Mate and Montevideo

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Whoever thinks that the English like their tea has obviously never been to Uruguay. I spent two days in Montevideo and for the entire time I was amazed at just how much tea they drink! When I arrived in the bus station I assumed everybody was carrying around cups and flasks of water for their long bus trip, but no, Uruguayans drink their bitter tea all day, every day and everywhere they go.

Uruguayan tea is called mate (mah-tay) and has a very bitter taste. It is drank from cups called gourds. A lof of these gourds are decorative with gold and silver patterns. I now really regret not buying a gourd whilst I was there! So, they carry around these gourds and a flask of hot water ready to top up the gourd every few minutes. People walk along in the street with their gourd in one hand and flask in the other. In the supermarkets I saw people with their flask in the trolley, pushing the trolley with one hand and holding the tea in the other. However, there is apparantly a law that forbids the drinking mate whilst driving, because the risk of spilling scalding hot water over your lap, and then crashing the car, is quite high.

As for Montevideo, I couldn´t quite make up my mind about the city. A lot of things I liked very much, but there´s something about the place that I´m not sure about. I did find Montevideo to be quite beautiful. My first image of the city was when I arrived by bus from Brazil. I arrived at dawn and awoke to beautiful blue waters along the coast and a sky of hazy pinks and oranges. The main beach in Montevideo is fairly nice for a city beach, but obviously does not compare to beaches just up the coast in Uruguay. The beach was pretty crowded when I went, and of course it´s not great for swimming because it´s on the Rio de la Plata rather than the sea. Although, it was fun to sit on the beach and watch people struggling across the sand with their deckchairs, cups of tea and flasks... Aspects of Montevideo reminded me a lot of Spain. There are many leafy plazas that made me feel like I were in Sevilla or Cordoba. Montevideo is a pleasant city to walk around. There are lots of street salls and markets selling Uruguayan handycrafts such as gourds for mate, plus lots of jewellery. I was surprised at how european looking the people were too. I guess just having been in Brazil I was used to seeing people with more mixed-race and darker skin. All the people I spoke to in Montevideo were very friendly and the city has a very relaxed pace to it.

I did find Montevideo a bit of a strange place at times. For a capital city it is very small and quiet. Some parts of the city are like a ghost town. When looking for a restaurant to have dinner one night with friends, it took us about 20 minutes of wandering around to find a restaurant which had more than 1 table occupied, on a friday night.

In summary, I think I like Montevideo. I still can´t quite work it out. It´s a bit of a strange place but it is attractive, clean and relaxing too. My last memory of Montevideo is from the bus station when I left to go to Buenos Aires. I went to dry my hands after having washed them in the bathroom in the bus terminal. The hand-dryer lit up and played music as it blew out hot air. Brilliant.

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