My hotel in Colonia was down a steep, cobbled street two blocks from the main street. Very pretty, with a courtyard decked in ivy and higgledy-piggledy steps and hallways leading to my cramped but comfortable room at the top of the house. I just needed a bed and a guaranteed wake-up call. The owner was annoyed when I explained I would be leaving on the 7a.m. ferry (surely something that happens all the time?) but happy enough when I paid cash in advance.

Getting to Buenos Aires would make it worth the early start -- especially if I could then get in to the stadium to watch Maradona's testimonial. The game had been trumpeted in every paper and on every TV news and sports show since I got to South America... a tribute to the country's greatest player... no, make that the world's Greatest Living Argentine... (who's also better than Pele, if you please)... football legends from around the world playing a friendly against the Argentine national side... music... fireworks... all in all, surely well worth an early start.

I rode over to the ferry port in the evening to buy an advance ticket. That should save a few minutes sleep later on. The port is a huge concrete car park with a couple of sheds and a long terminal building. A soldier stands on armed guard in a small watch tower at the entrance.

Inside the terminal building the human contents of several coaches were squeezing through the ticket barrier and on to a waiting ship. They all held Argentine passports and ID cards, and I wondered where on earth they had been - certainly not in empty Punta del Este. (Hindsight: they had probably been exporting cash to banks or friends in Montevideo in advance of the impending financial collapse in Argentina).

At the ticket desk, a tedious wait in what was a remarkably short queue. The officious Jobsworths behind the desk didn't like having their nice, tidy lives disrupted by anything as unseemly as customers. It took an age for me to be called forward. Which is when it transpired that the 7.00 o'clock ferry I was planning to take was actually a jetfoil carrying foot passengers only. Damn.

I put my helmet on the counter and rubbed my head. The ticket desk honcho was unimpressed that I had not worked this out for myself, even though there was no notice or indication anywhere. He harumphed. I needed the car ferry -- which was now boarding, and leaving imminantly. The bike was parked outside but all my gear was drying off in the hotel.

Would el senor like a ticket? No, I'm afraid he wouldn't.

So -- and bear in mind I had to be in BA the next day for the footie -- el senor would very much like a ticket for the next sailing... at 4.a.m.! Ouch. Well, el senor would much rather stay in bed, but needs must, so I bought a ticket for the middle of the night. I paid by credit card as I was running low on Uruguayan pesos, a lengthy process given the attitude of the grumpy tortoise on the other side of the desk. The queue behind me continued to grow.

Infact, I was stepping aside and zipping my wallet back inside the hidden inside pocket when I realised that El Jobsworth had sold me a ticket for one foot passenger only - i.e. no ticket or passage for the bike. I blew my stack and yes, I fear there is a small corner of a foreign land that is forever cowering at the memory of the Ranting Englishman.

What about me not being able to travel by jetfoil because of my bike? What about my helmet? Why the bloody hell was I wearing this hideous GoreTex jacket if I wasn't travelling by motorbike? And now he'd left it off the ticket. Doofus (a word that doesn't translate well into Spanish), plonker and much, much more.

I hear you are thinking to yourself: get a life, Mike, what a stupid thing to get angry about! Shut up, buy the ticket, ignore the ticket fiasco and get on with it! I will, as you ask, but only if you accept first that sometimes pointless and dumb behaviour by a man who just doesn't care and not least because he's in uniform and anyway you're only a gringo can be a Heinous Crime that should be rooted out and Punished. You agree? Thanks. We'll move on.

Anyway, by now it's raining -- sheets of tropical rain, torrents and floods of the stuff -- as I finally get all the tickets I need and retreat by bike to sulk at the hotel.

I also have to inform the hotel's grumpy owner that I'll be leaving even earlier than planned. She looks horrified, but she isn't concerned for me having to wake up in the middle of the night. She's just suddenly concerned that I might want a discount because I'll only be in the room for half the night. I reassure her, and think I see her start to plot how she can rent out the room at 4 in the morning to someone else and make twice the money.

No let up in the rain. I watch an Australian movie about a girl from a Croatian family finding love which puts me in mind of friends in New Zealand who did exactly that. But all good things come to an end, and an electrical storm over the estuary gets so fierce that the black and white TV gives up and dies at a critical moment (oh! how I hope she realises her beloved hadn't betrayed her with her so-called best friend!!) leaving me pacing the room, or trying to, for it remains tiny and cramped.

I pack, pay and pootle over to the port in some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen. I am soaked to the skin.

Needless to say, the '24 hour cafe' is closed. The entire Terminal building is closed. A corner of the coach disembarkation point is half-protected from the elements by an extended high roof. On two sides, my refuge is open to the rain and raging wind. There is no light. I am alone.

On the plus side, I have a fantastic view out across the water at the lightning, which I try with a notable lack of success to capture on camera. Then the rain promptly stops, meaning I have just drenched myself for no good reason whatsoever, and I'm back in a damp blue funk.

I retreat from the port area to a nearby late-night bar. Two pimply teenagers are mutilating the game of pool in a back room. A trio of local gangsters huddle in a dark corner. At least that's what they appear to be trying to look like, all hardman poses and furtive glances. One of them actually wears a fedora. I blame Hollywood.

Actually, they look podgy, cheap and tired. It's two in the morning and frankly they'd be best off at home in bed with a cup of hot chocolate, but there's no telling them. I would be better off there too, but instead it's back to the bike, where I sit for another hour until at last staff arrive and open the terminal to prepare for the ferry and it's passengers.

Swiftly, all around me, locals and regular travellers appear from thin air. Coachs, cars and taxis disgorge families, backpackers, snogging couples and sniggering schoolboys. After a couple of hours to myself I feel momentarily dazzled by the crowds, and then proprietorial of my corner of Uruguay.

The staff working the night shift are sadly no more alive to the possibilities of smiling and civility than the last lot. It matters less, now, as the ferry heaves into sight and the long queues eventually shuffle onboard. There are a handful of cars and coaches on the boat; everyone else enters on foot to be met at the other side.

I am the only person on board who is neither Uruguayan nor Argentine, a fact confirmed by the fact that the Argentine customs official has overslept and I alone remain, passport unstamped, on land until just before we sail.

It all works out in the end and the ferry leaves more or less on time. I stay down below sitting on a deck chair and holding the bike upright against the swelling seas.

Sinuous roads... Chivitos... Empty roads... Old cars... Smoothly-asphalted roads... Cleanliness... The rain and the bureaucrats can't dilute the fact that I've really enjoyed my stupidly brief time in Uruguay.

Brief? Hah! I've just written the equivalent of a small novel on the events of one evening in which nothing happened except that it rained. Did James Joyce teach us nothing? I feel ashamed, and thank the Internet for giving me the space to get it out of my system.

And I've only reached 4am... For the rest of today, which is now Saturday November 10th, for beautiful Buenos Aires and Maradona's homenaje, I think we should move on to a brand new page.