Colonia Del Sacramento…Sucks? Why You Shouldn’t Go to Colonia
Posted in Opinions on January 25, 2010
An excerpt from a facebook wall conversation I had with a friend as I sat in a café in Colonia diddling around with my iPhone….
I forgot my drivers license so I couldn’t rent a motorcycle, so I rented a golf cart. After about an hour here you run out of things to do and the only ferry returning to BsAs today is at 8:30 at night. With that said, the last couple hours my boredom has led me to driving around like an idiot in my golf cart, losing money at a casino, falling asleep in a cafe and now currently ripping Internet off a hotel while I drink a beer as I await my ferry which will be in another 3 hrs. A cute little town, but 12 hrs here is a bit too much.
It’s impossible to live the expat life in Buenos Aires for very long before becoming aware of the existence of Colonia del Sacramento, commonly referred to as simply ‘Colonia.’ That’s mostly because it’s a short boat ride from Buenos Aires that offers the opportunity to renew your three-month tourist visa (it’s across the Río de la Plata in Uruguay).
Colonia is not just a ‘visa run’ destination for perma-tourist expats though. It’s also a popular tourist attraction in its own right. This popularity is not surprising, as its old quarter has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and sources including Lonely Planet heap praise such as “its charms attract visitors from all over the world” upon it.
So there’s no doubt that Colonia has good marketing. But is it actually as interesting or fun a destination as they’d have us believe? Let’s take a look at what you can do in Colonia:
• Walk around the old quarter and thrill to sights such as cobblestone streets, a pile of rubble that used to be a convent, and one small, old church;
• Hire a golf cart so you can slowly drive around the streets of the old quarter instead of walking
• Eat at a touristy, mediocre and overpriced restaurant serving exactly the same food you get in Buenos Aires;
• Take photos that will make your friends back home think that maybe they aren’t so jealous of your jet-setting ways after all;
• Read a novel that you brought with you (a very good idea);
• Go to the ‘beach,’ a long stretch of river sand fronting a flat, brown expanse of water containing the poo of literally millions of Porteños;
• Get charged far too much for accommodation;
• Try to avoid the mosquitoes, which at various times of the day number in the trillions and settle on anyone moving at less than a full sprint like a thick, black cloud;
• Think for a moment you are in a small boring town in the middle of Iowa before realizing no, you are in the famous Colonia, a must see destination
• Lose money playing slot machines at the Casino which are specifically designed to suck the money out of desperate tourists who are so bored they don’t mind losing money for 4 hours straight
• Purchase some tourist tat you’ll unquestionably throw away when you leave Buenos Aires; and
• Climb to the top of the lighthouse, where you can marvel at a view of some cobblestone streets, a few houses and a large, flat, brown expanse of water containing the poo of millions of Porteños.
Excited yet? Given its skull-numbing dullness, the strange thing about Colonia is that if you ask other expats what it’s like they’ll invariably talk it up, if mildly. “Oh yes,” they’ll say, “it’s…very nice.” “Quite good.” “Really not bad at all.” “Cute, with places to eat AND places to sleep.” “It has…erm…golf carts and stuff.”
So why is this? It’s because they were told Colonia was worthwhile, and because it doesn’t suck quite enough for them to return to Buenos Aires and confront people they probably don’t know very well about it (“Hey you! You jerk; you told me Colonia was interesting! I demand satisfaction!”), they feel that they have no choice but to fall into line and perpetuate the Colonia,-really-it’s-quite-interesting myth. Like robots. Dare to be different.
Read: Why You SHOULD Go to Colonia
What are your thoughts? Is Colonia worth going to? Feel free to leave a comment below and let us know!
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I’m argentinian and I’ve been to Colonia 3 times. It’s true that there’s not much to do, but I think you are missing the point because this is a relax destination. Argentinians like Colonia mainly because it’s so much different than Buenos Aires and very close. Not crazy traffic, silence, quiet, calm, etc. Apart, it’s the best way to enjoy the river because you know Buenos Aires does not have a nice shore. It also gives us the idea of how Buenos Aires was in the time it was founded.
Colonia is a nice place to walk and do nothing. Sometimes I’ve seen american tourists don’t like to do nothing much. When I went to places like Mexico, americans are the ones who buy all the tours and they seem that they need to spend money in order to feel they’ve done something or they enjoyed a place. Maybe I am different in that and I like quiet places.
But it’s true that it’s not a place to spend more than 1 or 2 days. It’s also true about the prices; very expensive.
Hi Marcelo! Thanks for reading and your comment. Check back tomorrow as I will be posting about WHY you should go to Colonia and mention a lot of the points you made.
Great, I’ll read it
Ha
I wish I had read this before I went, for my take go to tangogales.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/colonia-january-2008/
I doubt I will ever go again and will certainly discourage others, but hey until you have been yourself you will never know. Pleasure is what you get when things go well, experience is what you get when they go badly.
Oh my goodness, I went to Colonia yesterday and was totally disappointed. I read your article and it hit the nail on the head. I couldnt believe the mosquitoes! I didnt have any Uruguayan money so I decided on the cheap “thrill” of walking the 12km to and from the old bullring. (That involved the entire beach, and how really crap it is.) Turns out the bull ring wasnt worth it either, all falling apart and useless. And lots of stray dogs running round chasing traffic.
What a dump.
Oh man, I found this blog after searching google for reasons why Sacramento (CA) sucks. And this place sounds almost as bad. It must be something ethereally crapifying in the name.
But if anyone reading this wants reasons for why our American Sacramento sucks, feel free to read my blog.
http://whysacsucks.blogspot.com
Also, I am now going to refer to any poo log that I see floating around a Porteño.
I agree with Marcelo Ruiz. It is a place for relaxation. And if you stay overnight is beatiufl. I suggest to go to a hotel with swimming poo; , in spring or summer. One day an a half enough.
I don’t think people go to Colonia in search of similarities to BsAs, in fact they go to get away from BsAs. I found it to be the perfect respite.
There is a hidden side of Colonia, one with cheese producers and great organic vegetables and countryside very close to town…
I frankly do not like BA. abysmal waiters, polluted, scavengers in Sulo bins at every street corner, cloying over-rated malbecs, abysmal construction safety standards, menacing social/political undercurrents, lack of fresh green vegetables at restaurants, cash economy..frankly Colonia was a breath of fresh air and look forward to visiting Uruguay.
The problem is that most people go over and never set foot outisde the historic district. There’s an entire rest of the town to see (with restaurants that charge a good 30-40% less than those in the historic district), along with countryside, a short trip north of the city where there are two wineries to visit, various cheese producers, estancias to relax at and have some down time. And, as someone above said, that’s a lot of what people go there for, at least the ones who aren’t just trying to get another stamp on their passport.