One Day in Uruguay

I never pictured having the possibility to go to Uruguay, but last Friday I did just that. That morning, I met my program at the ferry station downtown to catch our ride to Colonia, Uruguay for the day.

The seats on the ferry were so comfortable not only did everyone fall asleep, but they also claimed it was the best nap ever!

The ferry was only one hour, and magical to say the least thanks to the incredibly comfortable chairs—I had a great nap! When we arrived in Colonia, our tour guide for the morning greeted us. He did the entire tour in Spanish to help us all practice listening. We learned a lot of interesting things about the city, for example: Colonia is the only city in all of South America to have both Spanish and Portuguese influence—every other city is one or the other. It’s very apparent in the town when looking at the streets and the houses. Portuguese streets have a dip in the middle and no sidewalks while Spanish streets are level and do have sidewalks.

On our walking tour, we learned that this is a Spanish street because of it is level and has sidewalks.

The whole town is very small and has two main squares, one has a lighthouse and the other has a church.  From each square you can see the other, so it is pretty easy to find your way around.

After the walking tour, we had some free time to explore before our lunch. My friends and I walked down to the artisanal fair, which was close to the water. The fairs (or ferias) are one of my favorite things to see while traveling outside of Buenos Aires because I enjoy seeing what gifts are most popular to each town. In Colonia, we saw many knit goods, such as sweaters and tops, stones, and wind chimes.

For lunch, our whole group ate together at a restaurant near the square with the church. We had an entire room to ourselves, which was so fun, and we even got a private serenade by the guitarist!

In the afternoon, we had about three hours of free time to ourselves. Many people chose to rent scooters or golf carts, climb the lighthouse, or walk around, but my friends and I decided to take advantage of the time by relaxing at one of the beaches. We walked down to the water and stopped at the first beach we saw. The weather was so nice that day so we were very happy to be lying on the sand by the water. It was a pleasant change from the city life for an afternoon and we just got to relax. The beach was pretty much private besides one or two other people, and until we had a few dogs come to play for a while.

My friends and I spent the entire afternoon at this beach where we practically had the whole thing to ourselves--not much more to ask for!

That evening, we met back up with our group to get on the ferry back to Buenos Aires. We were all excited for another relaxing nap on the ride home after our day-cation in Uruguay. Although it was only one short day, the trip was an amazing experience.

Not only was the town itself beautiful, but also the colors in the trees.

Kelsey B. is the Spring 2017 MOJO Blogger in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is currently a Junior studying Journalism & Public Relations at Indiana University.