Day trip to Uruguay

All of the guides and web sites say that one of the best things to do in Buenos Aires is to leave it for a day and go to Uruguay so we thought we should take their advice! We went down to the Buquebus terminal to buy our ‘luxury day’ ticket. For less that £20 each on top of the day return fare you could buy a whole lot more, a bus tour up the coast, a walking tour with a guide and lunch so it seemed rude not to avail ourselves of the offer.
We had to get up at 6am which is a bit early for us nowadays but it was lovely walking through the quiet city down to the port. Argentine immigration checked us out and the Uruguayans checked us in and we boarded the fast boat for the 42km across the River Plate. Plato actually means silver, not plate, so by rights it should be called the silver river, though due to the amount of iron ore on the river bed it looks more of a brown colour to me though it is very strange to look at. It also looks like the sea, you can actually see the towers of Buenos Aires in the distance from the top of the lighthouse in Colonia but at ground level you can’t see the other side. At its mouth the river is 230km wide. Anyway the boat zipped across in just under an hour; though you can get a slow boat which takes 3 ½ hours but I can’t imagine why you’d want to do that, since the price difference is minimal!
We spent the day in Colonia, a world heritage town on the banks of the river since the 2 ½ hour bus to Montevideo seemed a bit far for a day trip. Colonia was delightful and we were shown round by a lady who spoke excellent English and regaled us with stories of how the Spanish and the Portuguese swapped ownership of the place for centuries. The coach took us up to see the almost deserted beaches on the river which were beautiful as well as the old bull ring which has been out of use since they outlawed bull fighting in 1912! After a good look round the old town which was also full of picturesque vintage cars, some less attractive and clearly still in daily use – it’s been many years since I saw a Citroen 3CV, it was time for lunch.
It was a great spread – the salad bar starters would have fed us for a week, then grilled meat and chicken. I had the usual crème caramel with dulce de leche which is addictive and John tried queso e dulce (literally cheese and sweet), which turned out to be exactly that, slices of cheese with a matching slice of quince jelly on the top and very delicious. We had been advised to try the Uruguayan wine made with Tanat grapes – I don’t think Uruguay will be competing in the world wine stakes anytime soon!
We walked off our lunch with our own tour of the town, the coast and climbed to the top of the lighthouse (well John only went half way!) Due to the ferry times it was a long afternoon of walking but it was a beautiful day, sunny with a nice breeze but we were pretty tired when it was time to go through immigration the other way round and head back across the river. Buenos Aires looked great coming in from the river with the new Norman Foster towers (he gets everywhere) in the Puerto Madero and the city glinting in the sunshine. It’s funny but nowhere in the city can you see the river, it’s as if the whole place turns away from the water and even the redevelopment at Puerto Madero only focuses on the old docks, not the river itself.
We had a wonderful day and enjoyed the peace and slower pace in Colonia, ready for another lively weekend in Buenos Aires.