Food is the most expensive it has been so far. We swallow our sandwiches and chips and slink out the door. We need to find the bus station and head to Montevideo; we have reservations at Hostel Urbano tonight and don't need to go anywhere 'til Monday morning.

We locate the Nunez office and organise two tickets to Montevideo, the bus leaves at 6pm and it's 7 and a half hours to the capital. Not idea, yet again. Now we need to get to the terminal. Yet more directions are asked for, and we stumble surely towards our destination. Sure enough, its not too difficult to find, and we are mad for walking it (although we saved ourselves a few quid in the process).

Yes, that is a horse outside the shopping centre / bus terminal. Yes, those are unused train tracks to the left of the horse (hows that for a Father Ted-esque description?)

ATMs are different here in Uruguay, a little more sparse, and it seems everyone saves with credit unions more than actually banks. The shopping centre is a bit crap and full of stuff you can buy at home. Not that exciting. We get charged a fortune for a beer (about £4 a litre, which sounds ok back home, but we paid £1.50 for exactly the same thing in Paraguay) and we feel a little apprehensive about the cost of staying here. Downstairs is a supermarket; not much better there. Things are approximately half the price of restaurants (a litre of beer is $55 rather than $110) but there isn't a fierce variety of produce here either. Not sure fruit or veg is much better either. As for meat, its also 50% that of a restaurant, which doesn't make it a bargain, given that you have no real way to cook it when you're on the road. The little can of DEET spray that Sarah bought in Paraguay is also three times the price.

I had spent some time on a bus explaining to Sarah why I don't do much gambling - because the sensation of losing a tenner feels far worse than the proportional joy of winning a thousand. It feels a little like that here, like the small amount more expensive it is will feel far harder than the pleasure we took on spending a pittance in Paraguay. A frustrating and unwelcome aspect of human nature.

6pm rolls up and we jump on the bus, very comfortable and bound down Ruta 3 through Paysandú (which Sarah reckoned looked 'really dull' as I slept through it), Young, Trinidad, San Jose de Mayo, and finally rumble through the suburbs of Montevideo.

Lots of wee'uns on our bus and their young mothers. A first hour of squealing eventually becomes several hours of sleeping and we all arrive in Tres Cruces bus terminal struggling to open our eyes. No way I fancy walking these quiet streets in this state, and we take a taxi with a chap who looks like Roberto Bolaño and has a hula hoop in his boot to the hostel, barely costs £3.50, and crawl into bed. No chance of breakfast tomorrow.