We were picked up at 9am today by Fabien, our tour guide for our day trip to Colonia. Pablo drove the massive van while Fabien provided us with a running commentary throughout the whole 1.5 hour drive to Colonia. As a result of the bridge being washed out by flooding two weeks ago we had to to take a very bumpy dirt road as part of our journey.
Once we arrived in Colonia we picked up bike rentals and biked up the coast. We rode along the road by the river (the widest one in the world) and it was severely hot and humid throughout. The views were beautiful and we learned about the prices of the local real estate - around $140k USD for a condo overlooking the water. The bike ride was lovely (especially the downhill portion) and we arrived at a pristine white sand beach with unbelievably warm water. We briefly touched the water and then continued our biking. After we finished biking up and down the coast we returned the bikes and started our walking tour through Colonia. We entered the old city, which is a UNESCO heritage site because it is the only city to have an equal fusion of both Spanish and Portuguese influences. The Spanish and Portuguese took back the city from each other five times each over the course of the last few hundred years! As a result, the architecture of the buildings is very noticeably split between both cultures. Even the roads are different (concave streets are a sign of the Portuguese and convex streets with sidewalks are a marker of Spanish builders). The roofs are also a marker of the different cultures as the Portuguese built peaked roofs and and the Spanish tend to build houses with flat roofs. Our walking tour was lovely and we took a rest at a restaurant for an hour for lunch followed by free time wandering around the city. They had beautiful pottery and clothing stores and we especially loved the air conditioning offered in them on this scorching day. Fabien and Pablo picked us up at 3:30 and we arrived back to CampoTinto around 5pm. Since then we have been lying by the pool drinking glasses of wine and making friends with a Brazilian couple expecting their first baby! This post is being written by the pool currently.
We have a dinner reservation in the winery restaurant at 9pm and we are hoping they will redeem themselves from the other night and actually deliver our food! A wonderful day today overall.