Wood And Wine Colonia del Sacramento

... You must ask for the check in all Latin American countries.

Nick meets his roommates: Lisa and Michael from Bristol, England. Awesome people. Instant friends, talking then going to dinner together. It just happened to be 10pm local time, though I thought it felt like 7pm. 10pm is a pretty normal dinner time here. We lost an additional hour going to Colonia. The restaurants all have ...

... pick up our bags and attempt to cross the border to our hostel in Argentina - by public transport.

Five busses later and dripping with sweat, we arrived at the uber trendy Hostel-Inn. A former casino, it looked like paradise – relaxed travelers lounged around a huge floodlit pool and Jack Johnson music floated out from the main building. Sadly we were only there for one night, but made the most of it with ...

... streets, colourful houses and little cafes everywhere. It is easy walking distance from the ferry terminal, although a number of our more lazy fellow (dare I say US) passengers rented little golf buggies available to hire at the terminal.

Having enjoyed another piece of steak (now fast becoming the staple diet) and some Tannat Uruguayan wine at a lovely little ...

... a treat! I don’t normally drink, but I think I could develop a taste for icy cold Uruguayan Pilsen beer. While we were having our drinks, many young people were riding up and down the streets on their little motor bikes, none had helmets and all looked very free and happy. Some were sitting side saddle on their motorbikes with the big Pilsen beers in their hands. Some motorbikes had 3 or 4 people on them, some families, some ...

After a couple of nights in Montevideo, I moved back to Colonia Del Sacremento. It´s a very small town which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It´s old part was built in the 1600´s by the Portuguese, and they used it as a place to smuggle goods to Buenos Aires. The town still has a lot of the original houses, streets ...

... but as there only means of transportation.

We found a Bed and breakfast type hotel near the beach, and well out of town. Beautiful place and included brekkie.

There was an old unused bullring nearby, long since deserted and definitely not used any more. We called in to a shipwreck museum just down the road from that. Really interesting but all the supporting info was in Spanish - should have ...

... by the Portuguese in 1680. Because of its strategic location near the point where the Uruguay River joins the Parana River to form the Rio Plata, and therefore, its ability to control access to the vast areas to the north, Colonia was the site of on-going battles between the Spanish and Portuguese. Remember that in 1494, the Spanish and Portuguese had ...

... tour of the newer and older areas of the town (respectively), wandered around and returned home that night. I think we were both ready for the slow boat to be the 'fast boat' on the way back home though! We were lucky with the rain, it timed itself perfectly to coincide with our bus-portion of the tour. This trip was really one of 'sightseeing' more than 'reflection'-- so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking!

... Hostel El Espagnol). The hostel was lovely and had bright rooms opening onto a very picturesque central courtyard. The only drawback was that we were in a dorm (the first time we had tried it - it was ok but not really for us, we´re both old codgers now who like our privacy when we go to sleep).We dumped our stuff and headed out to explore. Now, there´s not much to this wee town but we could see straight away why so many Argentinians hop over to visit. It was the ...

... In the evening, we met a couple, brother and sister who from Colombia and travelling around Argentina and Uruguay. We took the opportunity the ask questions about their country, as we will be visiting it in a few months time, then we had dinner and some beers in the hostel, before going to bed, the next day our bus to Montevideo was leaving fairly early, and we walked with our backpacks down the hill to the bus station to catch our bus.