Hottie Spotting in Montevideo

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Today we have to get up at 5.30am. Getting up at this unearthly hour always leaves me feeling grumpy and slightly sick...but we are arriving by night bus into Montevideo, which - we manage to later extract from Alfresco...is the capital of Uruguay.

The drive down takes us through some beautiful Argentinian countryside in the early hours of the morning, deep dark forests with little fires burning, strange little swiss chalets, and then the Uruguayan scenery is just as lush ( i wonder how many times i´ll use the word lush in this blog - i may ban myself from now on) , lovely misty green woodlands, silvery lakes and a sky of the palest pink. A good reason, no the only reason to be awake at dawn i think. To see the petal colours of the sky.

I sleep for an hour when we arrive and eat an empanada. Why not, i´ve eaten very little else since i arrived in South America. Then we take a walk about. Montevideo reminds me of Havana, all palm trees and crumbling colonial facades. It feels arty too, lots of cafes and bookshops, little market stalls selling antiques and jewellery made with pressed flowers. As we walk through the streets and into the old town we hit commuter lunch time and the men of Montevideo make an appearance. They are all walking very purposefully in incredibly well cut suits....and are super hot! A welcome addition to the scenery of Montevideo and not what i was expecting!

We go for a BBQ place in a covered market area and are plied with some samples of the local sparkling wine...

"Oh just the sound of that cork popping and Dominique was over here like a shot!" observes Michelle. How very true.... !

They cook all parts of the cow on the open bbq but the majority of us opt for the Lomo - the straight forward tenderloin steak.

The next day, Sabrina and i have ambitious plans to visit the theatre, go for an hour long walk along the seafront and visit lots of galleries and museums. We do none of it, after wandering into the old town we find a cafe in the sunshine and settle in for a few hours.

I order morcilla dulce, a dry crumbling blood sausage that tastes like a sweet, cinnamony version of black pudding and that arrives with great comical effect in the middle of the plate with a cocktail stick poking out of it.

Behind us a group of local friends sit at a lunch table and crack open some Chamapgne to accompnay their bbq. It feels almost European here. Ah well... I justify... its as important to experience the local cafe-restaurant culture of a city as it is to visit its museums and galleries.

Our vegetarian in the group, Samantha, has been feeling queasy after the offal, blood and guts of the bbq in the indoor market so in a show of solidarity all the girls go for a rather mediocre vegetarian meal, and then join the "men" in a more traditional Spanish restaurant after and stay for a nightcap of rose wine that smells like geraniums.

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