Colonia | The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

5th-8th March 2013

We arrive in the beautiful town of Colonia in Uruguay, mid-morning, on a Buquebus ferry from Buenos Aires. It takes about 90 minutes to cross the Rio de la Plata – claimed to be the widest river in the world – it’s 200km wide at its mouth, though considered more an estuary by some. The crossing isn’t cheap and ideally we’d come for longer but we’re really running our of time now in South America! Our original 5-6 month plan is already stretched to 9! We justify the short trip because we can draw out a stash of US dollars that we’ll exchange back in Buenos Aires for the dollar blue rate – now over 50% more than the official bank rate. Incredible isn’t it?!!

We walk along the waterfront road of this lovely Unesco World heritage site to where we’re booked for the night, Hostel el Viajero, the kids being troopers with their packs in the heat. El Viajero has super friendly staff who work hard to get a room ready for us to have an early check in and give us heaps of information…