Chivito!

Even though we are in Argentina for an "official" purpose, we are both here on tourist visas, the only visa available to us, apparently. These visas allow us 90 days, after which time we have to leave the country. This state of affairs leads to us having to do a "visa run" every three months - leave Argentina briefly, then return with a fresh 90 days. There are a lot of people living in Buenos Aires faced with this same situation, and most of them choose the quickest and cheapest solution: the fast boat to Colonia, across the mighty Rio de la Plata, in Uruguay. We did our first "run" last week - our first visit to Argentina's placid, almost forgotten neighbor, Uruguay.

Calle de los Suspiros (Street of Sighs)

The boat trip is pretty painless, taking about an hour each way and costing about 40 bucks roundtrip. The river (more properly, estuary) is created by the confluence of the Rio Parana and the Rio Uruguay, and by the time it meets the South Atlantic at Buenos Aires it is more or less an ocean of brownish chop (brown from its draining a large chunk of South America). Not too appetizing really - I was neither drawn to swimming nor fishing in it! Anyway, an hour after leaving the teeming urban jungle of Buenos Aires, we arrived in Colonia - a small colonial outpost and UNESCO heritage site, known for its well-preserved 17th century buildings and even older ruins.

Colonia is pretty quiet. When we got there at 9:30, it seemed like we were the only people in town. We walked to the barrio historico (Old Town) and just wandered around for an hour or two. No cars, no people, just a few sleepy dogs, a couple of which we roused from slumber and who then decided to follow us around. We had made a reservation to spend the night and return to BA the follwing afternoon, but by noon it seemed as if we had seen the entire place. How were we gonna kill another 30 hours in this burg? It was picturesque, no doubt, but I started to regret not taking the afternoon boat home to BA. That's when we discovered the chivito.

Chivito!

The chivito is Uruguay's gift to the culinary world: a big-ass sandwich (also available as a plato, topping a pile of french fries) consisting of a thin steak, ham, cheese, bacon, and a fried egg, along with lettuce, tomato, and a number of other random add-ons. On day one we split a chivito platter, all the aforementioned goodies served on a bed of crispy fries. It was delicious and plenty for two people. On day two we sussed out a mobile chivito cart on a side street and ordered the classic sandwich. The old guy manning the grill took obvious pride in his product and offered us a selection of extras to put on our chivito. We opted for garlic mayonnaise, mushrooms, pickled red peppers, and spicy green peppers. It was huge (how could one person eat this thing?), delicious, and more than worth the 5 bucks it cost. Riquissimo!

Anyway, Colonia kind of grew on us, and we were able to spend our two days there enjoyably. We took a lot of photos, wandered about, and made observations: Cars make a point of stopping for pedestrians in Colonia - unlike BA where drivers will run you down in the crosswalks. People seemed more conservative and less likely to smile or joke around...was it a small-town thing? a tourist-town thing? a Uruguayan thing? It's not particularly cheap in Colonia - it thrives on tourism, especially hordes of Argentinian day-trippers, and there a lot of tourist traps, especially in the barrio historico. It pays to poke around and find the good deals (Jen bought a beautiful scarf). BTW, you'll get horribly short-changed if you bring Argentine pesos - dollars or Euros are a much better bet on the exchange.

We made it back to home sweet Buenos Aires on Thursday evening in a pouring rainstorm and had to find our way home from the waterfront. Forget finding a taxi in those conditions - we took two busses, and the rain had stopped by the time we got to our apartment. We were wet and tired and glad to be home. The next time we do a visa run, maybe we'll take a few days to explore Montevideo, Uruguay's capital, or the lovely beaches up the coast. Or maybe we'll just take the morning boat to Colonia and the afternoon boat back - now that's a visa run!