Carnival in Uruguay!

Carnival…dancing…birthdays…cerveza and pizza are what mostly made up our last few weeks in Uruguay! Of course we did manage to squeeze in some more sightseeing too! Seriously, we couldn’t have picked a better time to come back to Uruguay!

Las Llamadas were on both the Thursday and the Friday nights. Just recently they have separated Las Llamadas into two nights as previously it would start at 9pm and finish in the earl hours of the morning!!! For those who don’t know (and those who do can still read along!) Las LLamadas is a traditional festival held on the street Isla de Flores in the city centre Barrio Sud. (For more info http://www.carnaval.com/uruguay/ )The costumes, the tambores, the dancers…its nuts!!! We’ve seen it on tv before but nothing beats being in that crowd! Luckily we managed to go both the Thursday and the Friday… half way through on the Friday night it started to pour down with rain (hence why we are drenched in the photos!!) The crowd went nuts…people jumping over the barricades, dancing with the groups in the middle of the streets…we filmed it all and hopefully will put the videos up….if not check our Facebook!

A quick bus trip into the city from Abuela’s house meant that we would be spending most of our days there. The city is gorgeous is so pretty especially in the summer…so many days spent walking down the street of 18 de Julio, spending way too much money on clothes and shoes…so much that it is now the biggest mission to try and close our backpacks (we should’ve listened to you Linda!! Haha) !! After passing the Artigas monument (the guy who made Uruguay an independent country…also, his remains lay unde the monument) we would walk down the Ciudad Vieja (old city) and end up at the famous ramblas of Montevideo. It’s amazing how many people go there at sunset or after work sipping on their mate or a cerveza..awesome atmosphere and perfect way to end the day!

More and more birthdays meant more pizza and more cerveza…ahhhhh!! It’s a tough life! We celebrated Abuela Blanca’s birthday who was stoked that we were all in Uruguay with her to celebrate her birthday!! And then a couple of days later was Tio Jose’s Birthday..more asado and pizza! The night of Tio Jose’s was the first (and the last) Saturday night that we spent at home (AKA Montevideo) so we made the most of it and rode in the back of Nando’s ute to the city! All of Rose’s cousins came and we ended up at the Macarena…not a bad club except for the fact they played WAY too much cumbia with only a little of Spanish rock and salsa! Still, a great night and we managed to get home in the early hours of the morning! Seriously, that’s one thing we’re going to miss most in London, having the occasional dance or two to Spanish music….we’re sure we’ll find somewhere! The following week was Rose’s cousin Pablo’s birthday, which originally started as a quiet birthday night at home but ended with all his mates coming over with their tambores while drinking litres (and litres, and litres) of red wine….The drums topped it off and everyone went off….great night!!

We spent a couple of nights with Silva’s family over there who treated us like we were part of theirs…They took us for a drive to pocitos which is gorgeous at night and took us down to the Rambla of Positos. we went down to a nice bar by the beach with pia and toby and had couple cocktails which was nice and relaxing. Positos is a nice area with the beach nice bars and clubs to have a good night out. Also one of the nights we got invited to pia and tobys dad’s bday bqq which was great. A huge parrilla with all types of meat(the Uruguayan tradition) plenty of whisky and great time catching up with Silva’s big family. It was a great night.

(Yannick)
Also have to mention the awesome football 5 match that toby an fede organised on one of the last nights we were there. They have these 5 a side outdoor football fields in every area and suburbs of Montevideo where you can play football with your mates like up 2 in the morning its great! We started the game at 10.30 thanks to toby and fede caling all the barrio mates 10 mins before we started hehehe… lucky we exactly 10 players we and played for an hour and after 15 minutes I was out of breath. Couldn’t believe it but after remembering I haven’t touched a ball in few months, no training and eating and drinking anything I wanted for the last few months it kinda added up hehehe… the game was very fast paced but I lasted the full hour and managed to score a goal but we lost 7-6 sill it was a great game.

Rosi’s cousin Nando took us out for lunch to el Mercado del Prado. It’s like a massive warehouse near the port and inside are endless restaurants, most specialising in the typical Asado. It was 40degrees so we sat at the back, airconditioned, but you can sit right next to the parilla where they cook the meat at the bar. It’s awesome! Definite recommend you go there but make sure you go on an empty stomach coz the plates are massive!!!

We realised this time around, we did a lot more sight seeing if places that we had never been to….usually it’s a case of spending a lot of the time with the family, but this time we had it both ways coz the family always were taking us out!

On the last Saturday in Uruguay, all of Rose’s cousins, us and Belle caught the bus to Colonia del Sacramento (and thanks to Belle telling Rose the bus came at 730am and not 8am we actually made it on time!!haha) Colonia is a port city that was set up by the Portuguese to smuggle goods into Buenos Aires. It´s literally like stepping back in time, with cobbled streets and old street lanterns. It’s beautiful! We hired scooters to take us around…to say that none got damaged would be a lie! Nothing too serious, just a little too much acceleration, aye Belle! haha. It was awesome riding round the cobblestone streets of Colonia, passing by the old Plaza de Toros where back in the day when it was legal was used as a Bullrifighting arena. Although the plaza if barricaded off and they say it’s ready to turn to rubble any minute, we managed to sneak inside for a quick peek!

After two very emotional goodbyes (Belle left on the Friday and we left on the Saturday) it was onto another plane and off to Spain….if only it was that easy! After hearing the plane was overbooked and being the last ones to get on the plane, not only did we have separate seats but on the other side of the plane! Luckily the girl next to Yannick offered to swap with Rose, so at least we were sitting together on the 12 hour place ride….we don’t have much luck with the planes aye!!

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