Well, my first Uruguayan "physical" trip was taken with a group of intenational students and organized by two girls from the university where I am studying, Paulie and Vale. It was the first trip they ever organized and in their words "it was a success".
I took several things from this trip, amongst these was a dreadlock (rasta, en Español) and left many behind including my ablity to tolerate intolerance towards the way I am and the history of the town. That's right! Before I went I had read very little about the place and when given the opportunity to collect more information I chose to ignore it. I did know it is Uruguay's only UNESCO heritage site, though!
We visited Colonia del Sacramento. The trip included a visit to a very quirky museum, a guided tour around the old part of the city and what was referred to as Pizza Party. The museum was made up of the largest keyring and pencil collections in the world and looked like the organized form of an old man's clutter, that's one of the reasons why I loved it so much! I mean this guy found a way to make money from his junk! He's a genius. Opening my own museum has now become my plan K as a career goal.
The guided tour was a waste of time. All I remember from it is that the town, and indeed Uruguay, had once been in Portuguese and Spanish hands and that I already knew. The rest went into one ear and out the other.
The Pizza Party took place at the hostel, which, by the way, was a really cool hostel. There was a hammock, ladders up to the roof, hippie drawings on the wall and a barbecue, which was used to cook the pizzas. The amount of pizza was very minimalist and Phoebe (a friend from London, who studies in Leeds and I only met here) and I ended up sharing a whole chicken pie she had been given as a "snack"-for-the-bus by her host mum...#uruguayanlogic.
The town was very pleasant and quiet. Like Montevideo it is on the riverbank and there are a few fluvial beaches, including a very secluded one at the end of a tiny street, which was inhabited by many unique (at least for me) plants and creatures. We were there during low season so there were very few tourists, most of whom had floated across the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, probably in their own boats or the ferry. There were also a few couples, strolling about with hands held tightly together. Sigh.
No doubt the highlight of my trip and the uncovering of a really cool park, which featured a single wall with a hole through which it was possible to see across the river and a curly sculpture made out of planks of wood. Phoebe, Katrin (Austria), Nina (Germany), Emily (USA), Franziska (Germany) and I sat soaking up the hot sun for a while before lazily getting up to meet the rest of the group and begin to make our way back to urban (by comaparison) Montevideo.
Another high point was seeing the sun set for the first time in Uruguay. In Montevideo it is relatively hard to see the sun-set as it sets on a side which is less accessible for lazy people. It was also Phoebe's first ever sun-set!
We had calculated it well: coffee, then climb about 100 steps to the top of the lighthouse, then sun-set. Also, well calculated was the amount of time spent in this colonial town. Although it was very nice to get out of Montevideo and the coffee was unquestionably great (!!!), two days were more than enought to see what Colonia del Sacramento had to show.
Gracias
y
ciao.
