It’s a quick 2.5 hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), so I figured I could do it with minimal planning. Alas, it seems I can’t do anything with minimal planning. It’s just not in my nature. Unfortunately, in this case my over-planning led me to discover that simply hanging out in Montevideo just wasn’t good enough. Fortunately, it also led me to discover Colonia del Sacramento (the main reason not to visit solely Montevideo).
Colonia del Sacramento
In a word: lovely.
Colonia (as it is generally known), is closer by ferry to Buenos Aires than Montevideo. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site, an adorable town, and a convenient detour on the way to Uruguay’s capital. Although it was kind of a pain in the ass going straight there from the BA airport, it was well worth it and a great starting point for our trip.
The town is known for its spectacular sunsets, as you can see from the above photo. Unfortunately, we were tired, slow, and some of us are not great at directions (ok, that’s me.. even while paying for roaming so that Google maps could direct me..). As such, we missed much of the sunset from the recommended vantage point. But it was still lovely, so who cares!
After taking a few wrong turns, we ended up at our intended destination in time for the last of the sunset and a HUGE calzone. I didn’t partake, despite the waitress’ suggestion that it may be too big for just Neil. He always gets gross things like green peppers, and I, being the picky eater that I am, opted for something with less flavour. To be honest, I’m not sure what it was.. I just remember the HUGE calzone. Did I mention that it was HUGE? Neil will normally refuse to leave the table until he’s finished his meal and despite his better efforts he barely made it past the halfway point. To give him the benefit of the doubt, I’ll allow him jet lag as an excuse. I’m so sweet 🙂
We went to bed early, as I am completely useless after 13+ hours of travel, and woke up early the next morning for a full day of exploring! Unfortunately, a combination of heat, jet lag, me being annoying and chipper, and a lot of calzone rendered N a little… out of sorts. So, to make us feel better, we got ice cream! And our first taste of how expensive Uruguay is! (dinner the night before was also pricey, but the restaurant was quite nice, and mostly we were tired and oblivious) Seriously though, I’m pretty sure this ice cream was more expensive than the gelato I had 100m from the Colosseum in Rome. I truly didn’t think anything could top that.
Uruguay is one of the safest countries in South America, but it also happens to be the most expensive. Before we left I was like, no no, we don’t need to take USD, we can just take out pesos there, nobody south of Mexico wants USD! How wrong I was.. but more on that later.
Bodega Bernardi
I’d read that Uruguayan wine is pretty delicious, and that there were a bunch of tiny wineries, so we asked at our hotel and they recommended Bernardi. It was a super short cab ride out of the city, and we hadn’t bothered to get pesos yet, so we paid with one of Neil’s smaller $20 USD bills. He’d smartly ignored my advice about bringing money. But.. he only had 100s and 1s, the latter of which were safely back at the hotel in my suitcase. The driver of course didn’t have change for $100, but was able to give us change in pesos for the single $20 in N’s wallet. He took us to what looked like an abandoned building and motioned us to please exit his vehicle. As we stood there thinking this might very well be the warehouse where we were about to die, he must have taken pity on us. He directed us around the side of the building to a house, make a knocking gesture, and promptly drove away. I’ll admit, I still wasn’t convinced we were going to make it out alive, but it was sunny and warm, and really, what kind of scary movie takes place when it’s nice out, right?
My incessant knocking (because if I was going to die in the warehouse, I at least wanted to get on with it) brought a middle aged woman to the door, who directed us back where we’d came from. We had just about given up waiting for her, when voila! she opened the door to the winery.
During my hours of research, I didn’t manage to pick up on the fact that it was the wrong season for wine-making. Good job, Cyd. Alas, there wasn’t much to see. Glass half full, we did get a private tour! I wish I could remember her name… but she was one of the many generations of Bernardi’s who had run the winery since its infancy, and had a plethora of knowledge. She clearly hadn’t been expecting visitors, but she put up a good effort. We went to the back of the building where all the machinery is held, and, I’ll be honest, it would 100% make a good setting for a horror movie, at least during off season. Sadly I remember very few of the many fascinating facts she shared about the winery, just that it’s family run, very small and produces several different types of wine and grappa.
We finish the tour, and now it’s time for the best part: wine tasting! Neither of us are big red wine drinkers, but I like white wine, and we were willing to give them all a taste, just to be polite, and not at all to get tipsy midday. I wanted to get a bottle of tannat for my mum, as she actually does love red wine, not just to get tipsy. Tannat is the national wine of Uruguay (not officially), so I figured it would be a nice gift. See? I really am so sweet! 🙂
Just as we were getting ready to get started on our wine tasting, I boldly asked ‘you take credit card, right?’. Wrong. Cash only. And she could take USD, but all change would be in pesos. Thus began our constant battle with money. But again, more on that later.
After a great deal of back and forth, counting our money, asking for prices, trying to remember the cost of the taxi back to town, etc. etc., it was finally determined that I could buy the bottle of wine, but we couldn’t afford to do a tasting. Oh well, totally worth it, my mum loved her gift! Or rather, she loved the idea of it, saved it for a special occasion, and drank it accidentally. But she’s pretty sure she actually enjoyed it.
We only had the one night in Colonia, so after our winery tour we had to head back to our hotel, grab our bags, and get to the bus station for Montevideo. Luckily our financial finagling left us with exactly enough pesos for the taxi to get us all the way to the bus station. I think. It’s possible I may have begged and/or refused to get out of the car. It’s a blur. I blame the wine. Or at least I would, had I been able to taste it!
Misc.:
Hotel: Posada Las Terrazas, $$$
Calzone restaurant: La Bodeguita, $$$
Ferry from BA: Buquebus, 1hr, approx. $50USD; no need to book in advance
Bus to Montevideo: several companies, 2.5hr, approx $15USD; book in advance for guaranteed seats
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