Post by Grubb
Colonia is on the Rio de la Plata an hour’s ferry ride from Buenos Aires. Standing on one of the jetties fingering off the coast of Colonia, I felt like I was gazing at the Atlantic Ocean, but it was only the wide mouth of the Rio de la Plata which served as a Portuguese port in the late 17th century.
For the next hundred years colonial control of Colonia switched back and forth between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. A lot was determined by what happened in Europe. After the War of Spanish Succession, Colonia went to Spain; after the Treaty of Utrecht it went to Portugal, and so on until the early 19th century when, after short Brazilian rule, Uruguay achieved independence.
During this period of revolving empires Colonia hedged their bets on which rule of law—Spanish or Portuguese—was really law. Uncertainty about who was in control opened the port to enterprising smugglers. There are some halfhearted battlements with a rusty cannon here and a drawbridge there, but the overall feeling is of antique abandoned seaside town with a lot of small shops ready to make a deal.
Colonia is a heritage hangout (UNESCO) which means roads aren’t paved but strewn with stones, the sharper and more uneven the better. The buildings have the abandoned empire look, a Spanish colonial faded dream. The regulation basilica has an unfinished feeling to it, and the hippest restaurant, El Drugstore, is permanently closed.
So ferrying to Colonia from Buenos Aires is a way to escape the urban frenzy for a day and wobble over rubble-paved roads that defy speed. And if one doesn’t sprain an ankle crossing the street, there are the quiet cafés serving up sandwiches that only a fearless pirate scoffing at cholesterol could love.
I’m going to have to give you guys the edge. Those streets look even worse to walk on than the Roman roads around here.
Grubb will never forgive me for the walk from the ferry to our hotel with luggage. I mean, google said it was only 13 minutes and mostly flat.
Ah, the Google “mostly flat” trick. That has become a running joke with us. We have been on some “mostly flat” directions that up and down hundreds of feet. We were just laughing (through our tears) about this while struggling up a steep hill yesterday. I have yet to see a description that is not “mostly flat”. I expect there are some trolls in the Google dungeons laughing about that.
And in fact, Colonia was mostly flat. But perhaps there should be another category for “don’t try this with rolling luggage”