Another Day, Another Country

With such a late night, no one woke up until about 9:30 a.m. and by the time we'd searched online, we realized that the ferry ride to Uruguay left at 10:00--not enough time--and the next ferry at noon appeared to be sold out. So trying our luck, we went down at 11 anyway and tried to get on the noon ferry to Colinai, Uruguay. As luck would have it, the last three tickets were sold to us. It might have been our charm, or it might have been that Max was willing to flash his toothless grin--he'd lost a crown on his front teeth the night before eating ice cream (I know, I know...ice cream, but that was his story and he's sticking to it). Regretfully on his part, some of the pictures from that day will show him without a tooth. Oh well, such is the price of face and ice cream.

MAYBERRY RFD IN URUGUAY

After a one hour high speed boat ride across the Plate River (supposedly the widest river in the world--you'd think you were crossing the ocean as you can't see the other side), we arrived at a small town called Colonia, Uruguay--the oldest settlement in Uruguay. The streets are cobble stoned and tree lined. The homes are small, quaint and attractive. It's clean and just LOW KEY. I expected to see Goober and Barney playing checkers in the town square. Aunt Bea serving warm cookied at the cafe. (we did see a couple of Otis').

We were walking down the street mid day and thought it must have been Siesta time because it was so quiet. It wasn't, but it's just a quiet little town (all except for the one commercial street, that has all the business on it and that street gets quit lively at night time).

We did a little shopping (junk mostly), and then ate a very good meal. Mark's mother had been here a couple of days earlier and had rented a golf cart to zoom around the area, so we did the same Basically it took us to the tourist sites (the light house and even an old car now used as a flower pot) and finally out of town a bit where we ended up at the Sheraton Resort and Mark and I had a nice massage while Max returned the golf cart. Another meal and can you believe it, it was already 10:30 and time for us to catch our 11:30 p.m. ferry back to the Buenos Aires. (there's a one hour time change, so we left Uruguay at 11:30 and arrived at 11:30).

YOU WANNA SLEEP, BUT...

I got back to the B & B by 12:30, but for some reason could not sleep...until about 3 pm. UGH...so I only ended up with one hour of sleep before we had to leave for the airport and make our 6 :10 flight back to Rio.

All in all, a VERY FUN five days in Argentina and Uruguay. Could I live there, a resounding YES. Easily. Buenos Aires has a temperature and climate feel similar to Utah. It's very metropolitan, quite clean, and organized and appeared very safe. Oh and it appears to be cheaper to live there than in Rio.

But I'm off to my city of right now...Rio. Night.