We had thrown the idea around of hopping on the ferry from BsAs to Uruguay before heading south in Argentina but weren’t sure if it was worth the fee of the ferry. When we heard that you can get USD from the ATM’s there it solidified our decision to check it out. We voted on going to Colonia over Montevideo; a smaller town with a old-fashioned feel. We took the slow ferry over (3 hours) and arrived in the late afternoon. Uruguay also turns out to be the first country that is new to us both.

Classic cars such as this one are a common site in Colonia

The moment we stepped off the boat we loved it. A much calmer pace and feeling than BsAs, the cobblestone tree-lined roads and friendly faces were a nice change from BsAs. We hadn’t heard back from the hostel we emailed to stay at, but hoped for the best. We walked there from the ferry to discover an old house/building converted into a hostel. The lady at the front partially understood our broken Spanish and it turned out we had a room. The hostel was significantly nicer than the one in BsAs. For the same price, our private room had a private bathroom in it, the kitchen was much larger and the whole scene and atmosphere made us smile.

After making dinner (the supermarket line took less than 2 minutes!), we walked to the waterfront to take pictures of the sun setting over Rio de la Plata. Our first sunset of the trip! We made some friends at the hostel who invited us to go to the bar with them… they were leaving to go out at 2AM. Supposedly this is typical but we aren’t quite that adjusted yet and opted to get some sleep instead.

That night, we heard the largest thunderstorm ever. The thunder and lighting down here is nothing like back home, even compared to the prairies. The thunder shook the bed and the rain was literally like buckets. We were hoping to rent bikes and ride around the town the next day, which we heard was a popular thing to do through our guides book; however, it did not appear to be possible anymore. We opted for an afternoon run (our first of the trip; although we had planned to run daily…).

∇ WINE UPDATE: When looking for a bottle of wine, we noticed the store had quite a few bottles of Tannat (a red grape). The grape which I had never heard of, is supposedly historically grown in Southwest France, although, is now one of the most prominent grapes in Uruguay and considered the “national grape”. We’ve actually just finished the bottle, so hopefully everything is grammatically correct… And yes, Tannat is a very tasty grape.