“In our country you can be everything, have every religion you want, love men or women – but at one topic we are not tolerant at all – being vegetarian. That will harm our economy!”

Sounds a bit dramatic but can somehow understand our guide in Montevideo. The small country Uruguay is producing more beef than its huge neighbor Argentina. I was looking forward to taste delicious stakes and red wines and meet up with my friends Linda, Peter and Kade. Read about our time in Montevideo, Colonia de Sacramento, Buenos Aires and Mendoza.

Uruguay

When I started travelling last year I never ever thought about that I will travel to Uruguay. Just having been there for a few days I now already want to come back and travel there for longer.

While I was making my way through Rio my night bus friends Peter and Kade were traveling all the way down the Uruguayan coastal line. For sure they could not resist to send me pictures of amazingly lonely beaches, green hiking treks, glowing oceans at night and stunning country sides. Could not wait to go there myself.

It was definitively worth it. Just the few days in the capital Montevideo and Colonia de Sacramento showed me that I like the country, the relaxed, chilled out but somehow organized vibe. Definitively want to come back some day for a bit longer.

As the grand final before heading to Argentina Uruguay showed me one of the  most amazing sunsets of my whole trip. Hahhhhh.

The next day unfortunately we were heading off to Argentina by boat – oh no – still suffering from my seasickness!

Argentina

While in Bolivia there was a very big share of indigenous groups and Uruguays population was quite mixed, lot of Argentinians have a Italian heritage. When you go to Buenos Aires you will meet lot of lively, passionate and communicative people expressing with absolute every part of their body. Food is important and you can find tons of nice places to eat.

Also an European loving architecture I really liked that aspect of Buenos Aires. Everything feels like Paris, London and a bit like Hamburg – in every street you have the impression to be in an other European city. And that not without any reason. As – in former times – it was very chic to have something European, the formerly very rich Argentinians imported numerous fountains, pillars and even facades from allover Europe. So simple as it sounds – if something in Buenos Aires looks French it probably is.

Especially by going around by bike we explored the different faces of this massive hub. While some areas are super chic and pretty other areas are still dealing with the former recession in the country. The Peso is very volatile so that there are numerous black market currency exchanges. Most of the tourist prices are – for that reason – given in USD.

As this city is so diverse, we would have loved to spend more time to explore Buenos Aires instead of heading to Mendoza.

As Linda and I are pretty spoiled when I come to wine regions in France with their beautiful charming chateaus we were both not blown away by the bike and wine tour in Maipu – the wine town close to actually very industrial Mendoza.

With cloudy sky, bumpy dusty roads and constantly passing trucks we did not really get into the “savoir-vivre” vibe and left after having tasted nice olive oil and a few good glasses of red wine. Well, it was an experience.

Off to my last country in South America – Chile. Look forward to all the amazing pictures from Patagonia. Of course we not heading to Santiago de Chile by plane – last night bus of my travel – here we come.