It's time

Day 175

The weather is still better than we could have wished for. If one had no clue, one might think it's still the most beautiful summer, but we are in autumn in Argentina, it's the 29th of September. The leaves are slowly turning orange. However, when we stroll through Buenos Aires and visit the spacious squares and widest streets, we do so in glorious 25 degrees and blue sky. So, in the capital, we still have summer for a few more days. We're back.

After a week in Uruguay, we took the ferry back to Argentina from Montevideo yesterday. Here in Buenos Aires, we still have a handful of days until everything finally ends and we go from October to April and back to Germany. What do you think just before the end of such a journey? Good question. Of course, one can't really believe, process, or grasp that it will all be over. That these six months can also come to an end, and that everything will change radically in a few days. I would like to understand that, but maybe, and Linus and I gladly use this as an excuse to avoid exhausting thought processes, our brains simply aren't capable of it. To understand that, we might simply be too dumb. And yet, one thinks a lot and tries to imagine it. That in a few days, I'll be sitting at home in cold northern Germany like normal, complaining that the remote control is so far away. Please, I won't complain about such things anymore.

"Everything has an end, only our journey has two". That's what one of my entries was once called. And now the second end has also come, even though it seemed so far away when I wrote that post. Day 175. One hundred seventy-five. Even writing out this large number doesn't make me understand that we have been on the road for so long and will soon be back. I asked many friends who have also been traveling and returned in recent weeks how it feels to come home after such a time, and they all answered "strange". I believe them wholeheartedly. But I will only experience that when it happens to me, and right now I'm still here in Buenos Aires. I can only speculate and try to comprehend, even though I know that, as I said before, it's not within the scope of my mental abilities.

So, I'd rather tell you a little more about Uruguay, Argentina's direct neighbor, which is separated from Argentina in the south only by a strait, the Rio de la Plata. Exactly one week ago, we arrived in Sacramento, which is only a 90-minute ferry ride from Buenos Aires. I have already told you a bit about the dreamy little town with its special atmosphere. From there, we took a bus far to the east of the country to Punta del Este. We didn't know much about this seaside resort in advance, except that it is right by the sea and marks the transition from the Rio de la Plata to the Atlantic. When we saw the city from the bus in the distance, we were amazed at its size and especially at the many high-rise buildings, which reminded us of other Argentine cities, because we had read that Punta del Este is supposed to have only about 9,000 inhabitants. Later, when we arrived and went to our accommodation, we realized that the ghost town benefits so much from tourism that all the high-rise buildings are hotels that are currently empty at the end of September. But we didn't mind. We rather found the prices of restaurants and supermarkets exorbitant, even higher than in Sacramento, where we had been before. Later, we understood why. I quote my travel guide: "Punta del Este (...) is one of the most exclusive holiday resorts in South America and is extremely popular with wealthy Argentinians and Brazilians; and Punta is also the most expensive place in Uruguay". I think that says it all. Nevertheless, we enjoyed it there very much and went swimming in the ocean one last time on our entire journey. Two minutes later, we were whistled at by a lifeguard because the red flag was hoisted, but the moment counts.

After Punta del Este, we continued to the capital, Montevideo. We stayed there for another two days and felt like we were in a smaller version of Buenos Aires. We explored the city and bought souvenirs in a lively pedestrian zone with many different stalls.

Yesterday, we took the ferry again to the city where the second chapter of our journey began.

I'm sitting at a table in our hotel room. The room is spacious, the prices here are very low again. When I look out the window, I see a big city, tall buildings close together. Loud honking every few seconds.

My tattered travel guide is next to me, which I no longer need and which seemed so new and important to me months ago. My backpack, lying in the corner, is dusty. It's bursting at the seams. The things inside are worn out. My shoes are dirty, the memory cards are full.

It's time.

I'll check in from the plane again.