September 26,

Up and about by 0730. We went down to breakfast spread here at the Hilton. It was buffet style with a heated selection of eggs, bacon, asada of pork, & a stir fry entree; plus many other kinds of pastries, breads, & sweets; and cereals, fruits, yogurts & drinks. A large assortment was available and it cost us $15 each. So we made sure we ate our share. After we finished, we went back to our room. Jeff packed, as I started yesterday’s blog.

We checked out by 1030 and climbed into an E-hailed Cabify to the bus station. We arrived at 1045; scanned our printed tickets (Jeff had them printed at the Holiday Inn, which they did for free.); and only waited a couple of minutes for our bus. We boarded, and the bus backed out on time at 1115. Our seats were on the lower level and we shared the compartment with only one other person.

The airport was our first stop, and this was not very far, but it was our first time seeing it in the daytime. It was nice looking. No one boarded nor left at this stop so it wasn’t very long. The bus now went out of Montevideo. The route took Hwy 8, which isn’t the coastline road we’d expected to be on. But we got to see more of the interior of Uruguay this way. It is relatively flat – some rolling hills, being a mix up of farm areas and forested land. We saw lots of sheep and horses, but not the cattle as Leon had said yesterday. I was beginning to wonder about the cows’ absence, then we finally started seeing some, but not as many as I expected. The bigger herds must be more inland?? I also noticed the absence of termite mounds that had been so prevalent in Brazil. Maybe we are too far south? Questions, as always??? Overall, the structure of the houses seem to be an adaptation of the adobe style.

The road changed to Hwy 9 and then onto Hwy 10 which is along the coast. We started making some stops along the way as it is now more city into city. We arrived at Punta del Este, our destination at 1330. I “camped out” in the bus station – with our luggage, as Jeff went to get our car rental. He returned faster than I expected. Our car is a silver/gray manual Renault Kwid. It’s still a four door, but very tiny. We went to a couple of grocery stores to get basic stuff we know we will need, and check out different stores – as we will be here one month. By this time it was time to check in to our AirBNB.

We met our host at the building and he took us in. Wow, wow, wow! Our views are spectacular with two whole sides of the apartment being a windowed balcony! One side is the river view and the other side is the Atlantic Ocean. He showed us the in and outs of the “penthouse suite”…as he likened it to being. He even took up one floor (third and roof top) to show us the gym, pool, and game room. These are free for us to use. There were also two rooms that we can rent if we want to BBQ/grill meat, but you have to book and pay for these though. The host lastly took us down to the parking garage and showed us the parking space that we can use. With that he started to leave us and remembered about the electric meter…we did not know about this, but it was on the AirBNB listing. We will have to pay for electricity. Now he did leave us and Jeff pulled the car in and we unloaded. The small apartment complex has two shopping carts in the garage level to aid in unloading…this is brilliant and very thoughtful! We unloaded and sorted stuff – putting it away, and also took stock of what else we may need. That accomplished, we went back to two other grocery stores for stuff and to check out these stores. We took this all back and had supper of a Greek salad and a baguette with hummus. Then we settled in and just enjoyed our 180° views and had a good sunset from our roof.