Uruguay 1

A Coati - common in Uruguay

Uruguay 1

Montevideo is a much smaller city than Buenos Aires. But 1.8 million people live there, over half of the country’s population. There are fewer high rise buildings, the Old Town seems to have a combination of old and new. There is graffiti everywhere (not picture-worthy), they have tree lined streets, but somehow the parts of the city we saw seemed less well taken care of than Buenos Aires.
Our apartment in the Old Town was on the 7th floor of ‘Palacio Salvo’, which when it was finished in 1928, became the tallest building in S. America.

Link to Uruguay 1 pictures

We arrived on a sunny Sunday, and walking back from the grocery store in the afternoon, Craig almost had his mugger’s wallet picked on a non crowded street, but with several other people present. The velcro in the pants pocket surprisingly enough saved him, but he thinks the thief probably was a novice. We both noticed his ‘what are you looking at me like that for’ expression - no guilt whatsoever.
Sadly, we saw many poor people, including homeless ones who had constructed shelters with mattresses, ‘walls’ of fabric etc. Food here is much more expensive than in Buenos Aires, but this apparently is due to the current inflation there.

We saw only a tiny fraction of the city, and had our most favorable impression from our rental car when we drove eastward along the coast. There are sandy beaches for miles and miles, and people were taking advantage of them in the warm spring sun. We saw many people also in the water. Craig read modern architecturally designed summer homes are being built in Uruguay, and Punta del Este has been a destination for the wealthy from all over for decades.

approximately 2’ (~60cm) long

We have climbed the third highest peak in Uruguay, in a couple of hours, starting almost at sea level. Don’t think we’ll get to nr. 3 in any other S. American country regardless of where we start. Our hike took us to a big cross on Cerro Pan de Azucar along the coast east of Montevideo. Total elevation: 1388’ (423m).
Uruguay has beaches, sun and cows, instead of mountains. There are 3x as many cows as people (but surprisingly we saw several vegetarian restaurants in Montevideo). Only Nebraska at home beats this ratio - otherwise the USA has 3x as many people as cows, and in Finland the ratio is 20:1, for those interested..

We have a small Peugeot car from Avis - can’t remember when we last had manual windows and door locks. Gas is very expensive - $5.50/gallon. Especially considering a local per capita GDP of $17.300 compared to ours at  over $57.000.

Craig’s Chivito - a typical Uruguayan dish with beef, ham, fried egg and cheese. Just FYI for those who think I don’t let ‘poor Craig’ get his meat. With my very tasty and fresh salad this lunch became the most expensive meal of our trip so far, $35.

The white sand beaches look like those everywhere else with plenty of surfers - often in wet suits, kids playing in the water, dogs having a blast, and your usual sun worshippers. An occasional person on horseback. In Cabo Polonio we saw plenty of sea lions, but even though elephant seals come there, but we aren’t sure we saw any. You keep a distance, which is smart so the animals can rest and warm up on the rocks.
But there are miles of empty soft sand, with no high rises reaching the shore. It seems all the beaches are public - even in front of some high end, large and interesting looking private homes. It is not yet high season here, and a couple of the small beach towns we drove through were pretty deserted. But lots of renovating, construction etc. going on in preparation for summer. Humidity is low, and when you are out of the wind, in the sun, it is warm and very pleasant already. Evenings are cool still.

We are now leaving the coast, and driving inland. Away from the coast the country side is more rolling. The cows, sheep and horses seek shade under tall palms. We especially liked our little house in Barra de Valizas - a tiny beach town where our house manual requests we keep the gate closed to prevent the roaming horses from damaging the garden. Craig lounged in the hammock, and I liked the juicy & tart mandarins on the tree.
The sun and the wind dried our laundry in a couple of hours.

We have seen vineyards, and our Valizas hostess grows olives. Inland we saw wheat fields and stacked timber drying. Craig thinks it’s on its way to paper mills. After several hours of driving we saw wind turbines on a ridge. Seems to me they could get all their energy from wind and sun - but haven’t seen any solar panels. There aren’t many roads, and even the paved ones can be pretty rough. Both now driving, and in Valizas we saw a few locals use horses and carts to transport themselves and stuff.
Most motorcyclists seem to use helmets, also for the kids they pile on in front and behind them.