Uruguay is the second smallest country in South America, but still twice the size of Austria. It is located east of the large Rio Uruguay, which is the other big conflux of the Rio de la Plata. Uruguay is called the Switzerland of South America due to its stability, prosperity and wealthyness. A lot of banks are in its capital, Montevideo. The landscape is hilly, green and grassy with many cows. In addition Uruguay has nice coasts on the Atlantic Ocean, Rio Uruguay and Rio del la Plata.

We visited the west part of Uruguay on the shores of the big rivers between the second biggest city Salto and the ancient, picturesque town of Colonia del Sacramento. Colonia lies opposite of Buenos Aires on the Rio del la Plata. It is a good place to park the car if you fly from Buenos Aires to your home city. 

The dam of the hydroelectric power plant Salto Grande is the most northern street  between Argentina and Uruguay. The Uruguayan customs was very strict in terms of fresh fruits and vegetables, so we had to eat our bananas and tangerines before we could enter Uruguay. Unfortunately we had had a rich breakfast few minutes before, so we had to to scrap some food.

The first city Salto is a pleasant town with a nice main square named after the Uruguayan National hero Jose Gervasio Artigas. He had been the first in South America 1764 who had performed an agriculture reform to the advantage of the local people. He had been defeated by Argentine and Brazilian troops 1819 and he had to move to Paraguay into exile. His reform had been removed to the benefit of the European rich landowners, which had exploited the local people.