Today we sojourn to Uruguay.  Leanne says, “if you told me we’d be heading to Uruguay on this trip, I wouldn’t have believed you, but if there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip is to expect the unexpected day trip here and there.”  John actually identified and planned the day trip as Uruguay wasn’t on Kyle’s radar either.

 It’s up and out the door by 6 am for our scheduled Uber’s.  Kyle gets a text “For your personal safety, please sit upfront.”  We had already learned Uber’s were a controversial service to use here in Argentina. Because they are unlicensed, the policia and other cab drivers harass the Uber drivers.  This might be anything from a punch on the hood or a slit in the tires to actually getting the car impounded the cops.  

Kyle’s Uber arrives first so three the kids try to pile into the first Uber.  Eager eh?  Justin and John hang back to accompany Leanne. When her Uber finally arrives, Leanne hops into the front seat only to find the seatbelt is broken — along with the rear view mirror, bumper and several parts on the car.  Leanne thinks to herself this guy has already seen his fair share of knocks for being an Uber driver — he probably really needs this ride. 

The ferry to Colonia is quite smooth.  We arrive in the seaside town of Colonia Del Sacramento mid-morning to find a town worn by time, high in heritage and spruced with colorful paints.  The paint jobs aren’t perfect yet convey ageless beauty.  Layers of stucco expose years of wear and tear giving texture to every photo. 

The streets are cobblestone with huge trees lining both sides of the street. The setting generates words like quaint, charming and preserved.  Once entering Old Colonia through a lowered portico, we wander down to Calle de Suspiros which is where in a time gone by, sailors would come from port and the street would be lined with ladies of the night waiting for them to their pleasant surprise.

We take a short stroll to the rocky seaside encountering tangled mature trees, basalt rock formations and small patches of green grass. Plopping down on the grass, wind whipping at our faces, Ashley proclaims “I’m at peace here.”  

We walk around Colonia to enjoy each stucco building.  The town was established as a fort in 1860 by Manuel de Lobo.  The town had changed its colonists — from the Portuguese’s to the Dutch to the British to the Spanish — too many times to mention.  Each heavily valuing the port city’s unique location on two major rivers.  It was named a UNESCO world heritage city partly for its varied architecture from each of its former rulers with different style buildings standing intermixed with one and other.  

And it’s an ideal little coastal spot for a day of quiet strolling and food so that’s what we did.  We went to the lighthouse and after climbing a couple hundred steps, were rewarded with sweeping 360 degree views of the water, beach, coastline, the town, buildings and the marina. Only one person can fit on the stairs so we have to wait until everyone in the group has come up before we can descend down.  

We stroll up to the Basilica del Santismo Sacramento (Church of the Holy Sacramento) which the same name as the church we saw in Buenos Aires.  We enter the church and pray to the Virgin Mary and explore the statures and paintings lining the sides of the church.  This is the oldest church in Uruguay with the parish dating back to 1680. We walked down to the marina and its sailing pier. We got ice cream and we strolled down granite boulder paths through allies that sometimes led to the sea. We learned about the Yerba Mate drink which is like their favorite cold tea served in a thermos like cup available at every souvenir shop in town.    

Kyle finally locates an ATM machine so he can get Uruguayan Pesos for everyone’s collection. Kyle and all the kids have a collection of money from each country we visit so it is imperative we get local currency here.  After a successful Uruguay peso withdraw (which doesn’t always turn out to the be the case), we head back to the main plaza to look for souvenirs for our collection.  Unfortunately the ATM decided to dispense a $50 bill so now Kyle has the challenge of trying to get enough change so that 6 people get their currency bill. Kyle locates his post cards, John and Ashlynn locate their pins, Leanne locates her patch, Justin and Corey locate their keychains and Ashley locates her magnate. Everyone ends up with a Uruguayan Peso.  Mission accomplished.

We eat at a place down on the water that John has researched.  The earliest they can take us is 2pm and the ferry leaves at 4:30pm so we are hoping we’ll be in good shape.  We order and Justin does his fun facts about Uruguay.  Knowing almost nothing about Uruguay, we are surprised to learn that Uruguay is ranked first in Latin America is lack of corruption and lack of terrorism.  It is enjoying a continued economic prosperity with growth and low unemployment and inflation and is considered the wealthiest country in South America on a per capita basis. It is a very socially progressive country as it was the first country in the world to authorize same-sex marriages, it has legalized abortion and marijuana. They have a very high literacy rate and were the first country to provide a free laptop and Wi-Fi to every student as well as completely free education.

We enjoyed the Uruguayan steaks over Justin’s fun facts.  Our lunch was scrumptious but it took a while to get our order in, which means it took a while to get our food, which in turn meant it took too long to get the bill. The ferry company recommends arriving at the terminal 90 minutes ahead and we did follow that in the morning and found ourselves twiddling our thumbs on cell phones for quite a while. 

