Adios to our Ibis hotel

We head to the airport in a few short minutes.  We've enjoyed our stay at hotel and said "adios" to the talking elevator lady today (she seems to be located somewhere above the ceiling in the elevator and tells us every time that we are descending (baja) or rising (sube).

Don't slam my door!

We caught a cab the other night and after hoping in and closing the door, I started to tell the driver our destination, but before I could finish he was talking over me and asking why I slammed the door so hard.  I was a bit puzzled by this, paused then gave him our destination.  I found the words "the wind is strong" (which was true).  Then at the next light he reached across the cab and opened and gently closed the door in demonstration.  I then found the words to say something to the effect that in most old cabs you have to pull the door hard to close it.  I couldn't remember the word for I'm sorry.  Kind of weird.  I've never had a cabbie complain that I slammed his door to hard.

Where do you keep your washer?

This view from the lighthouse caught my eye.  The patio was almost empty except for the washing machine that was sitting out.  It makes sense to have it outside if you hang you laundry out to dry regularly.

Adjusting to Argentinian time

A friend shared with us that normal life pace in Argentina is a rise and get moving around 9:00 am with a light breakfast (of delicious croissants), then to take lunch around 2:00 or 3:00, then take a very late dinner at 9:00-10:00.  This certainly fit our observations of restaurants that we ate in.  We were the ONLY people eating dinner at 6:00pm on our first night in town.

When we returned from Uruguay, we took a carry out and returned to the hotel for a movie.  Guess we are finally settling into the Argentine schedule.

Passport control

Entering Argentina requires Americans and Canadians to pay a "reciprocity" fee (which I expect means that the US charges a high Visa fee for Argentinians and this is their way of reciprocating without requiring a Visa.  We realized this in the Dallas airport on our way to the country and had to take care of it before being allowed to board the plane.  The reciprocity is good for 10 years however.  When we came through passport control in the airport, they took our photo and thumbprint.  They did this again when we left for Uruguay on the ferry.  Immigration officials everywhere seem to be pretty stamp happy, they stamped our passports, our boarding passes and our reciprocity papers, and then did it all again on our return.

My exit stamp from Uruguay.

It was organized in an effective way.  The immigration officials sat in pairs, one Argentinian, one Uruguayan.  On the way to Uruguay, you passed the Argentine, then the Uruguayn, then vice versa on the way back.  Stamp-stamp!

Dog gone tired

Quite a few local dogs around the old town.  This old fella caught our attention as we were headed home.

Cool sculpture

Discovered this metal sculpture of a reader in Colonia.  No signage about it...and nothing else similar in town.

Climbing for a better view

My favorite activity no matter what city we are visiting...climbing the stairs of a church, tower, or in this case a lighthouse, to get a birdseye view of the area.

Traditional local lunch

We exchanged Aregentine pesos for Uruguay pesos upon our arrival, but I guess we miscalculated how much we would need for a meal.  We found a street cafe and looked at the menu.  We had 700 pesos.  The house special was 620 pesos.  Fortunately another dish was only 330 so we split it, with drinks at 60 each, we used most of our money for lunch.

The chef at the restaurant made a giant wok of seafood paella right in front of the tables.

The family sitting next to us asked if we spoke English and asked about one of the English phrases from a sign on the wall (Sing in the rain).  David made a handmotion for rain and I supplied 'cantar' for sing.  They asked if we spoke Spanish and I said "poco".  They asked if we were from Canada and said that my features were Canadian (not sure quite what to make of that).  (Another shopkeeper had asked if we were German).  They were from Buenos Aires and were very proud of their city.

View of our cafe from the lighthouse.

Time on the waterfront - beautiful!

After walking the old town, we settled on the rocks along the waterfront and just relaxed and watched the sunset.  There were several local dogs playing in the water and retrieving very large sticks thrown out into the river. (We later passed one of these dogs sleeping on a doorstep with is large stick next to him!)

Random stories / pictures

Thought it was interesting in the cemetery that there was a sign warning not to leave standing water around (as in flower pots) in order to prevent mosquitos and Dengue fever.

Just walking on the streets we passed many interesting shops.  They seem to be clustered by speciality in many cases.  On one block there were several stores with party items for Quinceneros (sp?) celebrations.  Beautiful dresses, fancy layered cake designs (all with lots of signs say no pictures!)

There was a music store about a block down from our hotel that had video performances playing on screens in the front of the store all the time.  Every time we walked past there were crowds of people watching.  It was never the same performer, and as far as I could tell it was not a live performance of any kind.  I found this strange attraction to this broadcast video performance a bit unusual.

