Colonia del Sacramento

The Guy always likes to at least try and start out with the good stuff.  For instance, here are ten photos by the Gal.  Of course, if he left the title making to her they'd have names like Untitled # 4 or Second in a Series of Three and A Row of Trees.  Which just wouldn't do now, would it?

What's behind door number 1?

One of Dick's doors

Out for a Sunday drive

(An abandoned car sitting in front of and advertising for an aquarium.)

Manana's Hieroglyphics

Sitting on a park bench
(eyeing little girls with sad eyed intent) Jethro Tull

Sycamore Groupo
(This is the beginning a short foreign film...

Sycamore Solo

What's for dinner?

What do you want for dinner?



Table 4 2

....and this is the end of the short foreign film.)


Hope you enjoyed it.

So, they took a weekend off and went to visit Colonia, a small bastion the Portugese, Spanish and British have been fighting over for 600 years. In some ways it's a cross between Tom Robbin's La Conner, just another roadside attraction, and the sleepy little seaside village, Ana Curtis, the Guy and Gal were from, only much,much older.  They had ridden buses for two months to get to Uruguay and it took four months of rest before they could embarked on another one again.




So, they walked down the three blocks from their apartment to the city bus stop on the beach.  Note the decorative yellow lemons stuck in the spokes of the red wagon wheel they passed on the way.  There are neighborhoood fruit & vegetable stands like this on every other corner.

Off they went to the main bus terminal, Tres Cruces (The Three crosses of Calvary) to get an early start out of town on that rainy Autumn morning in May where many things are different in the Southern Hemisphere.

Leaving the city behind and heading out through the countryside where Nothing Runs Like A Deer.

Arriving, two and a half hours later, at The Colony of the Sacred Sacrament

with its ferry terminal to Buenas Aires and a different country, Argentina.

Where the only modern buildings belong to the Navy a.k.a. Customs Officials and

the Tourist Information Offices.

 Colonia, the end of the road for many things besides vehicles like

trucks from England made by Thames instead of Ford

and end of the line for trains. too.  A place where things were disappearing, as Railroadin' Richard would say when

shoooting old Western towns full of rich pasts and poorer present-day ghosts.

And of course, what would a fort be without unbreachable stone walls to keep out those who weren't like us?

A place where old city streets are named after the "sighs" its inhabitants have made for six centuries,

where the most modern paths

cross

with

 historic paths daily,

where God's angels and

guns are on display side by side,

 where jarring juxtapositions

are commonplace and

strange namesakes strive to make sense.

A place where you can take off the yoke of burden and step across the leather worn threshold into a long ago forgotten cantina for some needed forgetfullness.

 Where only a Park sits on the remains of the former ruling governor's mansion and as the Gal and Guy's new British friends would say, "and what a brilliant idea that is, ey?""

 Where derelects find new life

 as dining areas,

plant pots and

 and flats are never a problem.

Where only a museum of the Indians is left because as the new natives are quick to tell you very matter-of-factly, "We rounded them up for a peace treaty and killed them all.  Then, there was peace." End of story.

This is the most striking difference for the Guy and Gal between Northern and Southern Latin America, the respective presence and absence of First Americans.

 What would a coastal town be without a

 boating and fishing club

narrow cobblestone streets

 with lots of color even on gray days.

But, Summer's the High Season

and now most places are boarded up while other's can only silently wait in disrepair for a benefactor.

Whereas, the bougainvillea only waits for today's sun and will not be denied.

The Gal, on the other hand, simply waits for the Guy to stop taking so many "lame" pictures.  Ahh, hope has always sprung eternal within her.

The Southern Cross...

 Harbor Tours...

Community Theater...

 One thing leading to another...

or, maybe, not.

 until, finally, they arrived at their last stop,

The City Aquarium

and its abandoned, junker Billboard

which never fails to lure the pedestrians in

for a look at how the other 7/8 ths live here on our Spaceship Earth.

Chowder :)