October 23, 2018
One week in Uruguay exploring the old town of Colonia and wandering the streets of Montevideo. And, again, eating a lot of meat.
From Buenos Aires I took a ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento (or just Colonia for short) in Uruguay. Colonia is a nice, small city with a Unesco world heritage-listed colonial-style (who could’ve guessed?) old town. The old town is pretty small and I’m pretty sure I managed to walk every street at least twice during the few days I stayed, but at the same time you could always find something new.
One recommendation I got for Colonia was to make sure to watch the sunset. And it was pretty amazing. Blue sky, setting sun, a few ships out on the water, and a faint view of the Buenos Aires skyline far in the distance.
Moving on to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. I had quite a bit of time in the city but still feel like I didn’t see much, mostly because I had a few pretty lazy days and some time for the last preparations for the next leg of the trip. It must be something about the very relaxed atmosphere in the entire country.
I did still see quite a few things though, mainly by just strolling around in old town, city centre, and along the Rambla (waterfront walkway). And yes, they do have a sign.
One of the funnier buildings I stumbled upon while walking was the narrowest castle I have ever seen. I didn’t check any of the history behind it but I’d like to imagine it something like: I want a castle! There’s no space for a castle. I don’t care, just build me a castle anyway!
Like most larger cities Montevideo also have free walking tours, but for the time I showed up they only had it in Spanish. I decided to challenge myself but even though my Spanish has improve a lot over the last month it was still really hard to keep up. But I got small bits at least, and I got shown the most important parts of old town.
One of the things Uruguay is really famous for is meat, and even though Uruguay is a fairly expensive country, especially after travelling through Paraguay and Argentina, meat is relatively cheap, and you get huge servings.
That’s all for my week in Uruguay. Tomorrow I’m boarding M/S Expedition, the ship that will be my home for the next three weeks and take me to Antarctica! Don’t expect any more posts until mid-November unless I happen to run into a penguin with wifi.