Montevideo to Colonia

We rented a rental car in Montevideo in order to drive and explore the countryside between Montevideo and Colonia. My initial plan had been to stay at a estancia or ranch for two nights however that plan only existed in my imagination. I found a few ranches that took guests but they had either closed or never responded to my email. As such I decided that we would stop in a small beach town known as Santa Anna for a night and then spend a night in Carmelo which is a little West of Colonia for the second night. Chat GPT recommended 2 stops. Humedales de Santa Lucia just 40 minutes outside of Montevideo. The driving was very easy after we had navigated the apartment elevator. I had worried about driving while in Buenos Aires as the Argentine drivers seemed crazy. None of the roads in Uruguay seemed very busy and the roads were all in very good shape The first stop was a wetlands beside probably one of the poorest communities that we saw in Uruguay. We didn't stay very long at the marshland. We then drove on to a place called Kiyu which had a beautiful beach and cliffs above which 3 paragliders were sailing. We had lunch and strolled on the beach and watched the paragliders. Our final stop for the day was Nuevo Helvecia or New Switzerland which had been settled by Swiss immigrants in the late 19 and early 20 century. It was a pretty town which seemed so different than the first town we had stopped at. Everything was closed for lunch time siesta so we waited for a Swiss themed coffee shop to open where we shared a large piece of chocolate cake with merengue topping and dulce leche filling. We chatted a little bit with the owner who in his broken English explained where his German and Swiss ancestors had come from. The restaurant played a soundtrack of Octoberfest songs. We continued on to Santa Ana where we stayed at a Yurt Air BnB owned by 2 modern day hippies. They had connected the Yurts to these adobe structures built with compressed mud and imbedded bottles that housed the bathroom and kitchen. It was really neat. Santa Ana also had a beautiful beach where we went for a spectacular sunset.

Next morning we had made arrangements to go horseback riding in Santa Ana through our Air BnB host. We met our Gaucho or Uruguayan cowboy German down at the beach. He didn't speak much English but we were able to communicate enough to each go for an hour horseback ride with him . I went first and then Cheryl went. We walked along the beach and through the shallow waters with the horses and his very energetic Labrador dogs. We also did controlled trots with us where he rode immediately beside us and held onto a rope to control Luna the horse that both Cheryl and I got to ride. It was quite fun. German had some connection to Toronto. He had either worked in Toronto as a carpenter or his son worked as a carpenter or the horse had worked in Toronto. I couldn't quite figure it out. The Air BnB hosts allowed us a late checkout and we didn't get away until noon . We headed off to Carmelo which is West of Colonia de Sacramento. The countryside between Montevideo and Colonia reminded me of southwestern Ontario. Very fertile looking with corn, grain and cattle farming. The only way it was different was that there were scattered palm trees and Eucalyptus trees. We made it to Carmelo which is known for its vineyards and wineries. I had asked Chat GPT to suggest a beautiful winery that we could visit. The one it recommended was very beautiful but we were told when we arrived that we would have had to prebook a visit and that only guests of their BnB could wander the grounds. By this time in the afternoon it has become very hot hitting 33 degrees. Cheryl and I just wilt in the heat so we headed into Carmelo to chill out at our non air-conditioned Air BnB. There was a museum of wood carving 2 blocks from the Air BNB so we ventured out for a visit in the heat. The museum was run by an 86 year old carver behind a hardware store. It contained his lifetime carvings which were all very unique. He walked us around the museum and explained with some help from Google translates all about his various carvings. We wandered around Carmelo after supper. Everyone was very pleasant. Lots of dogs and lots of youths and adults zipping around on scooters. We even saw a family of 4 on a scooter. Carmelo wasn't on the tourist route.

Today we had a leisurely start. We returned the key to Susan at her workplace before heading to Punta Gorda which was West of Colonia by 20 minutes to the 0 mile of the Rio Plata. There was a provincial park of sand dunes and a park and lookout commemorating the 2 visits that Charles Darwin had made here in 1833 and 1835 on the Beagle. We then started heading back towards Colonia visiting the ruins of a Jesuit mission and Conchillas which was a limestone mining town run by an English company in the 19th century. Many of the buildings were still being used today for various purposes reflecting how well they had been built. Having exhausted all of the tourist attractions in Southwestern Uruguay we continued on to Colonia and returned the car to Sixt.Leggi altro