Leaving Uruguay

Day 20 – Deciding we can’t spend our whole trip in La Paloma

After a few failed attempts to leave we finally made tracks. We’d decided to head to the other side of Uruguay, as it’s quite a trek we opted for the night bus. This gave Ricardo, Juan and Santi all day to try and convince us to stay by continually pointing out how nice the weather was and how the surf was due to improve. But as the sun went down we rolled out of town back toward Montevideo, and after a late night change we were headed west toward Salto.

Day 21 – Hot springs and the Venice of Uruguay

Just after 7am the bus conductor kindly came and told us we had arrived at our stop Termas de Daymán, a hot springs resort some 10km shy of Salto. The town was dead quiet but we found a bakery and sat around waiting for the baths to open. We were about the second people through the gates and we spent a lazy morning cooking ourselves though and watching the place fill up.

Two of the many hot pools at Termas de Dayman

At lunchtime we headed into Salto and toward to port, where we hoped to be able to catch a launch across the river and back into Argentina. The bus stopped a few blocks shy of the port (despite saying “Puerto” on the front) and we soon discovered why. Recent rains in the north of the country had resulted in very high river levels downstream. Sever blocks close to the port had been inadvertently turned into a mini Venice, with boats parked on street corners and many homes and businesses partially submerged.

Flooded street in Salto

Satlo's flooded port

As a result of this turn of events the launches were not able to run (because the port facilities were submerged) and we were forced back to the bus terminal to seek an alternate route into Argentina. We made it just in time the catch the last of two buses for the day (which was delayed anyway due to problems with their ticketing system), and proceeded toward the Argentinean town of Concordia via the Represa Salto Grande, a massive hydroelectric dam that supplies an astounding 65% of Uruguay’s electricity. It was quite a sight, so the unexpected detour turned out to be a bonus.

Our next destination was Posadas, 8 hours to the north, so we bided our time for the afternoon, had a nice dinner (in lieu of a bed for the night) and once again boarded the night bus.