Showing posts with label Uruguay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Uruguay. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay

From Buenos Aires, one of the easiest and most popular excursions is to cross the Rio de la Plata by ferry over to Uruguay to access Montevideo or another adorable little touristy town, Colonia de Sacramento. When one imagines crossing a river, you probably don't imagine a river that is up to about 200 km wide. If you want to get technical, it's an estuary formed by the Uruguay Parana rivers that creates the border between Argentina and Uruguay and connects all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Because of sediments entering from the other rivers, the water is a nice murky brown color.
There is the option for the super fast 1 hour ferry to Colonia or the more affordable 3 hour trip which has you there in time to walk around, grab some lunch, snap photos of the historical area of the city, and with the 1 hour time change be back in Buenos Aires by 10pm.

Leaving Buenos Aires behind
Big river, right?
Brown water noted
Approaching Colonia
This is what the ferry looks like
Don't worry, this guy is going to catch a boat that big and tie us up
Here's to visiting another country in one day
Colonia de Sacramento was founded originally by Portugal in 1680 and over the years had also been under Spanish and Brazilian control. It's now a part of Uruguay and it's best known for its historic district, a World Heritage Site, that was built by the Portuguese.






It also had a tropical island feel



I loved all of the different colored hibiscus everywhere

You know it's a small world when you run into two of your good friends from Santiago in Uruguay. We forgot to snap a picture as proof of our coincidental meeting, but they were really there, I swear.



Back to Buenos Aires!