URUGUAY!

Today Alexia and I were up at the crack of dawn, well 7am, to go to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay! As soon as we checked in at the buquebus terminal and went through immigration control we were boarded onto the boat. It was massive and even had a duty free shop and top deck seating area with bar! But we didn't realise all this to begin with, so we were sitting in the main area with constant noisy adverts playing on repeat as we were trying to sleep. We did however get to spend the last hour catching the rays on the top deck.

As soon as we arrived we headed straight to our hostel to check in, it seemed fine, nothing special. After a quick change we headed out to find the beach. Although we had been told to head right towards the 5km of beautiful beaches, we decided to go left and find the lagoon recommended to us by some friends. We followed the map which seemed to be taking us nowhere near the sandy beaches we were hoping for. In fact for the most part we were walking beside what seemed to be a shantytown! It was crazy. That's a picture of one of the huts, you can't really tell but there's 2 TVs placed outside. Anyway we did end up finding the beach which I then realised was recommended on a blog I had read. This made us a lot happier.

We moved on to find the lagoon after an hour as the wind was spraying us with sand every 5mins and we were literally the only people on the beach. A 2 minute walk from the beach was such a sweet lagoon. It even had tarzan ropes to swing off and jump in, however neither me or Alexia were brave enough to do it. We found a place to sit, where we spent a good 4 hours and even managed a little swim in the waters. It was so beautiful!

Later we headed to the historical part of the town which is actually a UNESCO site. We visited the city gate and wooden drawbridge, the lighthouse and calle de los suspiros (Street of sighs) before our hunger got the better of us and we went on the search for a nice seafood speciality from the Rio de la Plata. We opted for a meal deal restaurant that included vino, catch of the day as well as dessert, the starvos that we are, and it was great! There was even live music playing in the square beside us and I think that the icecream dessert was homemade! After a short walk about the town we headed back to the hostel, for what was to be the worst night's sleep I've had since arrived..