Uruguay Newsletter - a wonderful country to visit!

The little country of Uruguay, or more formally called La Republica Oriental del Uruguay, is nestled near the bottom of South America, surrounded by Argentina and Brazil. The Atlantic coast runs the entire length of the country with amazing sand dunes, miles and miles of beaches, and good surfing. Inland roads run through fields and rolling countryside dotted with clumps of deciduous trees in the south and surprising many palm trees and cacti in the north. Palm trees on cattle ranches! Uruguay’s highest point is about 1,700 meters, but much of the land is flat and so offers 360 degree views. The sky is of the very bright blue tropical variety with puffy clouds. This is gaucho or cowboy country, with thousands of horses, and millions of sheep and cattle. Uruguay is the world’s largest wool producer. Who knew?

Uruguay, which we are still finding hard to pronounce as er oo gwhy as in er – oo as is too, and why, is about the size of the state of Washington. It’s a democracy with a relatively high standard of living. Uruguayan education is free, right up to the doctoral level, so Uruguayans are highly educated. In spite of our struggle with Spanish, it’s easy to be here.

We arrived first in Uruguay at Colonia del Sacramento, about 50 minutes away by ferry from Buenos Aires. Founded by the Portuguese in 1680, this picturesque UNESCO Heritage Site is on the banks of the brown Rio de la Plata. Winding old cobbled streets in the Casco Viejo or Old Town lead to quiet corners and sunny courtyards. We stayed in an historic small hotel, Plaza Major. Our room opened by tall French doors to a peaceful inner courtyard with a fountain. We walked on the rambla along the river shore for several hours and explored the side streets spilling over with fragrant bougainvillea. In the evenings we sat outside in a town square in one of the several restaurants and saw our first of many horse-drawn carts, gazed at the clear blue sky and decided this was one of the loveliest places on earth.

Horses?  Horses are part of the culture throughout the countryside and in the cities of Uruguay. Even in Montevideo, a city of two million people, junk collectors ride horse carts. It’s an interesting juxtaposition to work on my wireless laptop and watch horse carts clip-clop by. It was lovely to wake in the early morning and hear the gentle clopping sounds echoing through the street as these horse-carts and workers started their day. In the country we saw many more horses grazing in fields near small towns and dozens of horse-carts.

Because most towns and cities are on the coast and it’s a small country, Uruguay is ideal to explore by car. For the first time in five months we rented a Brazilian standard Celta car and drove from Colonia to Montevideo or MVD to Punta del Este or P del E and the coast to the Brazilian Frontera. Going up the coast, on the secondary highway, we explored several small seaside villages: Punta La Paloma, Punta de Diablo, Aguas Dulces, and La Coronilla. On this ocean-side road, in the wild, we saw pink Chilean flamingos, many black ibis and larger pink and white ibis with black beaks, hawks, southern lapwing, oystercatchers, stilts, and oriental geese. On the way back we drove the main highway through farmlands. We saw five-foot tall rheas in the fields. We took our time – driving only about 100 km a day, stopping as often as we wanted to take pictures and enjoy the trip.

We stayed in two small beach towns, La Paloma and La Coronilla and loved the sound of the sea as we fell asleep.  One small town we visited, Puerto Diablo, or Devils Port, was clearly surfer’s heaven and the only small town with lots of young foreigners enjoying the surfing and beach lifestyle. The rest of the towns had few tourists.  Apparently this all changes in late December and January. The traditional summer holidays that begin at Christmas sees beach towns like Punta del Este swell from 25,000 people to one million people, and besides that world famous town, the hotels and beach homes fill up with visitors from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and around the world.

We found it very strange though, to see literally hundreds of homes and probably thousands of apartments in Punta boarded up and the towns almost empty. We were there about three weeks before the tourist season.  Apparently rents are astronomical for about three months of the year.

Near the border we spent an hour exploring Santa Teresa Fortaleza, a very large fort built by the Portuguese in 1723. This was the second colony built by the Portuguese. With Brazil only 23 km away, this land eventually went to the Spanish. I had never been inside a large fort like this before, and Ifound it most interesting.

Punta

Punta del Este is a marvellous place, a little point of land where the Rio de la Plata meets the Oceano Atlantico. We found a fine little three-star hotel for an off-season rate of $60US per night. We were lucky to stay right in town so we could walk to the elegant restaurants and enjoy the yachts and boats moored in the marina. As in much of South America, a wide rambla lined the shore. All the big name designer shops have branches in Punta as well, but, being in non-consumer-mode, we didn’t even bother window shopping. An enormous and elegant hotel complex, The Conrad, combines a convention centre, casino and shops such as Tiffany and Co. We didn’t gamble but enjoyed a tasty meal with a panoramic view of the ocean. The appeal of Punta grew on us: small, but not too small, wonderful accommodation, long curving beaches, sidewalk cafes, excellent cuisine, good shopping. We could see spending some serious time here. As it was we kept extending our stay day by day.

Montevideo

Montevideo is a much smaller city than B.A., with a population of about two million people,  and most Uruguayans live here, with the rest of the people mostly scattered up the coast. After Buenos Aires, we found the downtown core of old Montevideo wasn’t that interesting, but we did see much more architectural interest in the neighbourhood where we rented a one-bed condo. We got a realistic feel of city life living in this small neighbourhood, one of 64 in the city, and it was very pleasant. With large shopping centers, lots of restaurants and shops, MVD could be any European city, except for the horse carts, of course. What makes this city, though, is the thirteen mile beach front, lined with high-rise apartments in a similar fashion to Rio but on a much larger scale.

We met a few people who had moved here, primarily I would say, for the weather and for financial reasons. It’s a four-season climate but not nearly as cold as much of North American or as humid as the southern U.S.A. People say it is relatively easy to fit in. It is a safe and stable democracy, but with average wages somewhere around $500 a month, the cost of living is considerably cheaper. One man we visited with said homes in MVD were $150,000 and apartments $85,000. He also bought a house in Aguas Dulces (Sweet Water) up the coast, for $15,000. Even living as tourists and eating in restaurants we could see cost savings.

The only one thing we didn’t like was the wind. We were primarily by the Atlantic Ocean and it was always very windy. People told us that winds were worst in the spring, when we were there, but these subside as summer arrives. I think that’s why the coast is relatively undeveloped. Peter, from whom we rented the apartment, told us homes along the beach are not as popular as apartments because of the sand that constantly blows in, making it hard to keep clean. The wide sandy beaches went on up the whole coast and there were amazing sand dunes. People actually build berms in front of their homes in P del E to prevent sand and wind.

We had lots of camarones – shrimps and I tasted different fish again, brotola.  Ken often had entrecott – sirloin steak. And the wine?  It doesn’t compare to Argentina, so we stayed away from the Uruguayian and drank Argentinian Malbec.The food is good, the weather wonderful; the pace relaxing.  We ended our last couple of days with a visit to Casa Pueblo, an Uruguayan artist and an early morning drive to MVD where we caught the three hour ferry back to Buenos Aires. We loved this tiny country and hope to return next year.