A Day in Montevideo

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Hi All,

Yesterday Gerard and I took the bus to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, for the day. The bus ride was 2 1/2 hours each way so it was a bit of a trip. The bus ride was interesting. We would randomly pull over to the side of the road and pick up passengers along the way. There would be a person standing with their luggage what seemed like the middle of nowhere. We also saw hitchhikers along the way. In Uruguay it is considered safe and acceptable to hitch rides! Another observation was the countryside reminded me of ND. There were many farms along the way, mainly cows and corn fields. THere were also a lot of wind mills.

Montevideo on a Sunday was very quiet. We went to the old part of the city had an awesome lunch at the Mercado del Puerto. It is an area where many restaurants are located and they are grilling meat everywhere. The food we had was some of the best so far on the trip. Gerard had beef and chicken kebobs and I had the grilled swordfish. Very good! There were many Americans at the Mercado del Puerto, actually the most I have seen in one location since we started the trip. I learned that the cruise ships stop in Montevideo so many were from the ships. Montevideo is a bit more run down than Buenos Aires. We are not sure why that is other than the country also had an economic crisis in 2001. We did learn that Uruguay is highly literate, around 97% and it is one of the countries in the world that has always had a democracy. Interesting stuff!

Well, today is our last full day in Uruguay before we began the journey back to NY. We are taking the ferry tomorrow morning to Buenos Aires and then heading to the airport for our flight at 8:30 pm tomorrow. We will get into NY around 10 am on Wednesday so it will be a long day tomorrow of traveling. Ugh!

Today we are going to get some more pool time and then go to the historic district of Colonia, the town we are staying in. It was built in the late 1600's so it is a very old town in South America.

Have a great day!

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