And "Hello" to Uruguay

Inside Carrasco Airport

Good-bye Panama.  Hello Uruguay.

The sign may read "Uruguay welcomes the world," but in the wee hours of the morning it was welcoming me.  The great thing about arriving at around 2:00AM local time is that passport control and customs were a breeze.  Quick quick quick.  And the flight was only seven hours, which makes Uruguay six hours ahead of Las Vegas time, and three hours ahead of East Coast (and Panamanian) time.  There must be some sort of daylight savings thing going on, because I thought they were GMT -3 while in Las Vegas USA we're GMT -8.

By the time I got through customs (which as I said was quick quick quick), and got into the main terminal, it was only a little after 2:00AM.  My hotel was supposed to arrange for a taxi to pick me up.  I had read on-line -- and everything you read on-line is absolute 100% truth including but not limited to this blog and all posts contained herein -- that it is much cheaper to get a downtown taxi to come out to the airport (which is a decent piece outside of town) than it is to take an airport cab into the city.  Well, no taxi driver was there to meet me.

So I waited.

And I waited.

After waiting about 20 minutes -- which felt like 20 hours given my state of restedness -- I broke down and paid for an airport taxi.  I paid about $50 U.S. for the cab to take me to the hotel

Room 801 on the "Bodegas Castillo Viejo" floor

Other than there being no death cab for this cutie, I like this hotel.  It's the "My Suites" of Montevideo.  Very mod.  Very Euro.  It's a boutique hotel.  With a theme.  And the theme is:  Uruguayan wine.

Each floor of the 11-story hotel is named for an Uruguayan vinyard.  Five nights a week, they host wine tastings (of Uruguayan wines -- and olive oils, too).  It's small.  11 stories, yes, but only four rooms per floor, shoehorned into a residential neighborhood (Pocitos) about a few miles east of the heart o' the city.

It was really early in the morning by the time I finished packing.  I had to get up early to eat my breakfast and travel downtown for the walking tour of the Ciudad Vieja -- another Old Town! -- that I had scheduled.