There and Back Again

Thursday 4 February
Buenos Aires, Argentina – Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay – Buenos Aires, Argentina

This was the day that I had booked my one-day-trip to Uruguay. To catch the ferry I had to get up at 6.30 and miss breakfast, which left me tired and hungry, and despite not having drunk much last night I had a hangover too. I took a taxi to the ferry terminal and when the driver found out I was English he seemed to be very keen to talk about, “John Terry! John Terry” Fucky-fucky!” which was a little surreal. He also asked me in his broken English how many times I’d had sex since being in Argentina, which was an interesting topic.

On the ferry the air con was blisteringly cold and the chairs didn’t make it easy to sleep, so by the time I arrived in Uruguay I was worse for wear. Coming off the boat we were led through a series of passageways and waiting rooms that seemed to be untouched from the early seventies, complete with old ads featuring Joan Collins. I started to wonder what sort of place Uruguay was. I had booked my tickets online on a Spanish language website so I wasn’t exactly sure what I was letting myself in for.

Once I’d been through a rabbit warren of passages, gangways and rooms, I eventually found myself in a large, modern, air conditioned building that was the new terminal, one completed building in a series of many that they were in the process of building. There were people holding signs of the ferry I was on. I spoke to one of them and found out that I had also bought myself a walking tour of Colonia as part of my ticket. That was a relief, at least I could get my bearings which, given my tired and hungover state, was a relief. Although I really wanted to sit down and have a cup of tea and maybe something to eat.

Anyway thankfully Colonia is a small town and the tour covered the small, old, historic part so it didn’t take long. Full of facts about the place I finally had my cup of tea and felt a lot better.

Colonia is an old settlement originally founded by the Portuguese as a smuggling port to rival Buenos Aires, and it passed hands between the Portuguese and Spanish nine times before eventually remaining Spanish and ultimately becoming part of Uruguay. The old part of the town if full of picturesque traditional buildings that are very camera friendly. I took a bunch of photos and had lunch and went up the small lighthouse to get some aerial views.

After that I killed time drinking a beer and chatting to a Swiss guy who had been on the same tour as me. He was taking a sabbatical and learning Spanish for 10 weeks in BA. Eventually it was time to get the return ferry. This time the air con was on much lower and everything was a bit sticky.

Getting back to the hostel I relaxed in my room and surfed the web but without being able to sleep. There was no one else in the room so when it was about time to go out I went down to the common area and drank a Pepsi to wake myself up. I heard a group speaking English and introduced myself to them. It was a mixture of English, Australian and Kiwi, with a token Dane.

After a few drinks we all went out for steak and then back to the hostel for rum and coke, and then on to a club in Palermo for more entertainment. And well, there was this English girl and we had a bit of fun but nothing to add to what I told the taxi driver that morning.