Go With Me - South America: January 2014

Quiet Day in Colonia

[5 Enero, 2014] Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay

Just across the river from Buenos Aires is an old fortress town called Colonia. It's a popular day trip from Buenos Aires and also a short, easy bus ride (unless your bus gets a flat of course) from Montevideo. The historic district of Colonia del Sacramento is a UNESCO site and real quaint. What I loved most is that it was still open and functioning as a little town so you could walk into a shop and admire the Portuguese colonial architecture and sit in the square while cars drove past on the cobblestone roads. We spent the day wandering aimlessly. It was lovely. The pictures meander as well- Enjoy!

On to Buenos Aires and Argentina!

Montevideo Markets

Outside of the Market, Port buildings in background

Choices, choices, choices

[3-4 Enero, 2014] Montevideo has a famous market near the harbor that is called Mercado del Puerto. Similar to Pike's Place Market in Seattle, it is popular during lunch time and then pretty much shuts down at night. There are mostly restaurants inside. Eli told me that the entire structure was shipped over to Montevideo from France and reassembled as a port warehouse. I haven't been able to confirm that (wikipedia, you let me down!) but it was a beautiful, open air structure with wrought iron to enjoy regardless. It's a great place to visit during the day.

The open airy structure of Mercado del Puerto

In the top photo Eli and I are at a restaurant eating the food this market is best known for in Montevideo, BBQ! All of the cafes are walk up booths and the atmosphere is rowdy as men yell to you to sit down as you walk past. It was hot and busy inside and every station had huge slabs of meat and BBQs running, all and all a kind of masculine, and burly atmosphere. But come 2 or 3 o'clock the place clears out and everyone goes home for a siesta. It was like a light switch had been flipped and the whole place cleared out. I'm glad we got to catch it during the lunch rush, but the change definitely added to the allure of it being almost mirage like in the market's lunchtime velocity and character. A cool place to visit!

Mercado del Puerto is at the end of a long pedestrian street through the old town. We walked this street every day and often there were markets set up and vendors on the street selling what-have-yous to tourists. A few highlights from around town.

Cheerful colors of Uruguay

View back onto the city from the port

Beautiful Architecture

Hm, the problem with taking photos almost anywhere in Latin America!

More great architecture

The pedestrian street, Sarandi

Here, in this alley, you can be yourself.

For all of you license plate lovers

And money lovers- this man on the 200 peso looks like you really don't want to mess with him

The Pope is such a celebrity here, I had to do a double take to make sure he wasn't involved in some sort of air brushing scandal

Relaxing in the shade

On one of the nights, Eli and I went to watch a tango singer in a old downtown bar. It was a great environment, though packed and if I took a picture it would have been of the column in my way. But you don't need to see to enjoy live music. By about 11 pm, the place was packed. I've never seen such great dancers before in my life (impromptu tango dancers and men that looked like they were in a bull fight.) Very fun (fun)!

We look back fondly at this picture as "the night we wore long sleeves"

Baar Fun Fun

We Love Geography: Uruguay

We were in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. In the next blog entry we'll cover our trip to to Colonia, Uruguay where we stayed before we took a ferry to Buenos Aires. The River we had to cross was the Rio de la Plata- Plate River.

Uruguay, Welcome to the World

Bye Bye USA

We flew NY to Sao Paulo, Brazil, then onto Montevideo, Uruguay on TAM airlines late on December 31, 2013. Therefore, we rang in New Year's Eve on the plane!

Though most everyone else on the plane spoke Portuguese, we made sure to count down in English to midnight (hard when there is no broadcast or second hand watch to reference... a lot of 3-2-1--2-1--2-1). Eli was able to capture the exact moment of 0:00 midnight on our handy Flight Info TV station...

And I was able to grab two champagne glasses as the cart happened to pass at one minute to midnight. Not a bad way to start the year!

[1 Enero, 2014] Well what happens when you ring in NYE on the plane is that you land on a public holiday. No buses were running to and from the Montevideo airport all day. Darn, didn't plan for that. One crowded cab ride later we arrived in Uruguay at roughly 3 in the afternoon. Our hostel was walking distance to the beach, but it also had a bed and I was exhausted so Eli went to the beach and I took my first siesta :)

Much of our stop in Montevideo was admittedly slow paced. We had had a busy few weeks to get here so, I don't know, when in Montevideo... no need to rush. What you need to know about Montevideo is:

1- It is hot in summer! We used the heat as our excuse for many things. Then we learned it was below freezing in most of the US and stopped complaining.
2- When you don't live in Seattle, and it's hot sticky summer, there are bugs. Our arms and legs are still speckled but fortunately we are less itchy now. What's a mosquito?
3- The urban beaches are pretty. The city is majority city but then there is this beach town feel all along the edge: a wide promenade, sandy beaches, beach cruisers- and all the while you are in the capital city.
4- Dinner is late. Even for Eli and I. Welcome to Latin America.
5- There aren't a lot of people. The downtown "old town" is actually on the City's peninsula, so unless you are a tourist, you have little reason to be there. The result was a somewhat ghost town feel. We of course blamed that on the heat.

To put that all into photos, here's a summary of our first days in Montevideo.