Over Spring Break, the Michael W Travels family visited Argentina and Uruguay.
During our visit, we spent time in Colonia Del Sacramento, Uruguay. The historic quarter of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pretty much everything that you’d want to see is walkable in Colonia.
There was one site around 6 kilometers from the historic quarter which was on my list and technically off- limits.
According to Atlas Obscura, the Plaza de Toros was “Built in 1908 as part of the larger Real de San Carlos Tourist Complex, the Moorish style bull ring or “Plaza de Toros” opened for locals in 1910….there were only eight bullfights held here between January and March 1910 before a government decree banned them forever.”
The building has since fallen into ruin. I read into visiting this interesting sight and had two options on how to get there. We could hire a taxi to take us and wait or…
Rent a golf cart!
Lucas and Theo were excited to ride in a golf cart so I headed over to Thrifty. The rental came to around $15 and we looked at it as entertainment as well as our way to the bull ring.
Once we arrived, we did a couple of laps around the outside of the Plaza de Toros.
(It’s forbidden to enter but I’ve read posts about people going inside for a look and I really wanted to see it for myself.)
As we drove around, Kim spotted a hole in the fence. Kim and Theo waited in the car, I mean golf cart, while Lucas and I went to explore.
Kim snapped this photo of Lucas and I going under the fence.
We then quickly went through one of the Moorish- style arches to get a look inside.
There was quite a bit of debris on the floor and the metal holding up the seating is rusted all around.
We then went through another opening to get into the actual bullring.
Lucas was excited to check it out and ran inside.
We were impressed by how well the condition of the grass appeared to be. The seating around the arena was missing chunks in various places throughout. Time clearly has taken a toll on the structure.
The coolest thing we saw while inside, was some interesting graffiti. The bulk of it was situated close to the area where we entered.
As we got ready to leave, we took another look around. You can see the staircases up to the seating areas still remain intact.
Here’s a view of from the inside of the area where we entered.
Before heading back through the hole in the fence to depart, I had to snap a photo of Lucas next to the No Trespassing sign.
This was his first taste of urban exploration. I can’t say that it will be our last time exploring sites which are off-limits but we both really enjoyed this little adventure in Uruguay.
