Return to Buenos Aires

By noon, we were back on our feet again, so before catching the bus back to Colonia and then the ferry to Buenos Aires, we headed to Mercado del Puerto. This is the place to be seen and to eat a whole lot—something people here really love! :o) Mercado del Puerto is even bigger than the market we dined at last night. It's one of Montevideo's top attractions, and there's so much to see. Besides all the restaurants inside the market hall, there were also a bunch of shops outside. When we arrived in Colonia, where we were set to take the ferry to Buenos Aires, we got there with plenty of time to spare, so we decided to take the fast ferry instead. We weighed the wait time and the slower sailing duration and figured it was worth upgrading our ticket. It cost 50 pesos per person. The fast ferry isn’t nearly as nice as the slow one, and you can’t go up to the upper deck to enjoy the view over the water. Once we got to Buenos Aires, we took a taxi to the same neighborhood we had stayed in before. However, our previous hotel was fully booked, so now we're across the street at Hotel Gran España for the same price. It's not quite as "gran" as the name suggests, but it works for us! :o) We found a rodizio restaurant where we wanted to have dinner. We know rodizio from Brazil, and it means a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet while waiters walk around with huge skewers of various grilled meats. So good! Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a fancy, snobby place with a loooong wait for a table, so we didn’t want to waste our time there. On our way to the rodizio restaurant, we passed a lively street, so we decided to check that out instead. It felt a bit silly to spend so much money on a really expensive restaurant when you can get delicious food for much cheaper if the restaurant is in a different neighborhood... When they say "large pizza" on the menu, they really mean it! We found that out at the restaurant where we ended up having dinner. We ordered a steak with sides and a pizza to share. It turned out that the pizza filled an entire large serving tray, and it had only cost 15 pesos. Unfortunately, we had ordered a mixed pizza, so half of it came with sardines on it. Bummer! :)