COLONIA, URUGUAY

I woke up early in the morning in Buenos Aires to get to the ferry on time. I had a ticket on the 8 a.m. Buquebus boat to Colonia del Sacramento, more commonly known as Colonia. I could have taken a more expensive boat that gets there in one-hour, but I was told the cheaper 3-hour boat was more enjoyable. The boat terminal was only a 10-minute walk from my hotel and I arrived even earlier than the one hour they recommend. I got in line to check in and got my boarding pass, pretty much like an airport. Then I went through immigration to get my passport stamped by the Argentineans on my way out, then they hand your passport 3 feet to someone sitting next to them who stamps you as incoming for Uruguay. I was impressed with the efficiency of that system.

I was in line early and got on board as quickly as I could. I knew from European ferries that I have taken that the best seats go quickly and the stragglers can have a pretty miserable voyage. I got a first-class style seat in the main cabin with no other seat next to me and the 100 or so seats in that area quickly filled in. Only a very few seats had a view of anything, and that view was only of the mud-colored water of the estuary that divides that part of Argentina with Paraguay. If I had left my seat it would have been gone, so I was pretty much committed. Those who told me this was an enjoyable ride must have different standards of enjoyment than I do. It was a comfortable seat in a large room for 3-hours, but there was nothing particularly enjoyable about it.

People were sleeping on the floor behind me and it looked like there were more passengers than places to sit overall. I got up when we were about 15-minutes from port and walked around a bit. In the center of the boat there was a very large Duty Free store with no one shopping in it. People were lying on the floor, but there was room for a huge Duty Free shop. Someone must be making a killing off Duty Free shopping since every imaginable opportunity is exploited. I find it strange since the whole concept is that it is tax-free, so the municipalities would seem to have nothing to gain, right? We got off the boat without having to deal with immigration since they took care of that in Argentina. I walked off the boat and found a sign with the name of the tour company on my ticket. I must admit, it’s very nice to have a prepaid ride you can trust when you arrive in a mysterious new land.

The dock is about a 10-minute walk from my hotel, but I didn’t know that at the time and I had to wait about 20 minutes for the last people in our small group to arrive at the van. Off we went and soon I was dropped off, along with a German mother/daughter at our hotel, La Mision, right in the middle of the main town square. The location literally could not have been better and the hotel was a charming colonial house that had been converted into an upscale hotel with about 10 rooms total. The people running it spoke reasonable English and were very helpful. The rack rate said $70 per night but I was probably paying about $40 as part of my package, maybe even less. Maybe these package things aren’t so bad after all?

The woman at the front desk at the hotel recommended I explore the old city on foot. It’s a very pleasant town, especially the old city, which lies behind the old city walls. The strange thing is there are many large trees in the city, especially in the plazas, which makes it very rustic, but also ruins any kind of longer view you might otherwise get. I think the architecture of the town might be very photogenic, if not for all the trees, strangely enough. The town seemed dead, but it was a Monday and it’s a small town. There really isn’t much to it. I walked around for an hour or so and felt I had already absorbed the old town. I climbed the lighthouse and looked around, but there wasn’t much more to see or do. This is a very popular getaway for people from Buenos Aires and I think the main reason is just that it’s close, quiet and relaxing. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “If you are bored of London you are bored of life” well, you could say the same thing about Colonia, but with a slight change. “If you are bored of Colonia you are bored of life, either that, or you’ve been there for more than 3 hours.”

There is a long beach along the coast that leads from the old town toward a mostly disused entertainment complex built around 1910, but I never saw too many bathers. The beach is nice enough, but just like Buenos Aires and Tigre, both along the same “river”, the water is a very muddy brown and doesn’t look particularly inviting or refreshing. I’m sure it’s clean, it’s just that the current is turbulent enough to constantly kick mud into the flow. It’s not like you come out with mud on you, but still, not many people were on the beach or in the water. I noticed there were very few cars in the old town, but a ton of motor scooters.

