Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

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March 3-6, 2008

Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

(Matt)

On March 3, 2008, we woke up in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina and flew to Buenos Aires, avoiding a 20-hour bus ride. From the airport we went directly to the docks and caught a fast boat out of Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. After about an hour on the boat, we arrived in the cutest and most laid back town that we have (so far) been to on this trip. Here is what our Lonely Planet guide book says about Uruguay in the introductory paragraph:

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Some people think "real" backpacking is all about varying degrees of discomfort--maybe they should avoid Uruguay. It's hard to feel hardcore when your hotel's spotless, the buses are roomy, the streets immaculate, you're eating homemade pasta, sipping espresso coffee, and nobody's hassling you to buy a half-plucked chicken.

So far, this is exactly our experience in Colonia del Sacramento. This is not hardcore at all. In fact, we are kind of living the life....and on the cheap.

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Colonia has an interesting history. It was established by the Portuguese in 1680 to smuggle goods cross the brown Rio de la Plata into Buenos Aires, then a Spanish colony. In 1762, the Spanish captured Colonia. Uruguay ultimately revolted against Spain in 1811 but was reconquered in 1817 by the Portuguese from Brazil. With the help of Argentina, Uruguay again asserted its independence from Portugal in 1825. The republic was set up in 1828.

Now Colonia del Sacramento is a small little town that has seen just enough tourism to be comfortable and easy but not nearly enough to be at all annoying. We left behind the gringo trail proper, with its whooping, hollering and extra-loud laughing people when we pulled out of Buenos Aires. The relatively few other tourists in Colonia del Sacramento don't seem to feel it necessary to prove to themselves that they are in fact having a good time by yelling at 2am, "WHHHHOOOOOO!!! HA!! HA!! HA!! HA!! HA!! That is SO FUNNY, that thing that you did!!! Oh my god, I was like laughing SO hard!" It´s a much more sedate crowd in Uruguay, which is really nice.

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From the second we got off the boat here, we have been lulled into a peaceful nonchalance, wondering through the windy cobbled streets lined with huge leafy trees. We occasionally stop to photograph some of the original buildings, including the oldest church in Uruguay, and then take breaks to eat great steaks with mashed potatoes, pasta, coffee, amazing desserts, and red wine, knowing that we have three weeks in Tanzania coming up very shortly and then will have two months in India after that.

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We have had a great time here for the last few days. Here are some observations that are unique and interesting about Uruguay:

Uruguay has a very small population, less than 3.5 million. It´s about the size of North Dakota.

Uruguay does not have indigenous people. I read one account that said that the indigenous people of what is now Uruguay were wiped out by the Portuguese before Spain took it in 1778. There is probably some Portuguese scholar that would refute that and blame the Spanish, but there really does not appear to be an indigenous group represented here. Most Uruguayans are of European decent, mostly Spanish and Italian according to a few Uruguayans that I spoke with about this. I got into a good conversation with a cab driver in Montevideo that seemed very knowledgeable about his country's history, and he said that Uruguay is the only country in the whole Western Hemisphere that has no surviving indigenous population. This guy lamented that fact and praised the richness of Ecuadorian and Peruvian indigenous cultures.

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People drive lots of motorcycles, mopeds, and really great old cars. See photos.

Uruguay is as obsessed with soccer as any country I have ever seen. This may be because Uruguay won the very first World Cup back in the 1930s (and one other too).

The people of Uruguay drink insane amounts of mate de yerba, and they are very serious about it. They carry thermoses around with hot water and their little mate cup and straw set up and drink it ravenously all day. It is kind of remarkable the serious expressions that they have while sucking this stuff down. And here is the curiosity, mate de yerba (pause....I had to look over my shoulder just then to make sure no one was reading this...) is really not that great. It's just tea. There you go. I said it. I know it is a lifestyle, but it tastes like green tea, but more bitter.

(Amber)

A note about the mate drinking. It really is incredible. You´ll see a few shots of people in the Montevideo series of photos with their cups and thermoses. They carry them everywhere, all the time. Cops directing traffic have a thermos under one arm and a cup in the other. It really is uniquely Argentine and Uruguayan and is very cool to watch. If you took a photo every time you saw it, you would literally have hundreds of photos of nothing but the tea habit.

Now back to Colonia. This is an utterly peaceful and beautiful town. It is clean, friendly, so peaceful it almost feels like a ghost town, with a view of water (brown here but apparently really blue and beautiful along most of Uruguay´s coastline) from almost all sides and amazing colonial architecture and original cobblestone streets. It´s just lovely here. The streets are all lined with huge, old sycamore trees and are shaded around the clock. It reminds us both of Portugal, where we went on the world´s best honeymoon...in my humble opinion. You can definitely see the Portuguese influence here. It´s awesome.

Speaking of the brown water. Matt made the point that if the water was blue, this place might be overrun with tourists. And instead, you have brown water, this incredible quiet little gem of a town, and almost no one to share it with. I´ll take brown water anyway over the mayhem you get at some beach destinations.

The food is amazing and cheap. Asado is a type of ribs that are thrown over a parrilla of hot coals, and what we´ve had has been incredible. We´ve also eaten a local dessert called Chaja, which is really really good and could never really be replicated at home. Matt, in particular, is in love with this one. It reminds me of the birthday cakes my mom made for us growing up but with a sweet filling. See the photo, because it´s tough to describe...but it´s like an individual crumbly cake filled with some sort of icing and dulce de leche. It´s very very sweet but not very rich if that makes sense. And speaking of dulce de leche (sweet milk), it has been used on any and everything we´ve seen in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. And it´s really really good.

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