Uruguay
Last weekend Amelia and I ventured across the widest river in the world (220 kilometers across at it’s widest point, or 137 miles) to visit Uruguay, one of Argentina’s northern neighboring countries. We took a boat from Puerto Madero in BsAs to Colonia, a colonial (as the name implies) portuguese town that is now a quaint pueblo with museums and cobblestone streets. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site. From Colonia we took a three hour bus ride east across the countryside to Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. It seemed every other wall and building was painted with the name of their newly elected president- Pepe Mujica. Pepe was arrested in the days of Uruguay’s military dictatorship for being a leftist and is another example of the more recent democratic political landscape in South America. Before this trip I knew Montevideo mostly as a name from map quizzes in school, a memorization game of all of the capitals of South America. It’s always nice to put a face to a name, the one I had learned years ago, and I can say that Montevideo is a tranquil city surrounded by beautiful beaches, blocks from the city. They have great sidewalks for walking and biking along the coast although it was quite windy this past weekend. We found a very large market with great fruit and vegetable selections, that we had to duck out of a few times to catch our breath and find our bearings. Uruguay improved our math skills as well, having to drop the zero and divide by two to get our exchange rate. Unlike Argentine pesos which are more manageable numbers, Uruguayan pesos are large with denominations up to $1,000 pesos. A meal for two costs around $700 uruguayos and a 5 minute taxi ride about $60 uruguayos. Not looking forward to doing the math in Chile as I know they’re denominations are more similar to Mexico with things costing in the tens of thousands of pesos.
From Montevideo we took a two hour bus ride further east to Punta del Este, a small peninsula on the Atlantic coast with great beaches. Punta del Este is also home to the famous hand sculpture. We were there for less than a day, just to walk the beaches and take pictures, as it’s easily the most expensive place in Uruguay.
The trip also proved true that Uruguayos love their mate even more than their Argentine neighbors as it seemed to be the norm to carry a thermos with hot water while sipping a mate, no matter where they were.
