Colonia

From Montevideo we took the bus back to Colonia to spend some time there.  We'd decided that we'd take it relatively easy for these last few months and not rush from place to place, so although many people 'do' Colonia in a day trip, we choose to spend longer here and take advantage of its sleepy charm.

We thought it was a beautiful place.  It is a UNESCO world heritage site, and is all cobbled streets, old buildings and pavement cafes.

There is hardly any traffic in the old town, so it is a peaceful place to wander around and take in at your leisure.  They did have a couple of old carts and vintage cars hanging around which, though clearly just there as dressing, did look right at home.


Not that there is anything much here.  Just a church, an old lighthouse, and the odd little museum, but really the thing to do is just admire the old buildings, sit outside one of the cafes and have a beer or three.  Which is exactly what we did.  In one we even found a friendly feline, which made a nice change from being followed around by dogs all the time.


In the evenings, we headed to the waterfront to watch the sunset which, although not spectacular like some, was still very pretty.


We were lucky that the weather was great, because that makes it nice to sit outside, and the old buildings and cobbles look their best when they are bathed in sunlight.

And the beauty of staying here longer and out of the peak season is that, whilst you get the occasional wave of tourists when the ferries come through, most of the time there are very few people around.

We weren't entirely on our own though.  We bumped into a couple from the Plancius while we were in town, and at the hostel we joined them in the asado evening.

Travelling on our own most of the time is fine, but it is nice when the hostel has other people staying that you can chat to and swap stories with, and these evenings are great for that.

The Uruguayans also have a far more efficient way of arranging their barbecue, which is to burn the logs in a grate to the side of the grill, and just spread the coals underneath it when they are at the right stage for cooking.  Avoids all of this burnt on the outside, raw in the middle issue, even if you need to add more fuel part way through.

Football and friendly waiters

Along with proper cheddar cheese, my high heels, and having our own bed in our own home, we fully expected that being able to watch english football was one of the things we would no longer have and that Nic in particular would miss. In fact, we soon discovered that there are more premiership games shown on the TV here than there are in the UK. Quite often Nic will be convinced that we need to stay in the hostel to do some practical stuff, and I will find that it just happens to coincide with a match.  Or we walk into a bar and find a match on screen.  Hmmm, I smelt a rat a while ago, but I figure that if I let him get away with that, he can't complain when I drag him around yet another crafts market.
Occasionally though there is a particular match on, usually involving Liverpool or one of the cup games, when a special effort needs to be made to see it.  Like here, when Liverpool were playing Everton in the FA Cup semi final.  The match was at 12:45 in the UK, but that is 8:45 here, which some of you will know is a bit on the early side for us.
The hostel here didn't have a TV, so we had to get into the main town area and find somewhere open and showing the match. Most of the places that we had seen with TVs don't open that early, but we spotted a cafe that was open and had a big screen.  It was showing cartoons.
But undaunted, we went in and Nic asked them if whey were going to be showing the match.  They clearly hadn't been planning to, but a very friendly waiter quickly ushered us to a table near the screen and gave Nic the remote so that he could find the match. Every so often, our friendly waiter would pop over and have a few words about the game.  He was very happy to see Suarez, one of Uruguay's footballing stars, on the pitch, and even more pleased when he scored a goal.  Both he and Nic were happy with the Liverpool win.

The cafes are very good for this kind of thing here, and generally happy to accommodate requests.  We have found most waiters to be really friendly towards us too, probably helped by the fact that we always try to speak to them in Spanish, rather than English or just pointing.  They often ask us where we're from, and when they see us playing cards, they ask who is winning.  Nic gets a bit put out, because it is clear that they consistently like it if I am, but look disappointed if he is.

Cafe culture

La Biela

One of the things that BsAs (Buenos Aires) is known for is its many cafes. There is a strong culture of artists, authors, protesters and revolutionaries sitting in cafes talking about politics.  And the tradition continues today. One of our Spanish teachers tells us that people can spend up to five hours setting the world to rights over a single cup of coffee!  You'd be thrown out of any cafe in the England long before that.

We've been sampling a few of the many nearby cafes in the hour break between our Spanish lessons. So far the two best ones are Crack-up and La Salamandra. Crack-up is a few tables in a little old bookshop that has quite a laid back, studenty feel to it, a friendly guy serving and tasty pancakes with dulce de leche. For those unfamiliar, dulce de leche is a very sweet caramelised milk, much like the filling of a banoffee pie.

A plate of cakes in La Salamandra

La Salamandra is Nic's favourite so far. It's run by a company that produces dulce de leche and mozzarella and has a much more modern feel. But the best bit is the cakes. They have a great selection of little canapé sized cakes and they are all look beautiful and taste lovely, especially the Alfajoritas (dulce de leche between two shortbread rounds). I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that between us we have tried them all!  Of course this indulgence will have to stop as is isn't helping our plans to get fitter before we head off on the truck!

For drinks we have been working through beers, wines, tea and coffee, but my favourite is the hot chocolate - or 'submarino' - where you get a glass of hot milk and a small bar of chocolate to submerge into it.  I especially liked the one where the chocolate was actually shaped like a submarine.

La Biela

But the best cafes are the big old ones; touristy perhaps, but they still show a real picture of traditional Argentina.  We found one in Recoleta yesterday.  We had walked around the craft stalls by the cemetery where Eva Peron is buried, and hadn't yet had lunch, when we spotted La Biela.  It dates back to 1850, but really got popular in the 1950s as a regular for motor racing drivers.  It has a slightly art deco style, which I rather liked, and was relaxed and friendly.  It's a very touristy area, but the people inside seemed to be locals out with family or friends, maybe a benefit of us coming here in the winter. We opted for sharing one each of their two afternoon teas, expecting a nice snack to keep us going until dinner.  Of course we had reckoned without the huge Argentinian portion sizes and ended up sharing three rounds of toasted sandwiches, two croissants and five cakes.

We thought La Biela was great, and will be trying out other cafes during our stay here, but we skipped dinner last night!