Category: Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Exploring Colonia & Tango in BA

by Lynn, posted in Buenos Aires, Atgentina, Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Good rest, bed a tad soft for me due to a rather thick mattress topper. For Hesk he slept a solid 9 hours. Breakfast the best yet, so much so we won’t need lunch.

Colonia del Sacramento, the old part, is relatively small. We only changed US$10 in order to pay the small entrance fee to the limited but interesting museums. Really only need a couple of hours to see everything. However chilling in the pretty Hotel garden overlooking the river, sipping wine and beer, is a pleasant way to relax before our boat trip back to Buenos Aires.

Having toured this well preserved World Heritage site we headed back to our hotel gardens to relax prior to taking the ferry back. It was a hot balmy afternoon.

Thankfully the ferry was almost to time. Really don’t bother with paying any extra for business class! The crossing is only an hour. Taxis were available at the port but no queuing system, which meant no taxi willing to take you anywhere on a meter. So we had to negotiate a fixed price, basically double the normal rate, still only around US$11 for a 30 minute ride. The Mine Hotel had returned all our stored luggage and returned laundry to our new room.

After a refreshing shower, we headed off for a drink and a snack prior to being collected at 21.30 for a Tango Show at Cafe de los Angelitos, also recommended by Lonely Planet. We had opted for just the show and no dinner, a good call as didn’t look great and the extra charge was huge. Even our hotel had agreed, don’t do the dinner. We paid US$60 cash per head for the show, an extra $10 if paying by credit card which also meant payment in Pesos at their exchange rate. Add another US$30 a head for dinner, cash or a total of US$110 per head if paying by CC, somewhat overpriced in our opinion. We were offered a starter or desert with the $60 ticket plus wine and water. The desert was a tiny pavlova, 2 inches diameter, that was OK or we could have had 2 empanadas (like a small Cornish pastie). The wine was not great, but the water sufficed! The show entertaining, basically demonstrating Tango from the 1920’s onwards, with some songs being blasted out in between. The dancers were very skilled and fun to watch. However we have been told of a park that we should visit on Sunday at 19.00 to watch more spontaneous and almost certainly less touristy dancing. In the end it was quite an exhausting day as we only got into bed at around 1 am. Must be getting old😂

Colonia del Sacramento

by Lynn, posted in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Today, Friday we took an overnight detour into Uruguay, to the World Heritage site of Colonia del Sacramento, 50km across the great estuary of the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires. Traffic was pretty bad from our hotel to the port and it took 40 minutes but we arrived with an hour and ten minutes to spare. Check in was easy and we had paid for the business class ticket as was on offer for a few dollars more. Upon reflection wouldn’t bother with that as really not a great advantage, Passport control, one booth, two blonde women side by side, one was for Argentina, the other Uruguay, so stamped out and in, within a matter of seconds. We only took backpacks (I know impressed right, me traveling super light), so on arrival just had to put all bags through a X-ray machine for customs control.

The walk from the ferry to the old city was only about 300 metres. We booked at the hotel Charco within the old town. A small boutique hotel of only eight en-suite rooms, delightful, highly recommended. Having checked in felt the need for a light snack and some liquid refreshment, fizzy water for me and amber liquid for Hesk. Despite the weather App telling us it was sunny, a large dark cloud was approaching from the west. Moments later a massive ‘summer storm’, as the locals called it, descended. What a wind, was quite something. We all raced in to a more sheltered area but chaos ensued. I left David settling the bill and raced to our room. I was very cold and we have no jumpers. The room had robes so having switched off the aircon, opened the shutters and wrapped myself up. David was an age, the young lady suggested he pay by credit card now as he would pay no tax of 18%. If he added it to the room, tax would be applied. However as he pointed out on payment the Amex tab showed tax was applied. She said later when it goes through it will come off – will let you know! Looked this up, it applies to foreigners. Apparently with Amex a refund of around 18% will show on your credit card, but if you use Visa, it’s applied straight away. The thought is to encourage Argentine’s to come to Uruguay and help them out a bit as their currency is so weak compared to that of Uruguay.

Having taken advantage of the inclement weather to take a rest in this delightful hotel, one of us completely sparko, we stirred ourselves. The rain having cleared we explored Colonia before dinner. A pretty 17th century heritage village that has morphed beautifully into modern day Colonia. Masses of Portuguese influence in evidence and that of course of the eventual conquering Spanish. Many serious Photographers lined key spots along the river wall monitoring a rather glorious sunset that displayed many different colours over about an hour and a half.

We enjoyed a light dinner at the hotels bistro and only a couple of glasses of wine. Feeling a tad bit drained at the end of a busy day on the move, hoping for a good nights sleep!