Colonia

Colonia is a very small town really, but very convenient from Buenos Aires, and a lovely wee spot for a couple of days. The old part of the town is all windy narrow little picure-perfect streets, often cobblestoned with the crazyiest cobbles I've ever seen, all completely irregular and misshapen.

Our great little hostel had free bikes, so again we took a day to explore the local environs. We rode out to Real de San Carlos, about 10km along the coast from the town, which has a huge sporting and entertainment complex built back in the early 1900's, but is mostly run down now. It has a very impressive bullring though, now in partial ruins, but you can easily crawl through a gap in the fence, and into and around the ring itself, which was really cool (very Galdiator-esque). We also rode out to check out the plush new five-star Sheraton Hotel, and relaxed in the huge lobby there for a bit, before riding back along the coast and watching a couple of local racehorses being exercised in the sea - Uruguay is quite horse-mad apparently.

So after a few days just chilling out (and updating this blog on the hostel´s free internet, a feature of more and more hostels it seems, a sign of the times I suppose), and relaxing in the laid back town it was back on a local bus for the 2 hour bus ride to the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo.