Colonia and the first day in Buenos Aires

First for the big news. It took some fancy footwork, but my computer is back up and running and I still have all my files. :) So now on to more interesting stuff like our trip.

We started out leaving Montevideo Friday morning around 8. When I'm in Abilene, that seems like a perfectly reasonable time. When I'm in Montevideo, that seems like the crack of dawn. Anyway, we all piled in the bus, and for the most part fell asleep for our two hour trip to Colonia.

Our first stop was a farm outside of Colonia. There are a couple of notable things here:

First they are major collectors. For example, these are just some of the keychains. The owner has been in the Guinness Book of World Records at various times for having the most different kinds of key chains. They also have a pencil collection, perfume bottle collection, and a calling card collection. Um....

Besides tourists, the farm made a name for itself with jams and jellies. We got to taste some. There were normal ones like grape and strawberry. And not so normal like red bell pepper (not so bad) and onion (gross).

We then headed to an old bullfighting ring. Apparently after only 6 or 8 bullfights, bullfighting was outlawed in Uruguay. I won't say we weren't supposed to go in... but the students were very happy to be inside.

We then headed into Colonia proper.


We went to a pretty park and had a picnic lunch.

Colonia is a quaint little city/ town. It is the oldest settlement in Uruguay.

It was built buy the Portuguese just across the river from the Spanish settlement of Buenos Aires. Now by just across the river... we mean 30 miles away. If you squint and look to the left of the island, you can see some little squares that are BsAs tallest buildings.

Colonia now is a major tourist town. Apparently lots of folks from BsAs come over for the weekend. I was not brave enough to rent a moped.

We enjoyed taking pictures by the picturesque old lighthouse and on the old city walls.

There were also lots of boats... some with all their flags displayed.

This was just strange and disturbing and I felt the need to share.

After hanging out in Colonia, we boarded the Buquebus (its a ferry) and headed to Buenos Aires. That night we checked into our hotel, ate some dinner and got some rest after our early start.

Saturday was an absolutely GORGEOUS day, which was great for our tour of Montevideo.

We had a fantastic tour guide, Angeles in the blue on the left, who took us around town and showed us the highlights.

We passed by the obelisk, one of the main symbols of Buenos Aires.

We then headed to Casa Rosa, the presidential offices of Argentina (think White House only pink.) APPARENTLY, the reason it is pink is not the romanticized version of the color being halfway between the colors of the two traditional parties (Red and White) but actually its because in colonial times, almost all building were white. So to make important buildings stand out, they mixed in some animal blood to turn the paint a color, which happened to be pink. Gross!

We then headed to La Boca (which we'll return to later) which is a very fun colorful artist neighborhood.

Its also a tourist trap. I love tourist traps!

After visiting more neighborhoods in the bus, we headed to Recoletta and the cemetery. I'll also talk about this more later. Ask me in person sometime to tell you the story of this particular crypt. Its a much better story in person.

After the cemetery, we grabbed lunch... perfectly natural... Then we headed to the National Art museum across the street. We got to see all sorts of European Masters and lots of Latin American art.

After a break... We got all cleaned up and headed to a Tango Show!

Don't we clean up good? The answer is yes, in case you are wondering.

We are always sophisticated when we are dressed up in public. We had dinner before the show and it was very very yummy.

After dinner the show began. I loved watching the accordion player.

They danced their way through the history of Tango. This was the same show we came to when I was here last time. I was a little surprised to see the dancers were pretty much the same. I'm sure the men were the same, and I know at least one of the women was. I'm not positive about the other two.

After a 15 hour day or so... we returned to the hotel and I collapsed into bed.