Submitted by Ellie Fleming on the 2018 fall semester program in Buenos Aires, Argentina…
One of the craziest things about living abroad is that you can travel for 45 minutes and end up in a whole new country! This weekend, some friends and I decided to take a day trip to Uruguay. Buenos Aires is separated from Uruguay by Rio de la Plata (Silver River) and Colonia del Sacramento, a smaller city on the beach in Uruguay, is only an hour long ferry ride away. While in Uruguay, we spent time walking on the beach, exploring the historic district, shopping in small markets and eating local cuisine. To end the day, we saw the most beautiful sunset that I have ever seen!
One thing we noticed about Colonia del Sacramento was that the sites and shops were definitely geared towards tourists, at least in the area where we spent our day exploring. I heard many different languages while on the ferry, and saw more Americans in one place than I have seen since arriving in South America. The touristy aspect of Colonia del Sacramento was very obvious when shopping, since there were a lot of tacky souvenirs, and at restaurants, since the prices were way higher than what we were used to in Buenos Aires. I thought that it was interesting to go from a big city that certainly has a lot of tourists, but is not marketed as obviously to tourists, to a small city that relies on tourism. While I really enjoyed Uruguay, I enjoy the fact that living in Buenos Aires gives me the ability to experience both touristy attractions as well as aspects of everyday local life.
Overall, I loved that I was able to spend a day in another country! Uruguay is a really interesting and absolutely beautiful place and hopefully, I will be back there sometime soon– but maybe in a less touristy part of the country!