The Longest Day - Part IV

COLONIA DEL SACRAMENTO, URUGUAY - 1st February 2010

continued from Parts I, II and III...

If you, like me, have long got tired of hearing the cliché that goes something along the lines of "things rarely turn out accordingly to plan, however good the plan might be", you can probably appreciate that it is even more annoying to have it practically demonstrated in front of your eyes for the umpteenth time.

Earlier today in Buenos Aires, I was happily reporting a successful purchase of afternoon ferry tickets over to Uruguay - something that was looking somewhat dubious even earlier in the day on the other side of the Pacific. With hours to spend, I dropped my bags off at the ferry terminal's luggage room and took on the staggering heat and humidity of what the LPG sees as "still the coolest place in South America". The LPG also informed my first destination - the number one priority was, surprise, surprise, getting some grub - and it wasn't much more than a 5 minute walk to a cool little place called "Filo" located down a bit of a side street from the bustling Avenue Córdoba. Vaulted ceilings with contemporary decor, seats on the bar and an art gallery downstairs were the order of the day, alongside an excellent serving on empanadas and an ice cold beer. At under the equivalent of US$10, it was an excellent gastronomic introduction to the continent.

Avenue Florida is BA's shopping street - pedestrianised and rammed with shops, stalls and thousands of shoppers, traders and tourists looking like rabbits in headlights (or, walking mugging targets, depending on your spin on things). Not emanating the "gringo" vibe in quite the same way as your average British tourist, I blended in and around the crowds and made my way to Galerías Pacifico - a shopping centre whose interior design immediately reminded me of the Queen Victoria Building mall in Sydney - simply stunning, from towering waterfall to vaulted glass ceiling and Roman architecture.

It wasn't long, however, before I was back in the ferry terminal, recovered my bags and attempting to check in - the full (and recommended) hour before the 16.15 scheduled departure. I reach the front of the queue, hand over the ticket printout that I'd been given at the ferry company's desk on the other side of the forecourt, and was promptly imformed that my ticket was for tomorrow - the guy pointing out the "02/01/10" date in the corner of the piece of paper. Once again - and I've lost track of the number of times I've found myself typing these words on the this blog - I was far from impressed. This was only heightened when he tells me that he's changed the ticket for today, but I have to go to another desk, pay the 18 peso (about £3) difference in price, pick up a new printed ticket, and then rejoin the queue to check in. Helpfully, he added that I "probably don't have enough time to do it before the boat is supposed to leave". Great.

Details are fairly irrelevant, suffice to say I rushed around and muttered a lot of abuse under my breath, eventually got checked in and passed through immigration with a few minutes in hand. And then sat on the boat where, while admittedly drifting in and out of conscious, I sat and waited for the next 45 minutes before we actually left. Turned out there were so many people waiting to be checked in after me that they just had to delay it... and that this was pretty much standard practice. There was little care from me though - by that stage the fatigue of being about 32 hours into a day that still had 8 hours remaining had well and truly kicked in, and my cares were entirely based on sleep.

After a little trek into town, I was checked in at El Viajero Hostel and, after sorting myself out with fluids, lockers and general loose ends it was off into the time encapsulated cobbled streets of the old Colonia town - an area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Area in 1995. A few artistic clouds dotted an otherwise perfectly clear sky, leaving the buildings glowing in amber twillight as I wandered down to the riverside, and sitting on the rocks by the small harbour area I passed half an hour watching the sun perform nature's nightly show that will never cease to get me clicking photo after photo.









With the sun down and a cooler breeze wafting in from the river, I sat down at the fanciest place in town (feeling the justified need to splash out) - the seafood-speciality Yacht Club restaurant by the harbour - and enjoyed a long, drawn out dinner of fresh gambas prawns washed down with crisp local beer. 2 hours later, I sauntered back to the free computers here at El Viajero and, with minutes ticking on to midnight, draw to a close the most epic day of my life.