I freind of mine from Brazil mentioned that he thought it was interesting that Argentinians were still so drawn to hard copy books and CDs.  He said in Rio everything is very much digital these days and you don't find many stores with books and CDs.

Colonia del Sacramento-Barrio Historico

Old city gate and wall.

Old lighthouse.

The flowers were pretty even in the winter.  Must be quite beautiful in the spring and summer

Loved the gargoyle drain spouts on this house.

Bascilia del Santisimo Sancramento

There were places where the original stone paving was still in place with very rough stones (likely from the river shore).

Many of the houses were about 200 years old, but some were older.  We went into several one-room museums and saw a variety of artifacts.  The most surprising was a room full of fossils and other paleo objects.  The picture above was a wall inside a house that did not have the outer plaster applied.  Its rows of wood with mud in between, filled with layers of stones in the mud.

This picture basically tells the history of the region in a nutshell, belonged to Portugal, belonged to Spain, rewind repeat.

Buenos Aires waterfront

We explored part of BA's waterfront the first day we were in the city.  The upscale district of Puerto Madero is right on the coast.  There are modern tall apartment buildings with high end shopping on the street level.  There are four dock areas with large yachts and moter craft.  Each one is separated by a traffic bridge that rotates sideways to let boats out to the ocean. (We did not get to see any move, sadly). 

This is looking up into the district and the first of four bridges.

The car ramp for the ferry terminal (viewed as we pulled away from the dock).

Lighthoust and Yacht club.

Sea side view of light house. (Tall coroporate building in background).

Behind the yacht docks and fancy apartments is a nature preserve (viewed here just beyond the jetty).  The jetty was a fishing jetty.

Clearly there are more commerical port facilities in the other direction from the ferry port (big cranes in the distance).  It is interesting to note that the power plant directly adjourns the nature preserve.

First impressions of Uruguay

The ferry terminal in Colonia was equally shiny and new like the one in BA.  We found a map posted on the wall and determined what direction we needed to walk to get to the historic district (not far from the ferry port).  There were quite a few Buquebus buses waiting to take people on to Montevideo for those who chose that particular trip.  David and I decided for a shorter day trip just to Colonia.

Colonia is a small town of about 27,000.  The streets were all tree lined and well kept.  (It would be quite attractive in the spring/summer months with the greenry).  Next to the ferry terminal was a Visitor's Center with better maps and very welcoming staff who spoke excellent English and were exicited to welcome us to Uruguay.  We felt quite welcome.

The waterfront was quite pretty.

There was a busy street cleaning crew out and the streets really reflected their efforts.  

This was what was available at the Thrifty car rental place!  We were marginally tempted, but decided to just walk around instead.

Crossing a BIG river!

We crossed the Rio de la Plata river today.  It took us 1 hour on a fast ferry to get across!  You can see pictures below from satellite and with a map.  At the mouth it is 140 miles across.  There are debates about whether it is a properly a river or a sea inlet.  The basin is influenced by the ocean tides, but the flow of the river is so strong that the water is freshwater, with some salty currents (the salt water tends to sink below the fresh water).

You can't tell from this picture, but you can see the tallest buildings in Buenos Aires on the horizon.  I think the distance is about 40 miles, but I'm not sure.

Buenos Aires is sprawled on the lower right side of the image in tannish shades.  We went almost straight across to Colonia which you can pick out with the small islands near the smaller mouth of the river.  Can you imagine how much sediment it takes to make this whole area so brown? (and the water is quite brown).  The length is about 180 miles long!

Montevideo is closer to the sea and about a 3 hour fast ferry ride from BA.

Ferry Ride on a BIG boat

We crossed the Rio de Plata from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento Uruguay today.  I did a lot of research online to find a good ticket deal and discovered that there were 3 ferry companies that made the crossing, but when we walked to the water front we could only find the Buquebus terminal, which was huge, new and impressive.  We decided on expediency and booked with them.  The boat we were on was the "rapido" option, meaning that it crossed in 1 hour instead of three.  It was huge.  It held  at least 300 passengers and I don't know how many cars.

View from the lighthouse in Colonia. It was very impressive to see how this monster pulled into the protected harbor and then proceeded to back up into the dock with its thrusters!

Now that is a BIG bumper guard for the boat.

Cars offloading.

Shiny new ferry terminal in BA.  The entire far wall is a cascading water feature.

Inside the ferry - looks kind of like an airplane, but you don't have to fasten your seatbeat or keep your seat upright for takeoff.

Inside the ferry.  There were snack bars and a huge duty free shop where lots of people were shopping.

Inside the ferry.  There were a few lounge chairs that the first people in line claimed.