Capital of Uruguay

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Geo: -34.8939, -56.1568

The views from the ship this morning werent particularly thrilling. Just another port, similar in appearance to Beunos Aries. From here, the city looked like a rustic, concrete jungle. How wrong we were to be. We hadnt booked any tours or activities for Uruguay, as both ports were within shuttle or walking distance to the cities and tours going beyond the cities didnt sound exciting enough to justify the costs.

We enjoyed breakfast on the ship around 8.30, and an hour later we were disembarking. Nothing whatsoever in the way of customs. We walked straight out the port into the street. The currency here is the Uruguayan Peso. 1AUD = around 25 URU. From the port wed planned to do a walking tour. We noticed a hop on hop off bus here however and opted to grab that to see even more of the city. It cost a bit under$50AUD for both of us for the day. Packed initially, we werent able to get on the roof so we got off after only a couple stops and walked between stops down the main street and city square.

What a pretty and modern town! Certainly more modern, Westernised and well maintained than Beunos Aries. Modern shops, greenery, busy streets, it wouldnt be out of place in Australia. We picked up a couple souvenirs by the historic arch in the city square and jumped back on the hop on hop off tour bus. We got on the roof and took it completely around the entire circuit taking about 2.5 hours. Whilst a couple buildings were of interest (royal palace & Montevideo stadium Australia has visited for recent world cup football qualifiers), the majority were just your Western standard. The tour was a little boring and unremarkable, not too dissimilar to just driving around Melbourne. It was a beautiful warm day though, 30C, so we just relaxed and soaked up the sun.

Once finished with the bus, we wandered the streets back to the old square for a while. Eventually, we stopped in for a late 3pm lunch at a random little restaraunts. The young waiter spoke a little English and recommended some steaks. We ordered a pepper steak and another sauce variety to share and he threw in a couple free wine/apple juice mixers along with my 1L Uruguayan beer. I was absolutely gobsmacked by the quality of food. Amazing. Easily the best meals weve had in South America to date, or even the cruise ship. All up, it cost us around $70AUD for everything but when foods that good, who cares?

We spend the late afternoon in the pool and spa as the ship sailed away from Montevideo. We left satisfied wed spent the day as well as we could have and saw as much as we could have. An impressive, modern, clean and sophisticated city, if anything a little unremarkable or standard. Next up, Punta del Este, down the coast.

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