It’s 12:20 PM and I’m writing this at the computer terminal at Tres Cruces bus station in Montevideo.

Tres Cruces – three crosses – must be one of the most comfortable stations I’ve been in. It’s really a combination of a mall, an information booth and a train station. This is Uruguay’s central terminal and you come here if you want a bus to Punta del Este, or Punta del Diablo, or Salto, or to Colonia, or even to towns in Argentina. The trains in Uruguay are old. If you don’t have a car, you take the bus. Tres Cruces is also where you buy your fare for the buquebus (book-eh-boos), which is the ferry that takes you across the bronze water of the Rio dela Plata, between the two capitals. You can also catch the more scenic (and slightly cheaper) water ride offered by Trans-Uruguay from Carmelo to Tigre, a popular Argentina get-away, about an hour to Buenos Aires.

A tall white cross signals where the station is, slightly hidden behind the road.

It’s drizzling faintly outside now, but nothing like the chill rain and sharp wind earlier in the winter. In any case, I don’t plan on going out. I mean to spend the rest of the night here, reading and catching up with some friends. And I thought I’d catch up a bit on my blogging too.

My excuse is that the past two days were a bit frantic, because I couldn’t make up my mind whether to return as I’d planned….or to ignore my ticket and stay on.

The ticket, in case you’re wondering, was $1840 including taxes, which I’m told is a very good deal. I was hoping to get something under $1800 but I missed that….because I postponed my departure from May to June at the last minute…..and then some friends landed up and took up a couple of weeks more of my time. A good time was had by all, but when you’re dying to make a move, it can be exasperating waiting around.

Some tips on picking tickets:

*Always try to travel off-season and on weekdays, if you can.

*Prices on deals aren’t always predictable. It used to be that you needed to book well in advance to get a decent price. But I’ve noticed that these days deals can be had for dates just a couple of weeks ahead.

*Sometimes they’re offered by local airlines, like Lan Chile or Pluna (the Uruguayan airline). Other times, they’re cobbled together in the US by some American airline. A good practice is to check the consolidator sites, a couple of fare-searchers like Orbitz or Cheap Tickets, and then go through the promotions on Delta or American or a couple of the South American airlines.

*You need to do that a few times a week for  2-3 weeks – and bingo, you’ll spot something.

Take home point?

Like so many things, it’s a matter of numbers. Turn up enough cards, and you’ll find the trump.. of course, you’ll turn up a few jokers too. But that’s the way the game goes.

But deal or not, I don’t like wasting something I’ve bought.  So I looked into changing it.

Too bad, bargain tickets turn out to have restrictions. In this case, I’d need to pay a penalty ($200 – not too bad) and then I would have to pay the difference between my return leg and a new ticket. Well, this time of the year, one-way tickets from Buenos Aires or Montevideo to Miami are about twice the price of my round-trip. Unbelievable. And that’s the way it is right through to the end of December. The reason is you have to stick with a one-way on the airline you came from. I almost thought I’d go back and get another round trip and come back in a few months. It seemed smarter than paying $1500 for a one-way ticket. But I didn’t know if I’d have the stamina to repeat this trip so soon.

Anyway, the decision was made for me. …as the best decisions often are. I got up later than I should have. I needed to have left on the ferry by ten at the latest. Instead, I was still going back and forth over the pros and cons.

That doesn’t explain why I’m stuck at Tres Cruces at midnight, of course, but the guard is signaling that I have to close up for tonight and so the explanation will have to wait for another day… adios…