LOST!

*Warning:  If you are a parent (or especially my parent), please do not use this as an excuse to forbid your child from leaving the country.  This is type of incident is not common in travelling!  I am merely sharing the story for entertainment purposes.*

I’ve been in Buenos Aires, this massive city with subways and trains and over a hundred different buses, for almost 8 weeks, and I’ve never gotten lost. Sure, I’ve made a wrong turn here or there, but there have never been any issues that couldn’t be solved with a glance at a map (okay, maybe a few minutes of studying) or a quick request for directions.  

I find it interesting that I can find my way around BA, and yet I somehow managed to get myself lost in Uruguay within less than 24 hours. However, considering that I have also gotten lost in Lexington, Virginia, perhaps this is not so hard to believe.

Anyway, it all started at a really cute little hostel about an hour from Colonia, Uruguay. I arrived with my friend, Anissa, around 3:30, and upon our arrival, we were presented with the following information. Make sure you don’t miss anything. It’s all important:

1. You can rent bikes for $1 and hour. Just make sure to write down what time you leave.

2. Here is a map of the area.*

3. Nueva Helvetia is a great representation of a typical Uruguayan town. It’s 6 km away which would take you 20-25 minutes on the bikes. Make sure to take the longer route on the map because the shorter one takes you on a road with a lot of traffic.

4. The dairy farm down the street is milking their cows right now. You should go check it out.

5. The bikes aren’t that great, so call us if something happens and you need to be picked up.

*Please note that this map was hand drawn and included several lines and a few landmarks such as a goat farm and a hotel.

So…having been presented with all of this information and planning to leave fairly early the next day, we decided to take the bikes into town that afternoon. At this point it was 4:30, the sun was shining, and we were excited to see a little bit of the Uruguayan countryside.

First, we stopped by the dairy farm. It wasn’t too exciting. We parked our bikes, popped in to take a peek and say hello, and headed back out. I was absolutely loving the fresh air, especially in contrast to the past six weeks of city smog, and I couldn’t get over the fact that it was such a beautiful day.

But as our bike ride started to go uphill, everything else started to go downhill.

Not long into the ride, we decided that we must have made a wrong turn. We’d taken dirt road number one instead of dirt road number two, and that must be why we hadn’t reached the goat farm after about 30 minutes of riding. We turned around and soon found ourselves biking along dirt road number two and passing a sign for the goat farm. Although we were happy to be going the right way, we were a little concerned that 45 minutes into a “20-25 minute ride,” we had not reached the first landmark.

Around 5:30, we started to get frustrated.  Actually, Anissa might have been frustrated before then, but I was too excited about being in Uruguay to notice.  We were tired from the hilly terrain, and Nueva Helvetia was nowhere in sight.  We finally passed a street sign, but unfortunately, it was not on our map.

Not too long later, we came to a busier street (that was actually paved) and a sign for the city. But we were quite confused upon reading the sign which proudly welcomed us to Colonia Suiza. This would have been great news if we hadn’t been expecting and hoping to arrive in Nueva Helvetia.

At the point, we decided we had seen enough of the town and should probably get home ASAP. The orangey pink sky inspired us to take the shortcut despite risks of traffic since darkness seemed to weigh in higher on the danger scale. So we turned right for a 6km straight shot back to the hostel.

Yet somewhere in between the hotel and the first turn on our map, we must have missed something. Because our map did not include any forks in the road. And it definitely did not include any dead ends. And it also did not tell us what to do when the sun began to dip below the horizon.

 Finally admitting that we were officially lost, we decided to stop and ask for directions. The first few houses we passed seemed empty, so we parked outside the first place where we saw movement inside. Intimidated by the plethora of barking dogs outside, we stood at the gate and yelled “Perdon!” until a man came out to see what we wanted.

This very friendly guy studied our map for several minutes before offering an apologetic smile as he said, “Ayyy…muy lejos…” (you are very far away). He gave us slightly confusing directions to get back to the main road, which would then put us just 6-8 km from the hostel (by now I was severely frustrated with the United States’ resistance to using the metric system like everyone else in the world). We hopped back on our bikes and quickly realized that neither of us were going to make it 6-8 more km, however far that was.

We stopped at the first landmark we came to, an old people’s home and decided to call for help. We had resisted this option until this point because my Argentine phone did not work in Uruguay, and Anissa’s international plan was something ridiculous like $20 a minute. But being lost in what was now complete darkness, we decided it was time to call.

As Anissa dialed the hostel owners, I talked to a woman that had just pulled into her driveway at the house across the street. She was the second Uruguayan we encountered who was SUPER friendly and helpful. While I talked to her, I noticed Anissa getting very anxious on the phone. This was confirmed when she hung up and immediately started talking to the woman in frantic English. I calmly reminded her that the woman didn’t speak English, and she proceeded to relate what had happened over the phone. Here’s the gist of the conversation:

“Hi Miguel. We decided to take the bikes into town, and we’re very lost and it’s getting dark. Do you think you could come pick us up?”

“Hmm. I’m not sure. You have two bikes and we don’t have a very big car.”

“Well the woman we are talking to says it is very dangerous to bike at night here.”

“You are right. It is very dangerous.” (Prepare for the story’s highlight) “You should go to the supermarket and buy a light.” (Is he for real right now?!)

“Well, we’re actually not sure where the supermarket is. We’re lost.”

“Hmm. Call us back in 10 minutes.”

I would like to give Anissa props for staying calm throughout this conversation. Only afterwards did we begin to freak out as we proceeded to eat all of the snacks in Anissa’s backpack (stress eating is no joke).

Realizing that buying a light was a ridiculous idea, we decided to take the woman’s advice to take a taxi. She told us we could leave the bikes with her, and the hostel owners could pick them up at their convenience.

Another frustrating phone call later, we had everything squared away, so we hopped in the taxi to head back to the hostel. At the end of the day, it all worked out fine. We had to pay five extra dollars for the trip to pick up the bikes. We learned that either Uruguayan people are super nice or God was being super gracious in answering our panicked prayers (or possibly both). And we came home with a story of how we survived being lost in Uruguay.

Anissa and I in Colonia

horse at the hostel

Colonia, Uruguay

kitties at the dairy farm