We decided to take a holiday from our holiday- a day trip to Uruguay! A girl from our hostel, Sarah, had booked herself on to a day package to Colonia from the tourist information in our sister hostel. We decided to go with her in the morning and try and book ourselves on the same trip, luckily for us it worked out perfectly - we even skipped the commission charges! After a quick ferry ride we arrived at Colonia del Sacramento where we were met by an english speaking tour guide.
The Portugese founded Colonia in 1680, they used it as a base for smuggling goods across to BA. The Spanish captured it in 1762 and held it until 1777. It´s changed hands over the years but is now independent with spanish as its first language. It´s a cute little old town with a mix of spanish and portugese cobbled streets. The town has 8 museums which the locals are very proud of! For next to nothing you can get a ticket which gives you entry in to all of them. They´re all tiny tho and only need a few minutes in each-if that! We climbed up the light house in the old town to admire the view and look across to BA.
Our package included lunch (with overly priced drinks!!) so after the guided tour ended we decided to head for lunch in one of the suggested restaurants. Most of us had goat which was good!
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The 5 of us, the english speaking, decided to hire a golf buggy to drive around the town. The designated driver was Dad, Neerav ( Vic and Rach didnt have their licenses). He drove us nice and slowly along the coast to the old bull ring, an impressive old ruin. On the way we stopped at the beach where we saw a man walking his horse! He was having a good old frolic in the sand (the horse). After visiting another interesting museum we took a leisurely drive back along the coast and stopped by the beach for the girls to have a go at the machine.
After dropping the golf buggy back we wandered around down town before heading to the pier to watch sunset. It was absolutely amazing, prob the most beautiful sunset we´ve seen yet. On our way back to the ferry terminal we bumped in to an old man who told us a myth about the cobbled street we were stood by, apparantly if you walk up and down it three times you´ll meet the love of your life! We were all too scared to try though cos we thought he might pop up at the other end! Our tour guide had previously told us it was a red light district. Hmm. We had a quick climb up the city walls before heading back to BA in the first class section of the ferry!
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