Uruguay like Ireland again but with mate
“If you look on your right you can see the wool factory. On your left is the marshalling yard for the city’s sanitation department.”
We took the guided city tour of Colonia in Spanish but unless our grasp of the language is getting worse this is what she said…
That’s a little unfair, the city of Colonia is pretty old (1650s) and very pretty. The tour, however, took us to the suburbs and past the aforementioned attractions (which reminded us of western Ireland).
Colonia, and this part of the world, were subject to Portugese then Spanish rule, then Portugese again, then Spanish, then… you get the picture.
The city is on a peninsula, 40km across the Rio La Plata and a 
world away from BA. On the north (Uruguay) side of the river there are beaches and peace and quiet. The city has a ‘centro historico’ where the guide cheerfully pointed out the differences between Spanish and Portugese styles..
The Portugese streets have one, central drainage ditch, the Spanish have two, one on either side (makes me wonder what used to happen at the border in Europe). The Portugese houses have tiled sloped roofs whereas the Spanish have flat roofs. The strange thing is that there are dozens of them side by side.
Even in the off season it has the feel of the Bunratty folk park, with Candombe drummers and dancers (candombe is a folk dance of Uruguay) and (shudder) mime artists… called the gaucho mimes… it must be hell in the summer.
But the beaches… mmm I can just picture relaxing with some mate and watching the yachts on the river.
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picture looks very inviting.nice sky for winter