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Again, we made it hitch free on this journey... We keep thinking at some point it's going to have to have a glitch somewhere! And then it happened! Once out of the tourist information office, we found a wifi spot to find the address of the hostels had booked.. But there was a second email from the hostel saying they didn't have the room we wanted and had made a booking at the Che Lagarto for us. We stayed in one of these in Rio and apart from its noisy inhabitants it was nice! So we headed into town to see if another place we liked had room, which unfortunately they didn't. So we dumped our stuff at the Che, all looked ok apart from a grumpy receptionist... Must of been a bad day or something. Anyway, with the weight off our shoulders we headed out to explore! The hostel was positioned nicely on the main square of Montevideo, almost all of the sights were on this square! We headed around the corner to the local market, lots of little stalls selling trinkets and the like. Was a nice relaxed way to start the few days... We finished the stroll passing by an African drum troop playing and singing for a tour! A bit like what we had done on the beach before, was a nice surprise! The tour guide told us about the local Africans, only making up 2% of the population in Montevideo, originating from the cities slaves, and a little background about the city. Was great to get a little free tour!
We headed back the hostel to check in and shower... 40 hours without showering takes its toll! This is when the realisation that we had booked into a s*** hole began! Again, a rather rude receptionist copied our passports and gave us our keys... To the room of gloom. No windows, no lock, 2 lockers between 8 people, one pathetic light and one plug which was used for the fan. Dust. So much dust! And the floor was covered in a layer of dirt, to complement the equally grimy walls. This was home for the next two days! After showering Alex and Pickett decided to have a round or two of ping pong... Until reception informed us they didn't know where any balls were =@ we spent the next hour or so looking for somewhere to move to, but we failed. Everywhere else that was half decent was booked up already. So we were stuck!
The next day we got up, heading for the National Football Stadium where the first world cup was held. On arrival, the museum was shut =( there was a dodgy looking fellow asking for £1.60 to go into the stands and have a look around. So we did! The stadium was a state, it kind of looked like the only rennovation since the 1930 World Cup was putting plastic seats in! Anyway, was interesting to see an empty stadium and have a stroll around. We then moved into town lookin for a bar to watch the Wales vs Ireland game as Alex demanded this could not be missed! Carly spotted a tiny bar in the back streets with a TV on. We asked if they were showing the rugby, they said no problem. So beer and pizza in we set up shop. The pizza was amazing! The waitress implied for our £1.30 we'd get a Chicago Town sized pizza... When they arrived we were all pleasantly surprised to see a rather large pizza filling our plates! After a tense game of rugby (no nails left on Alex's hand!) we moved to the market. On arrival the sky was gloomy (although less gloomy than the hostel!) and everyone was manically packing away. Maybe we had come to late. Anyway we got a glimpse of what was around. Lots of animals crammed into small cages. We wanted to buy them all and set them free! And pretty much just tourist junk and fruit otherwise! Anyway, we soon realised why the stalls were shutting up, as the heavens opened! The streets quickly formed rivers on either side as we took shelter. Once the stormed had calmed we headed back to the dive. Again, Alex wanted to watch sport, the Superbowl! We asked if they knew of anywhere showing it. The guy made a few calls and sent us to another hostel. We headed down to it to find Alex had calculated the start time wrongly, by two hours =s annoyingly we found this out just after we had got the beers in! Anyway, we decided to stay, the hostel was clean, airy, had computers that worked and didn't have Skrillex blaring all the time! We got chatting to some Aussies about where they had been (they were doing the opposite route to us) and watched the game. Once finished Carly pretty much dragged a beer filled Alex back to his bed!
The final morning was set aside for us to do a tour of the Theatre Sollis... Which turned out to be closed on Mondays! Oh dear. So we basically strolled around again, as we didn't want to go back to the hostel!
We left for the bus/ferry combo to Buenos Aires... Kind of glad! Looking back on it although the location of he hostel was great it was probably a little too good... It seemed like because it was all on our doorstep we didn't do much. And a nicer hostel would of helped! Anyway, we researched well and booked a lush hostel with our own room in Buenos Aires... Let's hope anyway!
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