We walk to the ferry terminal to find lines that rivaled the immigration line at the airport a few days ago.  As a group we navigate through baggage screen and then Uruguayan exit immigration. We still have to go through the Argentine entry immigration and this line is moving much slower.  Our ferry is scheduled to depart at 16:30 and it’s now 16:25 and there are 15 people in front of us.  Kyle goes up and asks if we can get on a second much shorter line but the attendant responds that we will be fine.  A couple minutes later, he pulls Kyle up to the shorter line and we make it through at 16:30. The Colonia Express line attendant ensures us we will be just fine even though our own mental calculations predicts us missing the ferry we have booked. 

We made it through immigration and it’s past our scheduled departure time so we rush to get to our gate.  We proceed up the escalator only to find over 300 people in a long orderly line  — yet another— when the loudspeaker utters something relatively unintelligible. 

“He said it’s leaving in 5 minutes,” Kyle interprets with his Spanish improving by the day. “5 minutes!  What???” Exclaims Leanne.  “Keep Calm!” Leanne reminds herself. We can only rationalize to ourselves that this ferry obviously isn’t planning on leaving at 16:30 as scheduled because no one else in line looks the least bit stressed.  Apparently, this is an American custom we practice regularly. 

Low and behold we enter the ferry in an orderly fashion behind 302 other passengers several minutes past the scheduled 430 pm.  There’s plenty of seats - another worry we expressed — and comfortable ones at that. 

We settle in as some Argentines about 10 rows behind us are whooping it up.  We finally set sail 20 minutes after the scheduled time.  Here is one time the laidback-ness we have felt since coming to South America comes in handy.

We exit the ferry terminal to a complete and utter downpour that looks like it is threatening to wash Buenos Aires off the map.  There is a very long line waiting for a taxi, any taxi to show up.  The line, at least, is sheltered from the rain under an underpass.  We know that an Uber driver would never pick up anywhere near a taxi stand for fear of their safety which means we’d have to venture out in the rain far enough away and wait in the downpour.  So we opt to wait it out for the taxi. 

After about 20 minutes, it is finally our turn.  We communicate in Espanol that we have seven people and need two taxis.  The attendant directly Leanne and three kids to one taxi and Kyle and two kids to another.  Kyle’s taxi whips off and he soon realizes that the driver has absolutely no regard for the normal traffic laws that seem to apply to other people on the road. He would approach a red light, look around and blow through it without even coming close to stopping.  In round-about he took the curve so fast he ended up driving on the wrong side of the road. After blowing through the next red light, Kyle says, “esta muy peligrosa, no?” (intended meaning that is very dangerous, no?) The taxi driver shoots daggers at Kyle with his eyes and growls something in Spanish.  Kyle does not utter another word the rest of the trip, catches up on his prayers and buries himself in his phone.

Meanwhile, back at the other taxi.  Leanne and the three kids pile in.  The taxi driver drives about 200 meters and comes to a screeching halt and starts yelling at Leanne in Spanish to get out of the taxi. Huh, say what? Leanne is trying to figure out what just happened.  “Porque?” she asks. He says something in Spanish way too fast or loud for her to decode.  Yikes!  Leanne think he might be saying they have to get out in the pouring rain because there are four people but doesn’t make sense as he saw there were four people getting in at the taxi stand and he had no issue with it then.  It’s not like we had three people and when he pulled away, a fourth kid magically popped out of one of the backpacks. Maybe it was Johns knees jammed behind his seat that set him off? Those taxis are not exactly made for 6’4” Americans. We will never know the reason it appears.

Leanne has flashbacks to Tibet where her refusal to exit the taxi almost ended her arrest when the taxi driver went and got a police officer.  Having no greater desire to see the inside of an Argentine jail than a Tibetan jail, she reluctantly exits the taxi and trudges back with the kids drenched and embarrassed. The line for the taxis is now curving around at 100-plus people. The kids are advocating walking but we don’t know the area nor trust it right now in the pouring rain. Leanne goes right up to the dispatcher looking visibly upset attempting her best Espanol and he quickly finds a suitable and happier driver who was ok with a bit of extra lumbar support from John’s 6’4” knees. 

At the Airbnb, we exchange taxi war stories. We have a Tango show at 8:15pm so decide that we’ve had a long day, a big late lunch and with the rain, we are going to dine in and make the food bought at the grocery store the first day.  

We head out to the tango show after dinner but misunderstood the showtime. Another language barrier issue. We arrive promptly at 8:15 but are more than dismayed to learn that the show starts at 10:15 not 8:15pm. This is no bueno as we are all so incredibly tried from the 5am wake-up call and sojourn to Uruguay that we know that if we come back at 10:15, we will be fast asleep in our seats by 10:20. So as painful as it was since we all really wanted to see the Tango show, we decide against coming back. We will have to find Tango elsewhere in Argentina. 

Back at the apartment, we pivot with the idea of watching Evita, the 1996 movie with Madonna starring as Argentine former First Lady Eva Peron based on the Broadway musical.  It’s not a hit with the clan and most head to bed by the third song. John even finds a better documentary about the Perons and texts it. Twenty minutes into it, Leanne is the only one left in the living room watching it as everyone else is fast asleep. Leanne toughs it out and makes it to the end of the 2.5 hour movie.