Stepping into a Fairytale

We took a bus from Montevideo to Colonia del Sacremento, two hours west of Montevideo. The bus ride was quite pastoral-gentle rolling hills of green wheat fields (because it is spring) and vineyards.  Arriving in Colonia was not just pike rolling the clock back it was like being somewhere where the clock seems to tick a few seconds slower.  The city is small.  The historic center is on a small peninsula about a half square mile large.  The area immediately outside the old city wall is almost as old and this is where our hostel was and most of the businesses and restaurants.  All of the streets are shaded in maple trees with new green leaves and all of the streets are cobble stoned.

After checking in we made quick friends with a Chilean girl who had been on our bus and together we went to grab a late lunch.  We had a chivito platter, a plate of steak covered in fried eggs, ham, cheese and served on a bed of fresh tomatoes and fries.  Haha sounds like a heart attack like a chorrillana from Chile.  It might be, but it's a delicious heart attack.

After lunch we walked around the historic center.  It was like being in a storybook.  It is hard to describe without pictures, (there will be photos one day...).  The town is a former Portuguese colony from the 1650s.  The waterfront, along the River Plata had a number of contemporary beach houses.  It is amazing to think that people live amongst the colonial structures in this town.

> There were many interesting buildings to photograph as we wandered aimlessly.  There was a lighthouse, the ruins of a convent, a number of mansions with courtyards, the old church, a tower along the waterfront, industrial dock buildings, old drugstores, and the original city walls complete with drawbridge.  One street in particular was so perfectly charming.  The entire street features all original colonial houses.  They have settled over the centuries, leaning left and slouching right.  Plants and grasses grow out of the thatch and tile roofs.  The walls are painted in shades of red, orange and pink.  The sun was just beginning to set do our timing to photograph was right on. I think we were ready to just sit down in the center of the street and never get up again.  But we did, it was a good thing because for dinner we had beef Milanese where one portion was enough to feed both of us.

The next day we went horseback riding in the morning.  The ride was over two and a half hours.  At a leisurely pace we went from the horse ran h amongst vineyards and wheat fields, through native forests of trees covered in epiphytes, to sandy grasslands and then the beach.  Unfortunately with all the recent rains, the river water was super high and most of the beach was underwater.  Our horses had to go out into the waves in order to get around the coastline trees.  It became obvious we weren't going to make it very far in this way so we returned to the ranch via a country road. It got pretty funny from this point because our guide who didn't speak any English and whose Spanish was a mumbled mess to our ears could not make his horse go anymore.  Ching Jen's horse, Chiquita, a white mare, started binging on food.  She stopped to eat every few minutes.  Meanwhile, Jon's horse, Estrella, a light brown horse rocking a Justin beiber hairstyle, was finally ready to tro and led the way back to the ranch.  This was in stark contrast to earlier when it had a difficult time keeping up and had stopped at every muddy puddle to go around.  Everyone made it back including our guide who spent a lot of time picking flowers for some reason.  He did dance a hula for us so that part was worth it.

After the horseback ride we walked around the artisan fairgrounds and then the old port. We spent the afternoon walking around the historic center again and sitting for a drink at a cafe. We went up the lighthouse to see a view over the town and the river.  The cafe had a couple of old fords staged to set the scene of the the town pre- WWII.  One car was set up so that two people could eat inside another had plants growing out of it.  It was fun to watch people come around the corner, first be excited to see the cars and then notice the table inside or the plants.  We waited long enough to catch the sunset over the river.  It was pretty brilliant.

The following day we checked out of the hostel and caught a bus to Carmelo, a town upriver in Uruguay.  From Carmelo we caught a ferry, a hydrofoil to Buenos Aires, through the delta and the many islands.  We had a couple of hours to kill in Carmelo and it was super nice to sit alongside the river and relax.  The crossing in the delta was very scenic.  The sunset was magnificent.  It definitely felt like a pretty posh way to immigrate from one country to another.

We arrived in Tigre, a suburb of Buenos Aires and easily took a train and the subway to our hostel in Palermo, Buenos Aires.