Day 4

Travel day to Colonia del Sacramento via ferry boat and then into a bus and on to Montevideo Uruguay.

The bus picked us up at the hotel and took us out to the ferry. We had to go through customs again, get our passports stamped and onto the ferry for a ride out across the river (ok it looks like the ocean to me, I can’t see the other side). It was about a 1 hour trip across and when we arrived we hopped on another bus that took us to Colonia del Sacramento. A quaint historic town with a light house, yep we climbed to the top for a spectacular view. The town was filled with motorcycles, mopeds and vehicles of just about ever description. Green parrots and piegons filled the trees and brightly colored flowers. We toured the city for most of the day taking pictures, buying more goodies for everyone; we had lunch and boarded up again for our trip into Montevideo. It was beautiful country coming into the city all rural and the roads were being redone. We even got to see how they did it in the old days striping the road, it took 5 people. 2 holding directing traffic on each end and 3 holding onto a rope. The man in the center used a spray can to mark an t every foot or so and then the striping crew came along and stripped the centerline. Everything is done by hand here. There is no rush…folks sleep until 10 or so and have a leisurely breakfast, stop for lunch around 2-3 and don’t even think of dinner before 8-9pm then out and about until the wee hours. This is on the weekdays! The cars drive like crazy there are very few stoplights and everyone just drives into the center of the road to wait for traffic to clear to cross over or enter the next lane, they park right on the street and cars have to go around them into the other lanes (remember they don’t like to stay in their own lane here)…

We arrived around 6pm or so in Montevideo. Our hotel NH Columbia was right across from the river (once again it looks like the ocean to me) I think we would call it a bay. By the time we checked in and got changed we tried to make a run for the banks. Most were closed and had to resort to the cash at hand until the next day. We had kind of a rude awakening here folks were not friendly like in Buenos Aries and didn’t take kindly to our uncouth American lads. This was an upper class society and they dressed in suits and fine outfits were our hotel was located. They were disgusted with our t-shirt wearing boys and felt a bit threatened by the gang of thugs that roamed their shopping lane. Most of the boys were a bit bewildered by the treatment they received. In Argentina the native folks were quite friendly and joked about with us as we all struggled with the language. Here it was a bit different and as soon as they knew we didn’t know the language there was a huge barrier. Hoping that things would be different in the a.m. we all turned in for a much needed rest. Day 5 and the beach coming up!