Colonia del Sacramento

We spent Friday at a World Heritage Site -- Colonia de Sacramento, in Uruguay. It was a short, one-hour rapido ferry ride from Puerto Madero over to Uruguay. From the ferry we strolled near the waterside through the city gates and into a wonderful, quiet little village. (On weekends it is far more crowded with tourists from Buenos Aires -- especially this Sunday, which is Dia del Madre). We walked (and tripped) along the cobblestone streets, climbed to the top of the lighthouse (where it wasn't hard to see the skyscrapers of Puerto Madero on the distant horizon) and had lunch on the water. Eve has new, intense pains in her back, so she paid for a room for three hours to rest (which made the hotel owner wonder what kind of illicit activity was planned). I immediately imagined returning here for a few days, just to read and write -- I suspect it would be the perfect place to finish writing a book, or fail to finish writing a book.

I always have mixed feelings about these kind of heritage sites. On the one hand, you do feel like you walk back in time. But it feels like it is made for tourists....and nothing else. There are old buildings, tourists, and tourist shops. Here it is all very low key, and it was easy to wander down empty streets (the benefit of coming during the week). But I was just as happy to come across a classic car show on the modern town square, just after we left the historic center (as a plaque on the ground noted -- "here begins historic Colonia!"). I saw my childhood car -- the Peugeot 404 -- souped up with crash bars and new headlights and racing stickers, and enjoyed the lively crowd enjoying the low-rent racing car show. I prefer -- at least today -- layers of history in an old place, where people continue to live, work, and play on centuries' old sites.