Friday, January 18 – transit from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay
Today was a travel/rest/journal update day. I took the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento (Colonia) in Uruguay. It’s about a 75 minute ride across the Río de la Plata. The boarding process was just like taking an international flight. First step, drop off your luggage…
Then it’s on to immigration. Here you get the Argentinian exit stamp, then take a few steps and meet with the Uruguayan immigration official to enter their country. Very efficient, and similar to the way it’s done in other parts of the world (e.g., train from London to Paris).
Finally, let’s proceed to the departure gate, where I got a nice view of our ferry preparing to dock and offload the passengers (and vehicles) from it’s Colonia trip.
Now, here’s where it got interesting. There is no reserved seating, so about an hour before departure people started lining up to board the ferry.
Wait. Really? This is a 1 hour trip people! Who cares where you sit?!? I was one of the last to board and found a nice, big, comfortable window sill to sit on for the journey (really, it was comfortable!). And I had a great view (except for the salt spray clouding the windows)!
Next stop Colonia! Here are couple shots taken from the ferryway (? – instead of jetway!) on the way to the terminal.
My bed & breakfast was a 5 block walk from the terminal, along the the road parallel to the river in the picture above.
A simple meal tonight from the supermercado (supermarket!). Water, yogurt and pascualina – a spinach and ricotta pie that is very popular in Uruguay.
Travel Tip: I’m utilizing hotel (or other) wifi to access my financial (and other) accounts via my laptop. I’ve therefore subscribed to a VPN service to provide an encrypted connection to the internet. And an added bonus is the fact that the service can also provide me with a U.S. IP address. That way, the possibility that my financial service providers will freak out over the fact that someone from Uruguay may be trying to log into my account will be eliminated! My subscription is month-to-month and I’m paying $12/month for the service.