Quick Visit to Uruguay

October 21-23, 2007

We perhaps need two separate blogs for Uruguay as we came away with mixed feelings, mainly about the centre of the capital, Montevideo.

We caught the ferry from BA to Colonia, a small port town established in 1680, and jumped on a bus to Montevideo. The first thing we noticed was how beautiful and green this place was. A lot of the country we saw on our two and a half hour drive between Colonia and Montevideo was dairy country and they are having a very good spring! Sorry to tell you this all you Aussies.

Montevideo honestly cannot be described as a beautiful city in our opinion. And this is where our opinions differ a little bit. On one hand you have some very grand buildings, statues and monuments, some quite old. On the other hand you have very dirty streets and surroundings with a not so nice feel about it. Like most big cities we´ve experienced in Latin America there is a big separation in classes. There are upper class areas to slums. We could perhaps see a bit of both in the centre of Montevideo.

One area which was nice was the pier. We visited here on a Sunday afternoon and there were people everywhere with their fishing rods, thermoses and maté. Maté needs a bit of explaining. It´s not mate as in ¨G´day mate¨. It´s pronounced ¨martay¨. It´s popular in Argentina and it´s religion in Uruguay.

Rarely did we see a Uruguayian without the traditional mate cup (made from a hollowed gourd) and a thermos. The tea (called Yerber Mate) is brewed from the leaves of a native holly which is found in the mountains of northern Argentina, southeastern Brazil and Paraguay. The tea is not drunk directly from the gourd itself but sipped through a perforated metal straw called a ´bombilla´. The flavour is fairly herbal but a bit grassy, not dissimilar to green tea. It was very bitter though and despite Fi being happy just having one sip, Davo is now on a mission to leave the country with his own Mate set for use back in Australia.

Another part of Uruguayan cuisine which we experienced were the chivitos which are basically a really good steak sandwich which is served as a sandwich or as an open plate. Davo was pulled aside by a TV reporter in a public square and interviewed in Spanish. He was able to say, ¨Hola,¨ that we´re from Australia, we like Uruguay and especially the chivitos! Famous for a day in Uruguay!

The highlight for us in Uruguay was visiting Alberto and Magda, friends of a friend in Australia. They have lived in Australia themselves for about five years before moving back to Montevideo late last year and very kindly invited us for a proper Uruguayan home cooked parrilla or BBQ. The parrilla is a big brick structure equipped with wood storage area, food preparation area and sink. However Alberto was telling us of his plans to build a ¨real¨ parrilla since they´ve just moved into their new place. Davo wants one!

Magda generously gave us a drive around tour of some of the suburbs of Montevideo and we learnt a lot from talking to them over dinner. We also had a taste of the famous yerba maté and it definitely has an aquired taste.

Colonia was a nice little port town which we had a look around for half a day before catching the ferry back to BA. One of the ¨things to do¨ is hire a buggy to drive around. It was pretty cheap so we had a go for an hour. Once it started backfiring because it was low on fuel we knew it was time to take it back!