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Published: October 17th 2011
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I didn't know very much about Uruguay before we arrived here a couple of days ago. The country has a funny name. Its capital is Montevideo. There's lots of cows there. And that's just about it - truthfully!
I don't think it's just me, though. With the exception of Uruguayans and perhaps of porteños across the River Plate, it seems that Uruguay is well below most people's radar. Our guide to Argentina "also includes Uruguay" - the country reduced almost to a footnote. If I were Uruguay I'd be a bit annoyed. Most visitors to the region, it would seem, leave this little country - little by South American standards, of course, since it's a fair bit larger than England and Wales combined - off their itineraries. Reason enough for us to pay a visit, then!
Our plane ticket to Montevideo from Buenos Aires was a strategic purchase, nothing more. We'd been forewarned that Argentine immigration looked suspiciously on travellers arriving on one-way tickets, and that buying a cheapish flight out of BA into another country - even if only to bin the ticket unused - was the easiest way to mollify the authorities. Poor old Uruguay - not
just a footnote, now it's also a get-into-Argentina card as well.
Being the thrifty souls that we are we decided to take a colectivo to the airport - at 4 pesos instead of 150 it seemed like a good idea. At the time. The good old número ocho took a full two hours to get the airport (even at 6 in the morning), stopping every block for the first hour, then veering off the motorway at every single exit for the next. Imagine getting on a bus to Heathrow in Piccadilly Circus and driving around the back streets of Hounslow for an hour on the way...We eventually arrived at the check-in desk precisely 40 minutes before departure time - and were quite naturally convinced we were too late. Not so - indeed, the check-in lady, passport-stamping man and gate-person found our breathless discomfiture quite amusing. The last of these especially, as we crashed puffing and red-faced into his desk pleading to be let on the plane only to be told to take a seat since boarding was still 20 minutes away. Pesos saved: 146. Fingernails chewed: 20 (thumbs included).
A half-hour hop and a bus ride later, we're
in central Montevideo checking into our little hotel, the (indeed rather splendid) Hotel Spléndido. All high ceilings and fabulously faded sixties and seventies decor (lots of browns and dark greens), it's excellently placed in the centre of town. We've arrived in Montevideo on a Bank Holiday, and the city is very quiet. It also happens to be the bicentenary of Uruguayan independence (or something to that effect) so the evening promises
not to be. There are stages going up all over the place. The evening does indeed bring seemingly half of Uruguay out onto the streets.
We kick off our visit to Uruguay by having lunch in the beautiful Mercado del Puerto, previously the city's market but now a fancy complex of restaurants, with the aunt of a friend from London - a delightful lady by the name of Irene who introduces us to her city and her country over a huge platter of grilled meat. Most Uruguayan.
Montevideo is a strange fish indeed. Sited on a narrow peninsula jutting out into the River Plate - at this stage over 100km wide - and surrounded on three sides not by blue sea but by sediment-laden, brackish water the
colour of milky coffee, the Ciudad Vieja or historic centre of the city is a most curious mix of grand old buildings, quirky but fascinating museums and surprising urban decay. In its heyday 80 or so years ago Montevideo must have been a pretty fancy place, with its beautiful neoclassical facades along broad boulevards and around handsome plazas. The intervening decades seem to have treated the city harshly, although must effort is clearly now being made to restore and rejuvenate this intriguing city centre.
There´s enough here to keep us busy for a couple of days: some great museums (Museo del Gaucho, anyone?), atmospheric walks past both the fancy and faded, the gorgeous and the crumbling, not to mention some suitably oddball culinary offerings. Once such Montevidean speciality is the
chivito (literally "little goat"), an obscenely overfilled hot sandwich bursting at the seams with steak, cheese, ham and egg (with a few token green things called vegetables). In a laudable display of self-restraint we share one (we are clearly going to balloon if we don't watch it) but only to make room for an Uruguayan dessert, a heavenly if slightly haphazard concoction of meringue, chocolate, biscuits and - of
course - dulce de leche. People-watching is also plenty of fun here. In addition to some quite extraordinary haircuts (mullets and pudding-basins are clearly at the very height of fashion here, ironic or just a few decades behind, I wonder) it seems like almost every adult Uruguayan goes about his or her daily business with a Thermos slung over the shoulder and a
mate cup in the hand. A small supermarket in town, barely the size of a Tesco Metro, has a whole
aisle devoted to various types of
yerba mate, the shrub from which this mysterious beverage is brewed. Mate for nervous dispositions, mate for didgy digestions, mate for everything. For a drink I've only ever read described as "extremely bitter" it all seems rather excessive... I´m obviously missing a trick.
Early on Wednesday morning we catch a local bus - always a laugh when carrying a massive rucksack at rush-hour - to the city's main long-distance terminal. We are striking out eastwards, towards a place we've heard - from Irene especially - is well worth the five-hour bus trip. Cabo Polonio is located on Uruguay´s Atlantic coastline, a place of sand dunes and pine trees, of sealions
and penguins. A place where time runs a little more slowly than elsewhere. And indeed it does.
Uruguayans being the incredibly open and friendly people they are, I immediately get chatting to a couple of people on the open-top 4x4 which shuttles visitors from the bus stop on the highway to Cabo Polonio itself. For Cabo has no roads, Cabo has no telephones. Cabo has no running water. And Cabo has no electricity... Once we arrive one of them quickly leads me to a little old lady who gladly lets us a little house, a
casita, for just a few pounds a day. It has its own kitchen (hooray for bottled cooking gas!), lovely views out to the sea on both sides, and is quite delightful. A small shop just down the hill provides some basics, and we feast on simple, home-made meals, cooked and eaten by the light of a gas lantern.
Sealion and dolphin-spotting, walks along the beach and reading easily swallow up four days, twice the time we thought we'd stay. Cabo Polonio has a wonderful, gentle, bohemian feel to it. Beach houses cobbled together from old bits of driftwood, friendly dogs coming to visit,
dreadlocks and tie-dye aplenty. A simply wonderful place to reflect on the adventure that awaits us.
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Jane Piper
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I am already really enjoying your trip!!