07/01/2019 – Colonia, Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina

We woke up and Josh ran to the shop around the corner and bought some fresh croissants. We have spent all our Uruguayan cash so are now using a few dollars. The lady apparently tried to charge over double what it should have cost after looking at Joshs $5 note! Luckily by now, we can sometimes stand up for ourselves, and so Josh managed to pay the less than $2 that it cost and the lady got a bit embarrassed! It has to be said that we look forward to not being mugged off at every opportunity! You have to be on your toes here at all times. I suppose when it is a short holiday it is less bother, but after 10 months of people trying to take advantage of you it gets quite frustrating and does create a funny kind of dynamic. We had breakfast in bed and then finished packing our things before walking a few blocks down to the ferry. Colonia is such a small place but we absolutely loved the short time we spent here and would recommend visiting! We checked ourselves in and went through immigration quite quickly. We boarded and the ferry was a lot quieter than when we had come to Uruguay on 26th December. We got seats inside this time and made ourselves comfortable. We spent the hour ferry crossing writing a list of things for mum and dad to bring us from home, and a list to help our friends Henna and Joe pack - they are coming out to meet us in Brasil and then will go on to travel in South America for a few months. Think we have developed some good packing/travel hacks which I will have to do a separate blog post for! We disembarqued and hopped in a taxi to our air bnb in Palermo, right next to Plaza Armenia. We checked in. We have a tiny studio apartment, but it is perfect, a small bathroom, double bed, and a little kitchenette. I think it is brand new! The host had good reviews from her other properties and it was really cheap. We set our bags down and went to the supermarket a few blocks away, which was noticeably cheaper than Uruguay! We made ourselves some chicken wraps for lunch and then walked a little way to the cambio we had used a couple of weeks ago to change some dollars into pesos, both for us and for when mum and dad arrive. We are trying to get busy jobs done today so that we can have a chill day tomorrow! When we got back we spoke to mum, dad and Finn on a video chat, and I guided mum a bit haphazardly around my room to find some clothes and makeup to bring out with her for me. I cant wait to switch things up a little bit to get me through the last couple of months! After the chat we had about half an hour to chill before we showered and headed out to a tango night. Joshs brother Daniel has an Argentine friend in Buenos Aires, called ‘Fernando’ and we had organised to meet him tonight. We met outside a cultural centre down the road and went inside to a busy community centre with lights, music and dancing! We joined for a tango lesson followed by a salsa lesson, which Josh and I absolutely loved! I think salsa comes a little bit more naturally to me than tango, which felt a lot more formal and rigid. It was a fun few hours, and we met lots of people as we had to change partners every 30 seconds or so. The instructors were male so it was really cool when I got to dance with them and really dance properly! After the lesson Fernando took us down the road to a restaurant that was heaving with locals! It was really fast, really affordable and had a great atmosphere! We let him order for us and enjoyed dinner. It was about 22:30 by the time we ate, which is normal here! We left and walked home by about midnight, where we said goodbye to Fernando who only lives a few blocks away too. He was a really friendly lovely guy and it was so nice to chat to a local! When we got in we showered, went to bed, and had fallen asleep before even the intro of Breaking Bad!