Our journey to Uruguay!

Well, we made it to Uruguay and back and I even learned to spell it, I think. We had no problems at all and the day could not have been more perfect. The weather was warm and sunny but not hot. We took a cab to the ferry port and that in itself was a "discovery event". It was as bad as China but in a different way. We closed our eyes when we got to the point where we were creating the 3rd lane in 2 lanes of traffic and we were sandwiched between a bus on one side and a truck on the other. And then the cab decided to see if he could make the bus "blink" and let him in...it didn't work but somehow we survived it all and got to the dock! We checked in with our ticket and then we went through security and immigration which was really easy-they had an Argentina person and an Uruguay person and one stamped you out and one stamped you in-same thing on the other end when we returned. Then we went on up to the waiting lounge for the hydrofoil. It was large and nice and we got Cokes and sat and waited. When they said something, we got up and got in line. They even said it in English and we STILL could not understand! lol We found seats and since there was no deck or really anything to see, we just relaxed for the 45 min to an hour ride. This was across the Plata,the widest river in the world. When we arrived, we had no idea where to go but luckily, there was a desk and the first person we asked was the English guide! She told us to find bus 45 and which way to look and we had no problems. Others were not quite so lucky but we had about 12 on our tour. She took us to a restaurant for lunch which was included.....well, the drinks were not included and the dessert was not included and let's just say I was really glad I had brought those peanut butter crackers in my waist pack! But it was a nice place and we had about an hour and half to explore and shop as well as to eat. We ended up sitting on a bench and looking at the birds. Colonia is a pretty town with streets lined with sycamore trees just leafing out and they were so pretty and the birds are all building nests. It really is a lovely small town and was so quiet and peaceful compared to Buenos Aires...can you tell we enjoy the countrysides more than the cities? We got back on the bus and the guide drove us around town, which really doesn't take long as it truly is small but that just meant she had several photo stops that also had banos and souvenir shops and pretty views so it suited us just fine. Then we walked through the old town where Uruguay was first settled. We saw parakeets flying everywhere and it was so neat -I tried so hard to capture them flying into the palm trees with the twigs in their mouths for building the nests. I saw it at least 5-6 times but could never capture it! Oh well. There was a very pretty and simple old church that we went in and it was just a pleasant walk around a lovely town. We then were taken back to the hydrofoil station where we repeated the process to go back to Argentina.