Blogs from West, Uruguay, South America - page 16

Hey Yall! So I haven´t written in a bit... sorry bout that. Colonia was SO amazing! It is just a sleepy little town across the river but it is a world away. We took a 50 min ferry, which looked like a spaceship on the inside, across the river to a different country, and arrived to a beautiful sunny day. People there use many motorscooters to get around and there are gorgeous antique cars all over! (At first I thought they were decorative until I saw an old couple get in one and drive off haha) We got lunch, checked into our hotel (which was just too cute), and headed to the beach. The water wasnt anything special to look at but the sun was amazing! We literally laid on the beach all day until the ... read more

Tues 29th Oct: Most of yesterday morning was spent investigating the best means of transport to Bahia Blanca (further south along the coast of Argentina); the most economic and comfortable way seems to be by coach. Just before lunch I packed the small rucksack to last me for a few days and left the large one in a locker in the hostel in BA; I checked out and walked to the port - only nine blocks from the hostel. I got the fast ferry (50 mins) across the estuary to Colonia in Uruguay - a picturesque little village with stone-cobbled streets and tastefully preserved for tourists. ´Booked in at a cheap hostel (complete with free bikes and internet access); ´chose a bike and toured around the village - bigger than I first thought, with lovely quaint ... read more

... but all of the relevant stores were closed today. I will go back and add photos at a later date, and I´m sorry I´ll have so few photos of this wonderful place. I took a bike ride today, and it was nice to get some exercise. From the top of the point, the ocean looks blue, and everything was beautiful and sunny today. One of the very wonderful things here is that no one builds up to the ocean, so that the beaches are wonderfully natural and private in a way ... they aren´t in someone´s back yard. Some interesting things about uruguay: They don´t believe in bread here. Its hard to find in the store, and there are no bread/panaderia shops, and the sandwich bread is weird! They make this bread that come out ... read more

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 ... read more

My first attempt at making it to this place wasn't all that sucessful. I managed to haul my ass out of bed on time to hop onto the subte for the closest station to the BuqueBus port (Puerto Madero). I was so happy with my ability to get out of bed until I realised I'd left my passport sitting in the locker at the hostel and I didn't have time to return to get it and still make the ferry. Bugger. It wasn't my brightest moment. I forgot that I was in fact heading for another country and as such a passport is one of those things that should be pretty high up on the list. Instead I booked my tickets for the following day and made a mental note to take my passport. In the ... read more