Uruguay

Heading to Uruguay via Buquebus at the ferry terminal. Check in is recommended 2 hours before departure and arriving in good time meant that we were able to go through passport control (Argentinian and Uruguayan) quickly and smoothly. Many people were travelling and the ferry was pretty full. We wanted to go to Montevideo and from what we knew before, looking on the web etc. this was a 3+ hour crossing. It turns out that Colonia in Uruguay is the landing point – a 1.5 hour crossing from which a bus transfer takes you to Montevideo.

Unsure about the time we might want to explore Colonia, we booked the ferry crossing – one way – without the additional bus, on the basis that we would get a bus from the bus station later in the day.

Colonia is a lovely, fairly quiet and peaceful town, geared up for tourists of course, but a nice place to have a walk around, eat or go to the beach. One could easily make this a day trip in its own right and to be honest, we would probably had a better time staying in Colonia.

The bus station is immediately outside the ferry terminal, so finding it and booking tickets was straightforward. However, this is a bus service between Colonia and Montevideo, meaning that it stops many times along the way, dropping off and picking up passengers. So it takes considerably longer than the direct Buquebus coach. Nevertheless, the almost fully reclining seats were comfortable.

When we arrived in Montevideo at the bus station, we booked our trip back to Buenos Aires ‘con bus’, this time around. The coach departs from the main bus and coach terminal in Montevideo with check in suggested about 1 hour prior to the coach departure time.

In Uruguay, Uber payments can be made by credit card, and it was about a 20 minute ride to the apartment which was located in an old part of town. This must have been a major area at one time as right across the street was the, now disused, central station.

Just outside of the apartment is the old, now obviously disused, central railway station. The area here is by the old town which in itself although picturesque is desperately quiet.

In fact, finding a taxi in the area to return to the bus station took forever.

Checking in at the bus station was well-organised and the bus left on time. At two hours and 10 minutes, the direct trip is considerably shorter than the service bus that we took previously.

Bags were loaded in the luggage compartment and taken directly to the ferry for collection in Buenos Aires. The ferry crossing was uneventful, although the departure was delayed by about half an hour, but bags came through in good time and were security checked on the way out.