Colonia del Sacramento

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We didn´t have to travel far to our next destination, it´s just a hour one ferry ride across the Rio del Plata from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. In our last blog, we talked about being beach bound, and although Uruguay has some of the best beaches in South America, unfortunately we didn´t quite get the weather for it. Temperatures had hit 30 degrees during our stay in Buenos Aires, but on our last morning, we woke up to torrential rain.

We underestimated how big of a tourist draw Colonia is for South Americans, even on a wet winter weekend, and really struggled to find a hotel for our first night, a Saturday. Luckily thw 5 star Radisson was able to squeeze us into an executive room. It was a bit of a splurge for us backpackers, but maybe turned out to be for the best - it really was too wet to go out, and it had enough facilities to amuse us for the day, including a casino where we turned a fiver into 15 pounds on the slots, enough to cover dinner from room service that night.

As nice as the Radisson was, we´re learning on this trip that money doesn´t always buy cosiness and character, so we were more than happy to move on the next day to somewhere considerably cheaper. The rain had stopped, so we were finally able to see what Colonia had to offer, and it was every bit as quaint and pretty as we´d heard. It´s a tiny little place, more than accessible by foot, but for some reason has a huge market in golf cart and scooter rentals, which is how most of the tourists seem to get about. Not to be outdone, we found the only shop in town that had a couple of buggies to rent, and went for one of those instead. Colonia is largely cobbled, and it was just hilarious zooming about the town in this thing all day. And although we´d been warned not to take it onto the motorway, we were able to take it along the main coastal road past the beaches, where Neil put the pedal to the metal, and started overtaking cars. Look at the pictures, how ashamed would you be to be overtaken by that thing?? Although we had to take the shame ourselves when we accidentally drove down a residential cul-de-sac - there´s no reverse gear, so we had to get out in front of everyone and turn the thing round by hand!

It might not be the most glamorous place on earth, but it´s fantastically relaxed, and so Colonia has definitely been one of the highlights of our trip so far. It felt like stepping back in time, almost like living in the Ulster Folk Museum for a few days (well, if it had a casino...) and we had a ball knocking about in our buggy all day and drinking gorgeous submarinos (steamed milk with a big square of chocolate dropped into it) to warm us up afterwards.

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Photos

Cool cars
The first car in this shot is actually a table for two in the restaurant beside.

An old banger
And a car.

Street of Sighs
So called becuase there used to be a brothel here.