Our little excursion into Uruguay

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Buenos Aires means "good air", although as we walked throught the fumes of the rush hour traffic toward the ferry port yesterday morning, we weren´t convinced. It was nice to get away from the busy city to explore the relatively peaceful Colonia del Sacramento, just across the Rio de la Plata in Uruguay. The crossing takes about an hour and was relatively smooth. The Rio de la Plata is the widest river estuary in the world and for most of the trip we couldn´t see either side (though the haze may be partly to blame for this).

Colonia del Sacramento was settled by the Portugese as a port to smuggle goods across the river into Buenos Aires in the 17th century. These days, some of the original buildings survive or have been restored in the old quarter, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Despite the occasional tour group, the town is generally quite peaceful (it may just be that it was mid-week in the low season), and very relaxing. The old quarter is quite small and can be fully explored in a day, but we decided to stay overnight. We arrived at about 10:00 in the morning and went staright to a hostel recommended by the guidebook. We got a room straight away and were able to leave our stuff and head to the old town. It consisted of mainly cobbled roads, restored old buildings (including the church), and dozens of stray dogs just lazing about, adding to the sleepy town feel of the place.

Our only dissapointment was lunch on the first day as we were served rather undercooked chicken (which they insisted was how it was meant to be). Unfazed we continued exploring the town and returned to the hostel just before a thunderstorm closed in. We returned to the old town for dinner and intended to stay out for drinks but found the place was dead. After one drink in a bar near the hostel, we went to bed and spent the night being eaten alive by mosquitos.

This morning was more relaxed, and spent it walking around the old town some more before settling down to lunch at a cafe by the main square - much better than yesterday. We caught the ferry at 16:00 and are now back in Argentina. Tomorrow, we fly to Iguazu falls. Watch this space!

Jamie

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Photos

Jen posing in front of the Rio de la Plata
I took this photo at the top of the lighthouse