today’s activity was taking the high speed ferry over to Colonia, Uruguay. the high speed ferry takes an hour, the slow ferry takes three hours.
i didn’t know how crowded the ferry would be, so i bought my ticket last week. the buying a ticket part was pretty straight forward. since i was buying in advance i was ushered to a nice onsight travel office. when my number was called i went to the ticket agent, sat down, booked my ticket, went to the cashier, paid, and took my ticket home.
getting onto the ferry was a little more time consuming. you need to be there an hour in advance, so you have time to go through customs and check-in. the thing is, it’s not really clear what you do first. now i know you check-in downstairs, get a boarding card, then go upstairs, fill in the customs form, go through customs, get your passport stamped, and then board. plenty of coffee and snacks aboard the ferry, which was good since i missed breakfast. leaving port reminded me a little of home.
i didn’t sign up for a Colonia tour of any kind, it looked liked it was doable via a walking tour on my own. since i was walking, i kept to the old town, but there was enough to see and do for an afternoon.
Colonia was first controlled by the Portuguese, then the Spanish, and it changed hands eight times in the 19th century. there are eight tiny museums throughout the town you can visit that talk about the town and it’s origin. the photo below is of the Convento de San Francisco ruins and the still functioning faro (lighthouse). and what trip to a lighthouse is complete without an interior stair shot?!
lunch was so good, i saved my leftovers for dinner. when i got back to Buenos Aires i had to go through customs and sadly my leftovers were flagged, and had to be thrown away. but not before they took down my passport number and had me sign a form. am i now on some kind of list of bad US citizens that try to bring leftovers into Argentina? if i can’t get back in the US on Sunday, it is most likely due to the Great Gnocchi Conspiracy 2011.