Today was Uruguay day. We had to get to the port early to catch our 8:30am ferry. Since this was a border crossing we had to get to the ferry terminal by about 7:30am. We were going to Colonia del Sacramento, an old Spanish colonial town. Colonia del Sacramento is a straight shot across the river (Ria de la Plata) from Buenos Aires to Uruguay. The river is very wide at this point just before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. We were going over on one of the fast ferries. It would take us 1 hour to get across the river. The ferry was very nice with large comfortable lounge chairs and a complimentary cup of coffee. Uruaguay is 1 hour ahead of Argentina, because Argentina does not observe Daylight Savings time and Uruguay does. I'm with Argentina, why do we change our clocks? It is so unnecessary.
So we arrived in Colonia del Sacramento at 10:30am local time. It was very quiet the morning and the weather was just perfect, probably about 80 degrees. The main attraction of Colonia del Sacramento is the old town. In the old town there are the old colonial buildings, the waterfront, and a few attractive plazas. We walked from the dock to the old town and went to find something to eat. We had a nice breakfast at a table outside under a large tree. After breakfast we looked for one of the museums to visit. We had a hard time finding it and ended up on at the water. We watched some guys fishing off of the point. We continued on until we arrived at the marina and took in the view from there.
One of the most frustrating things about this daytrip was currency. The breakfast place took Argentina Pesos, but for the most part you needed Uruguay currency. We only found one ATM and my card would not work. After calling Eric to get a Credit Union phone number (the number on the card was an 800 number and that only works within the US) we were able to verify that everything was fine but the ATM service we had attempted to use most likely did not support the right network. We headed back to the museum where there was an admission fee stated in $US. When we went in they said they would not take any $US. We left and found some tourist police, with a little bit of Spanglish we were directed to another ATM machine. At the machine we finally declared victory and we were blessed with the local currency. However, the denominations were too large, so nobody would want them. That's OK you can go into the bank and for a fee you are given change. That's right, you use the bank's ATM to get bills that are of no use and then get change from the bank for a fee. It didn't matter, we had money and we were going to use it.
Now that we were able to do a few things, we headed over to the museums. There were several very small museums in the old town. A couple were about the history of the town, where both the Spanish and Portuguese rivaled for control. There was a home furnished as it might have been seen in the 1700's. Then there was the lighthouse where you could take in the view.
We walked to the newer part of town, had an early dinner and made our way back to the ferry terminal to check in with immigration.
We boarded the ferry, but this time we were on the slow boat. It was going to take us almost 3 hours to get to Buenos Aires. This was a larger ship with a large duty free store, and was it packed with bargain hunters. Then they had some entertainment, a sharply dressed singer that everyone seemed to enjoy. Then as I walked through one of the passenger seating areas I spotted a guy with an A's hat and a UC Davis shirt. I chatted with him as he was indeed from the Bay Area. He was living with a local family in Argentina while teaching English. He needed to make the trip to Uruguay on a regular basis so that he could renew his Argentina visa.
Finally we arrived at the dock in Buenos Aires and took a cab back to the hotel.
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