Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay; Mar del Plate, Argentina; and back to Buenos Aires

Last Thursday we decided to take a nice day trip over to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay (better known as just Colonia).  To get over there you need to take a boat from Buenos Aires along Rio de la Plata, which is evidently the widest river in the world although I think it is really more of just a wide harbor.  Emily and I decided to be Jews, aka cheap, and take the slow boat which takes 3 hours instead of just one hour for about half the price.  We in the end kind of got lucky and our boat got canceled so they put us on the fast boat but it left two hours after our boat was suppose to so we go in to Uruguay at the same time.  One really nice thing that they did though is before you leave Buenos Aires you go through passport control for both Argentina and Uruguay.  You basically hand the first guy your passport he finds your Argentinian entrance stamp and gives you the corresponding exit stamp and then he hands it off to the next guy who gives you your Uruguayan stamp.  We arrived in Uruguay around noon and had about 7 hours to just walk around the old Portuguese/Spanish Colonial town eating lunch, walking around and checking out the nice views along the river and and checking out the historical buildings of the town, and also learning about the history of the town and a little bit about Uruguay.   To give just a brief history of the town was it was founded by the Portuguese but traded time something like 7 times in about 100 years.  It ended up eventually in Spanish hands because the Spaniards were not happy that the Portuguese were smuggling goods in to Buenos Aires (which at the time was only allowed to trade with Spain).  When Argentina began its revolt from Spain in 1810, the region of Uruguay also as it was considered just another part of the same Colony.  Eventually however when Argentina gained its independence the region of Uruguay didn´t send any delegates to the new national assembly and declared their own country.  To this day evidently much is similar between the two countries including they both lay claim to the origin of Tango dance and music, being the first to drink maté, and even their flags are pretty similar (Argentinian Flag and Uruguayan Flag).  However, overall the town was really nice and was a great day trip from Buenos Aires (many people also continue to either Montevideo or to the Uruguayan coast, a city named Punta del Este which is South America´s Monte Carlo.)

A picture of some of the Porteguese Colonial Buildings, Old City wall, and Rio de la Plata in the background in Colonia del Sacramento

Picture of Emily and I on top of the old city walls 

When we got back to Argentina later in the evening (we didn´t get so lucky with our boat back and had to sit on a three boat, but they are huge cruiseliners with cafes, dutyfree, and entertainment so it wasn´t to bad) we then went back to our hostel and got ready to head to Mar del Plata, Argentina and visit Emily´s friend Isaac.  The town is a 5 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, and is along the coast.  Even though Mar del Plate is a tourist city, it is for the most part only Argentinian tourists who come to the town for the beaches.  We were there during the last week of summer which I would assume is much like Labor Day in the states but our friend Isaac told us that it was actually a less busy weekend then most weekends during the summer.  We enjoyed a great weekend of not having to pay for a hostel and just a nice leisurely weekend.  We for the most part just walked around the main areas of the city because we didn´t feel like spending to much time on the super crowded beaches.  Isaac also took me to a great Argentinian steakhouse which for the glorious price of basically nothing we enjoyed a huge slab of beef ribs, a huge 14 inch cut of beef (which he said you can only find the type of cut we had in Argentina, entralada), and a chorizo sausage for under $20US.  Overall, the town was really nice and was much like any beach town you would go to in the states.

Funny, random looking seal (there was another one on the otherside of the staircase) in Mar del Plata that everyone wanted to take their picture with

Great picture of 3 dogs in the shade (with the ocean/beach in the background)

We returned from Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires on Sunday (both my birthday and purim).  We decided to celebrate more my birthday where I enjoyed at a 4 star restaurant: a platter of three different types of steak, bottle of wine, 2 glasses of water, and a grilled salmon on a salad bed (Emily´s dinner) for $25US.  As my dad said in NYC or London that would probably cost between $100 and $150.  On Monday we went to the legendary La Boca.  Which has a nice touristy street with brightfully colored buildings.  The neighborhood is known as the working class neighborhood of Buenos Aires (and also infamous for its soccer team the Boca Juniors who were out of town during my whole time in BA).  I was kind of unimpressed by the area, the building were nice and all but it was over the top touristy with annoying hostesses from restaurants constantly bugging you to eat at their place.  Like in other parts of Buenos Aires there were tango dancers outside giving street performances and also nice art vendors but as it is only safe to walk on a few block area of the neighborhood I just didn´t like it to much.  Last night we also decided to go to a main attraction in Buenos Aires, called La Bamba.  It is basically this huge outdoor concert, for 3 hours twice a week, put on by a famous drum/trumpet band between two factories with 1,000 people partying along.  It was pretty out of control and a great time, even though Emily and I only saw the last part of it because of the long entrance line. Finally today was a bit more calm and we took a nice pleasant walk along the old river/harbor area of Buenos Aires which like many other cities has now been converted into nice apartments and a nice boardwalk area.  Additionally we did a pretty nice walking tour (which I´ll explain more in the photos I upload) which was in the Lonely Planet whose highlights included Evita Peron´s grave and a large flower statue which open and closes with the sun.

An old Argentinian Naval Ship (and its big guns)

Eva Peron´s (aka Evita) Moselium 

A view of one ´block´of moseliums (there were hundreds of them) in Buenos Aires´elitist cemetry

Metal Flower Sculpture that closes and opens with the sun

Tomorrow we are flying down to Patagonia Region of Argentina which will be the beginning of a lot of trekking and seeing penguins, glaciers, whales, and much much more.