colonia del sarcramento

remember how i said that all of south america gets easter week off? apparently, everyone in buenos aires and in uruguay comes to colonia, a muy linda y antigua city just across from buenos aires. i say this because brad and i got off the bus and surprise surprise! there aren't any rooms in any hotel in the entire city (and there are probably like ... 100 hotels in the city).

what does one do when this happens?

we decided that we'd find some hostel to store our bags, beg them to let us shower, pack our bags, and stay up all night / sleep in a park. seriously, what else were we supposed to do? the real miracle is that the hostel we went to not only let us store our bags and shower, they also let us use everything common there – kitchen, internet, common room. which meant that we slept in the common room for a few hours (from about 3 am (when everyone finally went to bed) until about 6:30 (when people started cleaning)). (and yes, we had to pay, but not much). oh thank goodness. i wasn't looking forward to sleeping in a park.

but. colonia is lovely.



[old gate]


it's an old portuguese port city that underwent numerous attacks by the spanish, passing back and forth in battles for colonial power, before actually becoming part of uruguay. the barrio historico has great cobble-stone, uneven, and non-grid streets. lots of museusm, old buildings, beautiful plazas.



[typical street]


[street of sighs]




we really enjoyed wandering around and then, right at about seven, a huge storm rolled in.





(thank god that hostel let us sleep in their common room because it poured allll night.)

and as a final farewell to uruguay, here's a shop selling hot water for all those mate drinkers to fill up their thermos. ohhh i will miss that...