We have a new number one low on our list of destinations...Santa Lucia or as the tourism webpage for Uruguay described it, the Romantic Circuit. We didn´t get off to a good start crammed on a local bus in stinking hot weather for nearly two hours. Upon arriving we lugged our gear and the boys for what felt like miles before finding one of only three hotels on the edge of town. We felt like alien visitors and as we puffed through town it began to dawn that perhaps there was a reason the locals didn´t see many overseas tourists. We booked into the only open hotel that once upon a time would have been grand but now was a shadow of its former self. Dumping the bags we dragged ourselves around the streets in search of these crumbling romantic ruins and when we found them failed to see any romance in them at all. Decaying and crumbling would more aptly describe them. We did have the best value icecreams of the trip that afternoon and a couple of cold beers perked Paul and I up. The boys really enjoyed eating their tortas frittas, fried potato bread, on the grass along with all the other locals escaping the heat later that night and it is quite a sight to see the locals riding round bare back. We decided one night was definitely enough and in the morning woke up to discover we were under seige from bugs, 1000´s of them had congregated in our door way. We hot footed it pretty quickly up to the bus stop and got out of there. I suppose it is good to escape all the lovely tourist destinations and get a glimpse at the real Uruguay but having said that it was a relief to arrive back into the gorgeous town of Colonia again. Today we have come to see Real de San Carlos home to a bull ring over 100 years old and will spend the rest of the day meandering around Colonia.Our trip is rapidly coming to an end. Tomorrow we catch the bus to Carmello which is a riverside town an hour or so down the coast for one night. From there we catch the ferry into Tigre, Argentina for another night and then its back to Buenos Aires for our last two nights. Ciao M x