MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21 - Montevideo and Colonia del Sacramento

Morning arrives with the alarm going off at 7:10AM. The room is dark, we are comfortable, asleep and do not want to get up. But, travel is work and duty calls. Breakfast arrives promptly at 7:30AM minus several items, but what is there will fill us up. We are in the theater to pick up our tour bus tokens on time. The bus is called and we grab our reserved front seats. That gets us some ugly stares from those boarding after us, but that is too bad!

While waiting to leave, our driver pulls up beside the bus in front of us to give it a battery jump. Feeling good already are you? Well, the bus mechanic connects the cables in reverse, there is a loud bang and our battery goes up in smoke! After much standing around, finger pointing and a heated discussion between the Regent tour person and the tour company person, we are moved to a new bus. We find it interesting that they brought a spare bus but not a spare battery!

Ok, now we are finally off with our tour guide, Cristina. She is in her 40s and speaks excellent English and has a sense of humor. She is fourth generation Uruguayan. Her Great grandfather came here as an immigrant from Italy.

The highway is good and that is a blessing since we have 187k to go. It is four lanes but not limited access most of the way.

 

 

About half way into the trip, we stop for a potty break for those who must go and 2/3 of the bus gets off! We have only been gone about an hour! We stay on the bus. It is a seedy looking gas station that, in the US, we would drive on by and find a big bush! This situation only gets "better" with our next potty stop at the bus station in Colonia. That is really gross and our guide suggests a nearby bush!

After two hours plus, we arrive in Colonia del Sacramento, an UNESCO site. First we drive around a bull ring built in the early 20^th century. It was never really used due to a change in the laws about bull fighting and now sits as a crumbling ruin while demonstrating how fast iron structures will/can rust if not continuously maintained.

Now in the Barrio Historico, we begin a guided tour; don’t you just love these? Actually, we find it interesting and, as usual, drag behind in order to get photos that do not include 20-30 of our closest friends. Carolyn has a little trouble walking on the Portuguese cobble stones.

These are nothing more than large pieces of stone shoveled out of the back of a cart two or three hundred years ago. Right beside these rough lanes are the Spanish laid streets with even stones laid in rows.   They are much easier upon which to walk.

We walk through the old city gate

on to a Spanish street that goes around the main plaza. The older Portuguese streets

lead off the main plaza and the smaller plazas right down to the water.

Some of the old houses and little lanes are quite interesting and we take numerous pictures of their colors, tile roofs and general facades.

 

After walking a mile or so through the old town, we stop for lunch at Meson de la Plaza.

We have pre-ordered from a set menu. Dick has the fish, Corvina Negra, a kind of sea bass, and Carolyn has a chicken breast. Both are quite good and we clean our plates. We have an hour free in which to wander and shop. We visit the Portuguese Cathedral. It has a single nave and is very simple looking compared to the Spanish ones.

We wander around  a little more enjoying the nice little village...it is easy to explore,

but nothing grabs us except a pin for Jack. Aboard the bus for our return trip to Montevideo, we both nap and listen to our books until we arrive at the docks.

Once back on the ship, we head for our favorite bar where we imbibe and meet two new passengers, Wes and Kay Lynn, from Colorado. Kay grew up in Houston and graduated from Reagan High School in 1960.

We are both pooped and decide on dinner in the room. We order our usual Caesar Salad, pizza and a bottle of wine, Don Pasqual - Tannat 2010. Once again, room service messes up and has to go back for missing items, the wine and bread. The ship sails on time at 8PM and we watch the sun set as we leave the harbor. The rest of the evening is spent working on the blog.