Montevideo

We only stayed a couple of days in Montevideo, as the weather wasn´t very good, there didn´t seem to be too much to do or see really, and the accommodation seemed quite expensive. The day we arrived the whole town seemed very quite, but then we realised it was a bank holiday, so that was an early night.

We did find a great restaurant though on one of the main city squares that seemed to have a very particular staff hiring policy that seemed to rate personal appearance very highly - the place was very popular with the local businessmen.

I finally succumbed to Sarah´s nagging and got my hair cut (it was long overdue in fairness) by a cool barber guy with 30 years experience and great English. I always find haircuts in foreign countries a daunting ordeal (they´re bad enough at home!), especially after the ´haircut´ I got in Nepal years ago by a guy who hadn´t the first notion what I was asking for and obviously had never encountered curly Irish hair before - nightmare.

We did manage a full day of museum and gallery scouting though, and another day strolling along the beautiful coastline before arriving at the very busy Mercedo del Puerto, a big waterside warehouse full of restaurants and bars. It was a late Sunday afternoon and the place had a great atmosphere (for some reason it really reminded me of a big Irish international rubgy game atmosphere). We´d already eaten so we just stayed for a drink to soak up a bit of the atmosphere. We sat at the counter of a cool open BBQ place with mad staff that were messing the whole time and seemed to be having a great laugh (they really reminded me of zany Italians for some reason!), and we met a cool American guy that just happened to be sitting next to us.

The best night out I had in Montevideo was undoubtedly the Saturday night at the "Fun Fun Bar". It´s a terrible name, but actually a brilliant wee bar with a long history apparently, and it was full of locals all signing along to a small live band that had a couple of cool, smiley ´auld lads playing guitar and accordian.

So after all the big South American cites it was time to try some of the famous beaches, and so the next stop was the town of Punto del Este.