The Rio Negro which flows along the city is known for flooding parts of the city. It carry much water from Argentina and Brazil, when it rains there, the city sees more water then it is built for. Irina, my couch surfing host was so nice to show me around a bit.
This way you see is actually a bridge that goes to an island within the river. All the trees should not be flooded, neither should the bridge or the island. Sometimes it gets even worse and the street from which I took the foto from is under water.
There is also this old castle which was currently being repaired.
This is it's front, there is a winery inside which employs only 12 people and is known for its hand crafted wine.
In the evening Irina, who is a teacher, took me to her school. They had a graduation party.
There was live music and dance offs. Some were really impressive, check them out with this link:
On the next day I went to a small town which is called 'la caña'. It's well known for its beautiful beaches. There is no public transport to the town, so I went to the next bigger one and tried hitchhiking while walking to the beach. I ended up walking the 8km without any luck with my thumb.
People here use still some super cool old-timers, like this one.
Or this beauty! After 90 minutes walking I got to the beach and it was absolutely worth it.It's not only beautiful but also without any people! I saw maybe 10 people during the 4 hours I spent there.The trees grow right on the beach in the sand, spending the shadow that is definitely needed.The place is full with tables and places to make Asado. We had over 30°C that day and a blue sky. I tried hitchhiking also on the way back and got super lucky, the first car stopped and brought me back to the city where I could take a bus.These guys in the truck that looked pretty bad were so nice to pick me up.Arriving in Fray Bentos, the city with the public transport, I realized I just missed the bus and had 3 hours to kill in the city. I found this cool park. Fray Bentos, like all other cities I've seen so far in Uruguay looks like it's made to chill. Everywhere are benches, trees, parks and people are drinking mate and enjoying life.I went down there, had another bath and kept on relaxing.. the chill atmosphere here is really awesome and sticks to me. After this trip I did not feel exhausted at all, more like grounded and recovered. In the evening, the last one I stayed with Irina and her family, I cooked gnocchi with a crunchy nut based pesto. Now I arrived in Montevideo and have no idea what to do here for five days but am certain that I will figure that out soon enough. About the riddle a week ago, the solution to the question what the bus driver is doing in this video... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XTLcuBmXE7sw3RxxJKnDTLIaKisvpXwR/view?usp=drivesdk ... actually requires some background knowledge. The reason of the traffic jam is that tobacco farmers blocked the street. They protested against the government because they lacked some payments - the farmers can only sell the tobacco to the government. They would open the street a few times a day - who wanted to pass either had to wait or make a huge detour (the farmers blocked 4 different streets to be more effective). They did that since a week and might still be doing it. So there was no going through at all by car. The public transport brought its passengers right to where the farmers blocked the road, we passed by foot and on the other end was another bus waiting. People here are used to these strikes.. So the bus could easily overtake all the cars because there was for sure no one coming from the other side but the road is small so he can't turn, which is why he turned before and just drove all the way backwards. First off, I want to thank you all for your participation, it was super fun for me! Since I got so many cool responses, I decided there could not be one winner.Here are the best of your answers, everyone who finds his answer will get a card! There was a pregnant woman about to give birth and she had to get to the hospital. The bus got advantage of the capacity of driving through the 4th dimension which wasn't occupied and overtook everyone without caring at all. The bus driver missed his exit and just drive backwards since there was no traffic on his lane due to the traffic jam. He did it for reasons of camouflage - if the police would show up he would just pretend to drive forwards. If it would come to a crash, the driver himself had way better chances to live since the car wouldn't hit him directly.
