Goodbye Uruguay - hasta la proxima!

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Dear reader

On this last last day of virtual travel in Uruguay I want to pass on a few observations and final tips.

I've just borrowed Argentina, Uruguay & Paraguay, 4th edition, 2002, published by Lonely Planet, from the Public Library. The section on Uruguay is covered in pages 588 - 657. Paraguay gets roughly the same number of pages. And Argentina a whopping 500+ pages.

I can tell you this: in the last six months of virtual travel, I've learned more about Uruguay on the web than from this guidebook.

And get this: there are NO guidebooks on Uruguay in the main bookshop in Canberra. The shop assistant showed me The Lonely Planet book catalogue, and it doesn't list any titles with Uruguay in them.

So, if you want to learn about Uruguay, go to the web (or some other travel guide). Or track down some of the books I've mentioned in previous blogs (there aren't very many). The last book I'll recommend is this one:

Blackness in the White Nation: A history of Afro-Uruguay, by George Reid Andrews, published by the University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Finally, here are some links to YouTube videos showing the African-inspired candombe so popular in Uruguay:

Uruguay's Carnaval Moves moves to candombe beat


La Tango Candombe


Maestros del Candombe


Uruguay: Carnaval, Candombe, Comparse, Tamboriles


To really understand what's going on, you'll need to read Blackness in the White Nation, a truly amazing book.

On my regular Sunday walk today, I happened to pass the Uruguay Embassy in Canberra, located in a non descript building on Brisbane Avenue.

Unfortunately, due to Guapo's health taking a turn for the worst, we won't now be travelling physically to Uruguay in October as planned. It's sad but I'm hoping we might be able to go some other time.

So this is my last blog about Uruguay, Guapo's country of birth, now very much alive in my imagination thanks to six months of virtual travel.

Bye for now, and happy travels.

Guapita

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Comments

[Jerold]

Virtual travel to Uruguay
Buen dia: Yes, I can recommend a novel set in Uruguay---a new mystery novel available as an e-book from Amazon and Smashwords. For your "holiday", how about an armchair visit to Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, and Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay? For only $2.99 "The Ambivalent Corpse" is available as a Kindle E-book from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Ambivalent-Corpse-Crime-Meant-ebook/dp/B0060ZFRQG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319989507&sr=1-1, and in other convenient formats at Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100325. The book is also in the Smashwords Premium Catalog as of December 1st, which will soon get the book onto iBooks, iPads, Kobos, and Nooks. This mystery book has garnered four 4-star reviews thus far on Amazon.