Fresh from the jungle filled with butterflies and waterfalls, we arrived to a dreary, windy Buenos Aires. The plan was to catch a ferry that would take us from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay, with about a 45-minute window to get from the airport to the boat-port. Our rush was for naught; high winds, choppy waves, and unsure weather conditions meant our boat-ride was canceled, and we had to stay the night in Buenos Aires. The next day we headed back to the ferry, travel-voucher in hand, in the company of a few hundred fellow travelers who had had their trips canceled the previous day as well. Though I would like to say I was as chipper as the Minion in the photo, I was more in the mood of the Robert DeNiro look-alike to the left, mostly due to Colonia Express’s incompetence in contacting their clientele about the status of their trips. We got our passports stamped (we’re in Uruguay!), boarded the boat, and commenced a most harrowing ferry-ride filled with 10 to 20 foot free-falls as our boat climbed waves before crashing back down as well as major rocking left and right. After ten minutes of nervous looks between passengers, bags falling off the racks, and objects audibly crashing in the captain’s cabin, the motors turned off and the captain announced we were heading back to Buenos Aires, the river far too turbulent to cross. An entire day wasted, and my slight water-based phobia strengthened, I told Julien we would wait at least two days before trying to make the trip again. This meant we had time to visit Buenos Aires’s Bellas Artes, a beautiful fine arts museum in the trendy Recoleta neighborhood.

A painting that reminded us of one Julien had done (below), inspired by art we had seen at a market in Bastille.

Throw-back to when I “wore” a similar headdress in Mexico City’s anthropological museum.

The caption confirmed this to be a canal that Julien and his family walked around when he was a child, near Gien, France.

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Wednesday morning, the weather improved and hurricane warnings subsided, we headed back to the boat docks. However, first stop, the gorgeous department store Galerías Pacífico to look for shoes and breakfast.

Back at Colonia Express this time to successfully take the ferry across the Río de la Plata. Typically Uruguayan, we saw many travelers with their mate and thermos in arm.

The waters much calmer, we were finally able to bid farewell to Buenos Aires. Onto Uruguay!