To Buenos Aires

Colonia del Sacramento Uruguay to Buenos Aires Argentina

25 October 2016

There is a ferry that departs from Carmelo, Uruguay and navigates through the Delta of where Rio Uruguay meets the Rio Paraná to become Rio de la Plata to arrive at Tigre, just north of Buenos Aires. This ferry was described by one Google reviewer as " the most interesting border crossing in Argentina," and by another as "not the most interesting border crossing in Argentina." We did not take this ferry, as they do not transport motorcycles. We opted to take a ferry that is described by me as " not an interesting border crossing."

The ferry departs from Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, crossing el Rio de la Plata to arrive at the port in Buenos Aires. The crossing takes but an hour, and yet is rather expensive. There is a duty free shop, a cafeteria, and a business class section but no outside deck and you are not free to linger in the cargo area. It's like spending an hour in an airport that is vaguely rocking. It saves you 3 or so hours from the nearest crossing in Fray Bentos, but I would still highly dis-recommend it.

Since this ferry is a border crossing, you must pass through immigration and customs. Immigration is located on the Uruguayan side, and customs on the Argentinian side. We did not know this until we tried to board the ferry, as the place where you are meant to park and check in is not immediately obvious. Fortunately, everyone was patient and good-natured about the scenario and we passed through immigration lickety-split.

Now we'd been warned quite strongly about Buenos Aires being dangerous and the roads being dangerous and the traffic being insane. We were fixing to skip it altogether. However, we were lured to the city by a man who makes saddle bag racks with an integrated gas can holder