Colonia del Sacramento is a small town in Uruguay located just
across the giant river Rio de La Plata (which is formed by the merging of giant
Uruguay River and the Parana River from Iguazu) from Buenos Aires.
By fast ferry, Colonia is only 1h away
from Buenos Aires so it is one of the favorite vacation spots for Portenos
(which means Buenos Aires residents).
It
has a Portuguese root since Uruguay is located between Brazil and
Argentina.
Over its history, the town
had switched hands between these two countless times.
Spain finally won and so now Uruguay also
speaks Spanish rather than Portuguese.
Living between these two giant neighbors makes Uruguayans some of the
most cosmopolitan people we met on this trip.
Many can speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Colonia del Sacramento has an old town core by the shore that is still quite well preserved and UNESCO listed.
The ferry from Buenos Aires was almost full. Most people would continue to Montevideo (Uruguay
capital city) by bus on the same ticket but we stopped here to relax and enjoy the
historic old town. Luckily, the weather
also cooperated and it became sunny, contrary to the weather forecast. After we checked into our waterfront hotel,
we were so mesmerized by our waterfront view we almost did not want to go out
again. It was said that Uruguay has
similar cuisine as Argentina but we were still surprised by the prevailing
smell of BBQ meats all over town. Uruguay
has even stronger mate drinking culture than Argentina.
It was pretty sad to see that the FOEX rate for Argentina
peso was so bad here. In Argentina, one can
get 1:1 between the two. Here in
Uruguay, we were shocked to see all places only offered 1:0.45 to 1:0.6. We nixed our original plan to exchange our
Argentina peso to Uruguay peso and used our credit card instead. We decided to eat at one restaurant that accepted Argentina peso at 0.8 (a bargain here) so that we did not end
up with too much Argentina peso at the end of our trip. Unfortunately, the grilled meat dish here in
Uruguay also came without any seasoning!
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| Waiting at the ferry terminal to Uruguay |
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| Fast ferry to Uruguay |
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| View from our hotel balcony |
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| Ocean view room |
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| Calm sunny afternoon for a stroll |
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| Our old town walk started at this harbor (The small white building just behind Yiling is our hotel) |
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| Happy to see a fellow Canadian boat so far from home |
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| Forte Santa Rita |
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| Old town |
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| Faro Colonia del Sacramento |
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| Some parts of the old town are well preserved |
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| We hope our cactus at home won't grow to this big! |
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| Part of the old wall is still standing |
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| Old town with the lighthouse in the background |
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| Beautiful trees (eucalyptus?) line along all the sidewalks of the whole town! |
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| Ruins of the old Portuguese settlement |
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| Basilica del Santisimo Sacramento - one of the oldest church in Uruguay |
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