The restaurant scene was pretty much identical to Buenos Aires, not surprisingly. Most restaurants specialized in beef, which was fine with me as they were also cheap and the quality was high. There really was no nightlife that I could see, but there was a festival set up in the town square in front of my hotel. I had high hopes for that, especially when I heard dance music blasting from a big sound system for sound check. There were food booths and a main stage set up with rows of seating in front of it. I was told the music would start at 9 p.m. and it did. First there was a choir that played with all the energy and enthusiasm of a Christmas choir. Okay, what was next? I had a couple of cheap beers from the booths and waited, and waited. The choir was it. They sang for hours. This was their “Colonia Days” celebration that lasted a week on the anniversary of the founding of the town, so I assume these must have been patriotic or standard tunes, but they put me to sleep.

On my second and only full day in town I decided to go rent one of those scooters. There were two locations of Thrifty Rent-a-Car in town that also rented bikes and scooters, but I found a cheaper place near the boat terminal. For $8 I could use a powerful moped for the entire day. It was small, but tore up hills and reached high speeds on straight-aways. I must admit I was pretty nervous since this was the first time I had ridden a moped in 25 years since I almost died on one. I was very cautious the whole day, but there was so little car traffic that it really wasn’t too dangerous. My first stop was the old entertainment complex about 3 miles down the beach. I mainly wanted to see the horse racetrack there, which is the only part that is still operational, but this was a Tuesday and I was told they only run on Sundays.

I got lost first, but was directed to the hipodromo by a construction worker. On the way to the racetrack you pass the old bullfighting ring, which was opened in 1912 and closed two years later when bullfighting was banned in Uruguay. It still sits there, slowly falling apart, and my guidebook informed me that there is a hole in the fence that you can climb through to get inside. I did that, then off to find the racetrack, which is nearby and also is falling apart, even though it is supposedly still operational. It was interesting to see, but soon I was on my way back to the old town. I did a few laps up and down every street in town, then back to the bullfighting arena, then back to town before I called it quits on the moped. I used it for about 4 hours so I easily got my $8 worth, especially since there is no other easy way of seeing the entertainment complex.

That evening I anxiously waited near the bandstand to see what the evening’s entertainment would be. It was a Latin band of some sort, less sedate than the choir, but still of no interest to anyone not living there. The whole town seems to show up, so it’s interesting to see what a local festival is like, but it doesn’t really cross over, entertainment-wise.

I was told a ride to the bus station would be at my hotel at 10:45 a.m. for my 11:00 a.m. bus. I was nearly ready at 9:40 a.m. when my phone rang. My ride was there already. Oh. I got myself together quickly and went downstairs and only then did I find out there was a one-hour time difference between there and Buenos Aires, at least during their summer. I was living on the wrong time for two days! I imagine there was a reminder on the boat, but it was in Spanish only. Also, it occurred to me that the town festival was really starting at 10:00 p.m., which is pretty damn late, especially since many children were there. I think they probably ignore the time on their watches and just stay synched with Buenos Aires the whole year. It was only just getting dark at 10:00 p.m. anyway.

A prepaid taxi took me about a mile to the bus station and the driver cheerfully made sure I was on the correct bus since we were there only a couple minutes before 11:00 a.m. The bus departed on time and was scheduled for 2.5 hours to Montevideo. That’s not too bad and the bus was reasonably comfortable. Colonia is probably the third most prominent city in Uruguay and Montevideo is obviously number one, so I assumed it would be a non-stop trip, but I was wrong. Every ten minutes we would stop to let someone off and/or stop to pick someone up, and very often there were other buses waiting for us at these points and we exchanged passengers with them. Evidently they have a whole bus network and it drove me nuts. The bus was half empty one minute and totally full the next, then a quarter of the people would get off and 10 new people would get on. The fare on my ticket said it was only a $6 ride, but I would have paid triple that just for a non-stop trip.

Sure enough, about 2.5 hours after departing we arrived in Montevideo. It seemed like longer and I’m sure it could be done in 90 minutes if you really tried.