By Judy J. Pinegar
February 16, 2013
John and I needed to see the rest of the town, so we walked around until we found a court of local artisans, and bought some very inexpensive souvenirs. Then we went to the main drag, Avenue General Flores, and deciding we were hungry, we had a fantastic “Ensalada Completa”, see picture. Then off to a Thrifty car rental place, but in this town it was to rent small motorcycles, golf carts and bicycles!! You see them everywhere along with a few cars, but really not much motorized traffic at all, most people walking (by the way we are getting very fit from the stairs and the walking!).
Getting an electric golf cart, we were off to explore the town and surrounding area! The golf cart can go anywhere on the streets for three hours, but then you run out of juice, so they really emphasized getting back in time. First through old town (cobblestone streets, and the golf cart does not have very good springs!) We viewed a museum (pictures not allowed), and took pictures of the lighthouse built in 1845, and ruins of a convent built in 1694 and destroyed by fire in 1704.
Then a picture of the “Calle de los Suspiros” which means the ‘Street of Sighs,” the place where ladies of the night carried on their trade. What a life and the look of the street was not good, imagine it 200 years ago! I think there were a quite a few sighs. Next stop was the bus station as tomorrow we are going to Montevideo, Uruguay, the capital of the country.
Then we took off along the beach road. Colonia del Sacramento is on a river, but near the sea. The water is extremely muddy, from the runoff from miles of farmland, didn’t look good to me for a swim, but lots of people were swimming. At the end of a long ride was an old bull fighting ring, in much disrepair. On the way back we visited a museum of sunken ships pirates and recovered treasure (however there were only pictures of the bullion, not a sighting of real gold). But the museum was fun, although hot and stuffy, you got to walk through an old galleon model with all the noises and models of the seamen and pirates at work. Kids would love it.
In the afternoon, as my neck had been hurting since the airplane trip, we hired a great masseuse (Susana Stevens, in case you are ever in Colonia), an hour for 500 Uruguayan pesos, or about $25 US. I feel ever so much better, and we had her come back to do John the next morning before we caught the bus to Montevideo.
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