View from the lighthouse in Colonia del Sacremento, Uruguay. We took a ferry from Argentina, which you can actually see parked at the dock towards the horizon in this picture. It took a little over an hour to cross the Rio de la Plata, the giant, muddy estuary of the Paraņa and Uruguay rivers. It is immensely wide, so it really does look like and feel like you're on the ocean (except for the muddy color, that is).


Two nights earlier, while we were out having drinks in Buenos Aires, a friend of Sergio's told us about this amazing 100-year-old winery in the Uruguayan countryside with only two rooms for a maximum of four guests. Her description of the place was very convincing. She promised us we wouldn't regret staying there. We took her word for it and changed our plans, booking it immediately. Lucky for us, it was low season and the rooms were available. We rented a car in Colonia and headed straight there.


The Narbona winery turned out to be just about the quaintest place on earth, and most definitely one of the nicest places I have ever stayed (or probably ever will). The whole estate was chock full of beautiful antiques and relics of over a century in the wine business. Everywhere you turned your head you wanted to take a picture. It was hard to believe such a place really existed. To top it off, they had an excellent Italian restaurant on the property. We only stayed there for two nights. It was like Shangri-La, but with plenty of wine and melt-in-your-mouth pasta.




























Our regal hosts.












A few photos from the sleepy country town of Carmelo.






These girls were super rowdy and must have been headed to a party of some kind or maybe a high school football game. They were all dressed up like dirtbags or bikers or something. They had drawn tattoos on their arms with sharpies, their teeth were blacked out, and a lot of them had fake black eyes. They were a riot.