Saturday morning. Any chance of breakfast at Hostel El Viajero? Nope, its been decimated by our fellow guests. Scrounge a piece of bread, not even coffee for Sarah, and figure we better set out to explore this tiny little town that UNESCO has gotten so excited about. The hostel has a few Aussies, the first we have met since arriving in South America. One is from Melbourne and assures us that the city has been taken over by the Irish.
Colonia is fine, I guess, but its hardly as charming as the whole world had lead us to believe. The old, colonial bit is pretty but a bit unexciting, just a lot of little restaurants on corners, although the place has an abundance of tree-lined streets, which is always nice.
Time for cheap lunch (for a change) - Colonia's single fast food kiosk sells us some mighty fine street food. Sarah enjoys a colossal pancho, or hot dog, whilst I enjoy a choripan, or sausage bap. MMMMMM.
Time for another walk, lets find those fine beaches they talk about.
The beaches aren't that exciting either.
We discover a parade is taking place on Saturday night; its a precursor to Carnaval, a chance for all the local condombe bands and dancing girls to strut their stuff down the main street and warm up for the main event. Although the parade starts at 9pm, we leave around 11pm, and the parade goes on for another two hours or so. No one is in a rush here. We're not entirely sure how they filled the street with seats either.
We have discovered BARBOT beside our hostel - a fine little brewpub where we enjoy some decent beers, rather than endless lager, for the first time in a long time. I think I fell asleep at the bar, which is when we went to bed. Ahem.
Sunday, and the whole town is asleep, which in a sleepy little town like this means that it is seriously quiet. We head out for breakfast, particularly decent coffee; only instant coffee is available in the hostel, and the look on Sarah's face says it all. Two small coffees and toasted sandwiches later and we are ready for another dander round the rest of the town, just in case we missed something yesterday.
Uruguay has no active rail network anymore, just a lot of track lying unused.
Turns out we hadn't really missed too much, although we headed towards the lighthouse as a final destination. Just in case there was a great view from the top.
Turns out there was a good view from the top.
Although we are on holiday, it's not as if football has ceased to exist outside of the cities we visit. Tonight Sevilla are playing Athletico Madrid, and there's a possibility we can catch the game at the restaurant we had breakfast at. There's also an opportunity to enjoy an all-you-can-eat barbecue. MMMMMM. Ok, so the parrilla libre includes a lot of offal, and definitely isn't just all steak, but that doesn't bother me too much, it's just tricky to work out exactly what everything is. Sarah helps me though the delicious, identifiable food :)
Sadly we don't get to watch the game at the restaurant, as ESPN decided Paris Saint Germain were more interesting. Whatever. We have a swimming gala to entertain us instead! This is where the whole town spent Sunday, and went on far into the night. We didn't, however, as Monday was going to be a busy one, and we needed an early night. Getting up at 7am is never fun.
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