I never thought I'd find myself in Uruguay but we had three good reasons for coming here.
1. It was only an hour's ferry ride from where we were in Buenos Aires.
2. We had some time to fill between our last visitor leaving Argentina and our next visitors meeting us in Brazil.
3. Why on earth not?
Welcome to the freedom of travelling. The fact that we had no previous plans to come to Uruguay, nor that we knew next to nothing about the country, didn't stop us from jumping on the boat and sailing across. Though it's great to visit popular places (for after all, there's a reason why they became popular) travelling is all about exploring the unknown and finding those hidden gems which few others have yet discovered.
I believe that Colonia del Sacramento, where the ferry docked, is one of those gems. It's an old colonial town, one of the oldest in Uruguay, and was once occupied by the Portuguese. However, the Spanish continually contested the sovereignty of Colonia and so it changed hands multiple times over the years. Everyone wanted a piece of this town and it's easy to understand why. Not only is it absolutely beautiful but with a positioning so convenient for hopping over to Argentina, it became the perfect port for the smuggling trade.
Nowadays it remains a popular town amongst South Americans but as we're coming into Autumn in Uruguay, it was almost completely deserted. We filled our time wandering through the cobbled streets, kicking up the golden leaves in our pathway and marvelling at the quaint, crumbling, ivy-covered buildings. One afternoon we visited the most photographed street in Uruguay but discovered that it was in fact no more beautiful than every other road in Colonia. They really are all stunning.
After a couple of days relaxing in this port town we plan to make our way up the coast. Next stop, the capital!
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