Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay.

Okay, first off, who is Rick Jakacki and what the hell was that on my previous post? I updated it if you´re curious as to what was missing.

In any event, I´m now in El Calafate, Argentina. It´s basically in the heart of Patagonia. It is beautiful here. The landscape is mostly brown and covered with scrub brush, but there are snow-capped mountins all around and the lakes are so blue I can´t even describe them. It´s awesome.

I got in earlier here and had an interesting cab ride to my hostel. The driver was a fun guy to talk to and very proud of his country, particularly Patagonia. He also drove like a maniac. I don´t think I let go of the "Oh shit" handle in the backseat.

After that I stopped in and booked my trip for tomorrow. I´ll be heading to the Perito Moreno Glacier for some sightseeing, a boat ride and a four hour trek on the glacier itself. It should be fun. Hopefully the weather is as good tomorrow as it is today. Not a cloud in the sky!

Anyway, yesterday was a great day. I had a reservation for a ferry ride to Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay. It was about an hour ride across the Rio de la Plata. When I got off the ferry, I saw one of the oddest things I have ever seen while traveling.

Across from the baggage claim, they had a sign. It was big, about 5´x 3´with a huge cartoon cow on it. Across the top, in both English and Spanish, it said, "Welcome to Uruguay: Help keep foot and mouth disease out of our country."

Maybe this is a big problem in Uruguay, if it is, I´m sorry for laughing, but I thought it was hysterical. It also made for some disappointment when I left that they didn´t post a sign saying something like "Come again soon. Thanks for not bringing foot and mouth disease to Uruguay."

Other than that, Colonia was a really cool town. It was declared a UNESCO world heritage site for its historical neighborhood and that is the main attraction. The buildings are all very old and most have been restored to some extent. The streets are all lined with trees, which form a canopy over them and are all made of cobblestone. It´s really cool.

One of the best things to do in Colonia is to watch the sunset. I read that it was good, but I didn´t realize how popular it was. Everything was quiet along the riverfront, until about an hour and a half before sunset. At that time people started appearing from everywhere. There were hundreds of people there. Most of them were walking, but a lot just pulled up, parked their cars, watched the sunset and left. It was pretty funny, but also worth fighting the mosquitoes to watch.

The trip over there was well worth it. I´m still having a blast down here and I hope everyone back in the US is good. On some random notes:
-Jorge, I have a feeling you´d consider it an accomplishment if I ended up in Argentine prison, so no, I will not be asking about that.
-I thought of Howie´s NZ trip when I saw a guy in Colonia wearing a New Zealand Black Caps jersey in Colonia.
-Thanks to Elliott I can´t stop pronouncing it glay-cee-yar.
-Buquebus (prounounced boo-kay-boose) is my new favorite Spanish word. It´s the name of the company that runs the ferry to Colonia.

That´s about all. Talk to you tomorrow when I get done hiking on the glacier. Make that, glaciar.