There´s a regular ferry service from Buenos Aires to Uruguay - it´s
only a couple of hours across the Rio del la Plata.
Colonia del Sacramento
Whilst the Spanish were busy
"civilising" Argentina,
the Portuguese were at it elsewhere. They built this town in its
strategic location as a centre for smuggling contraband into Argentina
in an attempt to break the Spanish trade monopoly. Colonia was founded
in 1680 and still retains architecture from 1745. The town is a maze
of tree-lined and cobbled streets, quaint little old stone buildings
and shady squares. The oldest part is the town wall, the Barrio
Historico as it´s known. We spent a very pleasant day here wandering
the streets. Steve thought it was quite reminiscent of Greece. Megan,
who lived in Greece, wasn´t so sure.
An interesting phenomenon here is that Uruguay has no car industry
and import tax makes cars extremely expensive. As a result, owners
look after their cars very well and many immaculate vehicles from
the 1920s onwards can be seen on the streets. In an historic place
like Colonia, this just adds to the charm.
Having enjoyed Colonia del Sacramento, we took an evening
bus to the Uruguayan capital of Montivideo where we found a little
old lady from Santiago de Compostella in Northern Spain running an
hotel. She was very pleased to see Europeans and we think we got a bit
of a discount, but it´s difficult to tell when you haven´t a clue
how many Uruguayan Pesos there are to the Argentinean!
Montevideo
Closed on Sundays... and raining. Went back to Buenos
Aires early!
Having visited the Iguazu Falls, the most direct route to our
next destination, Salta in Northern Argentina, was to take a
short cut through Paraguay.
The bus from Iguazu Falls to Ciudad del Est (East City -
imaginitive eh?) in Paraguay nips cheekily through Brazil, as it´s
the only way to get over the rivers. Fortunately, there´s an
arrangement whereby you can transit Brazil without stopping for
all that passport rigmarole. Unfortunately, this encourages the driver
to the extent that he doesn´t bother stopping at the Paraguayan border
either. By the time we managed to get off the bus with all our luggage,
we were in the middle of some crazy market being hassled by black-market
currency traders and eyed up by very dodgy looking policemen.
We knew we had to go through immigration and get all the necessary
stamps otherwise we´d be fined or detained on the way out. So, in the
stifling heat and wearing massive rucksacks, we had to battle our way
back through the market on foot to the border, where we pretended
to be entering for the first time. Fortunately, we managed to find the
dodgy looking guy with the passport stamp and the other dodgy
looking guy to sign said stamp.
The bus from Ciudad del Est to Asunçion (the capital of Paraguay)
only takes about 6 hours. Unfortunately, what it also takes is about
500 passangers. We has seats, but we also seemed to be seats
or luggage racks. None the less, we rolled into Asunçion at about
6pm to find the temperature a healthy 41 degC!
Actually, Asunçion turned out to be quite enjoyable. An en
suite room cost us 39,000 Guaranis (GBP3.90) and dinner was 22,000
Guaranis including a litre of very civilised Paraguayan lager. We
went around the city checking out the architecture including the
Governer´s Palace where we took photos. In the 19th
Century, el Supremo dictated that anyone even looking at his
palace be shot on sight. We were more fortunate, although we were
approached at one point by a gun toting policeman who wanted to
stand and talk with us because he said it would be dangerous if he
weren´t with us. We didn´t give him any money, but we did move on
quite rapidly.
We really only came here as a shortcut across Argentina. We
liked Paraguay, but it was very different from all the other
places we´ve been so far. There was an uncomfortable undercurrent
and, for the first time, we felt we needed to really watch our
stuff. There´s not really much here, but seeing this little
visited country and reading a bit about it was quite interesting.
Whilst the Spanish were busy
"civilising" Argentina,
the Portuguese were at it elsewhere. They built this town in its
strategic location as a centre for smuggling contraband into Argentina
in an attempt to break the Spanish trade monopoly. Colonia was founded
in 1680 and still retains architecture from 1745. The town is a maze
of tree-lined and cobbled streets, quaint little old stone buildings
and shady squares. The oldest part is the town wall, the Barrio
Historico as it´s known. We spent a very pleasant day here wandering
the streets. Steve thought it was quite reminiscent of Greece. Megan,
who lived in Greece, wasn´t so sure.