Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia

 Today I flew from Montevideo, Uruguay to São Paula, then to Campo Grande at 10 pm.  I managed to use my Uruguay pesos and STM bus card. Since Uruguay refunds 22% of VAT on tourist services provided to individuals, as long as paid by electronic money, debit and/or credit cards, I tried to use credit card as much as possible. The only occasion was to pay for bus fares in cash.  I already arranged a shared shuttle 4-hr ride to ship me to the hostel in Bonito, Brazil. You bet I will be dead tired tonight. I worked on my trip plan and tried to fix the Google Blogger photo uploading issue in São Paulo airport during my 5-hr layover.  While waiting in line to order a Subway sandwich in the airport terminal, I asked for the person in front of me whether to speak English, he kindly helped to order my sandwich the way I wanted and even paid for my sandwich as a gift 🎁. A very nice gesture by a Brazilian. I received a lot of help during my 3-week visit, from people spoke Engl...

 The temperature suddenly dropped to 50sf, so I wore smart wool under layer and down coat to take a bus to the Montevideo Botanical Garden. I  accidentally crashed a pre-booked tour for the green house by waiting in line with some locals. It was so hot in the green house plus the tour was in Spanish, so I bailed out after 25 minutes.  I also visited two gardens next to the botanic garden, one has a rose garden centered a water fountain, and the other leads to a nice event venue on a hill with a small lake. After the gardens, I walked 1.2 km to the Museo Juan Manuel Blanes which unfortunately was closed to the public to host a private event. Nevertheless, the museum has a very pretty Japanese garden blooming with spring flowers like wisteria, azalea, peony, nemophila (baby blue eyes), iris, etc. South America is now heading into spring.  I took another bus from the museum to the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo. I was expecting a traditional market, yet it turned out to...

I  seriously considered visiting to  Punta del Este  , some call it  Miami or the Saint Tropez of South America . However, the hostel staff came from the area discouraged me since too cold for swimming that there was nothing going on. As such, I visited a few spots in Colonia del Sacramento then bused back to Montevideo directly. I would like to Climb the lighthouse for panoramic views of the city and the surrounding Rio de la Plata. Unfortunately, it was still closed for the day. I then visited the Basilica of the Blessed Sacrament, in the hope to climb up the bell towers to get panoramic views of the city. However, no one was around and the towers were not usually open to the public.  After checking in a better hostel in Montevideo, I got some grocery to fix myself a late lunch. Since it was already late in the afternoon, I walked one mile to visit the Central Cemetery of Montevideo. It was a beautiful, peaceful, and artistic national cemetery, notable fo...

I checked Uruguay bus schedules on sites like URUBUS, which provide information for multiple bus companies. However, I bought tickets at the bus terminal since it was low season. For the same reason, I did not pre-book hostel, but walked in. In this case, I got extra discount below booking.com discount price, since the hostel operator didn’t need to pay booking.com commissions which usually cost 10% to 25% of the gross booking amount, with the global average often around 15%.   I woke up early to catch 8:30 am bus to Colonia del Sacramento filled with old colonial buildings and cobbled streets, and is inscribed on the UNESCO list. Its attractions include wandering the charming Barrio Histórico, historic museums, the oldest church in Uruguay (Iglesia Matriz), and the lighthouse (Faro de Colonia) for city views. The Barrio Histórico has cobblestone streets and well-preserved architecture of the UNESCO World Heritage site, which showcases the fusion of Portuguese, Spanish, and po...