If you recall, the morning before was disgustingly early. The night before we were up til midnight trying to decide what to do with today. The original plan was to take an earlier bus to a UNESCO town called Colonia del Sacramento, then take the fast ferry to Buenos Aires. It’s Halloween, so we figured we might find some unwanted trouble if we tried to see the city in the evening when we would’ve arrived. Plus, the acommodation was pricey. It made more sense to stay one more night in Uruguay – in Colonia. Since this was the new plan, we were able to sleep in a bit. Our morning consisted of grabbing some coffee and buying some souvenirs. It was early afternoon when we decided we should go to the bus station and hop on the bus.
If you look up bus tickets online, they say to go buy them in person. This is mostly fine, unless you can’t figure out where to buy them. I thought it would be straightforward once we got off the bus TO the bus depot. Well, it started with a close call, and ended with a close call. I was first thrown off by the stop we had to get off. We went rogue and got on a different bus to the depot, but with a sign to the same place. Google maps obviously didn’t clock we took a different bus, so I miscalculated when to get off. When I realized, there were people filling the bus and decided it was best to get off the back. My fear happened. Bus driver did not see me patiently waiting to get off, and started to drive. I remember on the bus from the airport yesterday, a girl had to yell “Puerta” to get the driver’s attention. I faced my fear and yelled “Puerto!” with a full bus. “Puerta!!” some other guy yelled as we started to pull away. Nothing like yelling out the wrong word for a bus full of people watching the silly English-speaking girl who doesn’t know how to get off a bus. I was relieved the driver heard that and stopped to let us off. I yell “Gracias, lo siento!” (thank you, I’m sorry) and lept off the bus. I didn’t mention that we had about 10 minutes to find the ticket booth, buy the tickets, and get on the bus.
My poor grandma got my intense side as I was wondering around trying to figure out where terminal 3 would be. All I could see was this massive mall and cars driving everywhere. For some reason Google kept saying go into the mall. I was halfway through trying to buy the tickets on a link I found, but I wasn’t sure we’d even make this bus. We went inside, trusting Google, and for once it was right. It wasn’t a mall. It was a fricken bus station. It was called 3 Crosses in English, so I just assumed it was a shopping centre. Like how Metrotown has the city bus stops all below. 5 minutes to spare, we found the booth and quickly bought the ticket. The coach bus was very comfortable, which was great since we had to be on there for almost 3 hours. The views mostly looked like Armstrong Valley to my grandma, to which I thought to myself, “why do I keep flying to these places that look like home (i.e. Albania looking like you’re driving into Merritt).”
It was a 12 minute walk from the Colonia bus depot to our hotel. The hotel was on the edge of the old town, and it was the cutest boutique hotel. It smelt and felt so clean. There was a lush back area. Later we would facetime my mother to prove it was still us on the other line. Before that, we went on an adventure to grab supper from another hole-in-the-wall place. This time it was literally a hole in the wall. I wanted to try the national sandwich of Uuruguay, Chovito. It’s a thin piece of steak, with ham, egg, peas, corn, peppers, cheese, tomato, and lettuce. It was amazing. I’m thoroughly impressed by the food we’ve had down here. Look at that sandwich, I need this to be a constant in my life.
The town itself was so so cute, and extremely picturesque. It reminded me a bit of the town right next to Niagra Falls. It was quite and clean. I felt totally safe to leave my phone in my pocket while we walked around. It was a bunch of tourists enjoying the quaint, tree-lined cobblestone roads. Being by the water in the sun was perfect. I’m sorry to my fellow people who are not so lucky with the weather. I’m enjoying it extra for you. Enjoy some of the photos from here.
We retired to our beds after we walked the streets, seeing the kiddos all dressed up in their Halloween costumes. It seemed like it was more common for the kids to be in a gory costume than at home. Instead of sleeping, we had to book some more of the trip before things got more booked up. Time to sleep to catch a ferry to Argentina!!
Stay tuned: LATAM 2025 – Day 6: You Can Cry for Me, Argentina