uruguay: colonia

i hadn't originally planned to go to uruguay at all this summer...everything i'd read said it is quite expensive...and it was, the prices seemed american...maybe i've just spent too much time in cheap countries...howeva, bo needed dollars to exchange for argentine pesos, and many atms in uruguay dispense uruguayan pesos and US dollars...i don't know why...anywho...miranda hooked us up with a place to stay in the capital city of montevideo, which was awesome...
we started the day in buenos aires by getting up heaps earlier than we wanted to, and taking a taxi to the port to catch our ferry...it turned out there was another strike of some sort, which messed with traffic where we needed to go, so the cab ride took longer than we anticipated...

getting through the ferry terminal onto the boat involved emigrating argentina and immigrating to uruguay...nice to do it all in one go, we didn't have to go through any queues after landing on the other side of the river:)
a smooth, three hour ride, and we docked across the river, in colonia, uruguay...the official name is longer, but i don't remember what it is...what i do remember is that we decided to spend the day in colonia because the historic center is a UNESCO sight...
walking to the historic center involved walking through a gate in the wall that goes around much of the area...quaint :)

we found the bus station in colonia, took note of departure times for buses to montevideo, and started walking toward the historic center...both of us remarked that we were too jaded to be overly impressed...it was a nice, small town though, and we enjoyed the wander...
i ended up enjoying the areas closest to the water more than the buildings and town itself...nature running wild i suppose...i liked the houses that had traditional tiles on their exteriors...
the search for postcards was not particularly fruitful...not only were the few i found rather expensive, but they all came with envelopes...argh...

we didn't find a cafe that sparked our interest, but one place had decent brownies and cookies:)...our 'real' lunch came from a small supermarket in the form of cheese, bread, crisps, and sausage...
sometime during this afternoon bo found an atm, and withdrew the dollars he would need back in argentina...we walked back to the bus station, and took the next bus to montevideo...since it was just after sunset when the bus departed, we didn't actually get to see much of the countryside...