Visiting Montevideo, the Capital of a Down-to-Earth Country

As soon as you land at Carrasco international airport, you feel good, the shell shaped terminal is airy, architecturally attractive and traveler-friendly.  Carrasco is one of the most exclusive neighborhoods of Montevideo.  However, the name is hardly appropriate to welcome Brazilian visitors.  In Portuguese, a carrasco is both a state executioner and a tyrant.  Fortunately, Uruguay has neither and capital punishment was abolished in 1907!  The airport is ideally located and the visitors reach the central part of the city by driving along the ramblas, a picture-perfect 30 km-long promenade alongside the beaches of the Rio de la Plata.  

By Latin America standards, Uruguay is a tiny state, the second smallest; however, it is still twice the size of Portugal! Two third of its 3.4 m inhabitants live in the Montevideo area.  Montevideo hosts the headquarter of the Southern Common Market better known as Mercosur.  Uruguay is considered the sole rational member of a persistently dysfunctional and fractious block which consists of a failed state (Argentina), a narco state (Paraguay) and a Carnival state (Brazil).  Uruguay also tops the democracy index in Latin America.  In other words, Uruguay is an atypical country in a turbulent region, often referred to as the Great Exception.  

I usually take advantage of Carnival to travel to neighboring countries.  It was my first visit to Montevideo and I was rather clueless about the country and its capital.  Luckily, I have a Uruguayan friend in Rio who provided me with tips.  I had never heard negative comments on the country except that it was as boring as Switzerland!

However, a tiny country with a horse, a cow and the scale of justice on its coat of arms cannot be mean! As a matter of fact, cows largely outnumber people; Uruguay has the most cattle per capita in the world (2021).  Apparently, there is one horse for every seven inhabitants, it is said that the country was made on horseback.  There is an uncomfortable truth about it, a blemish in the story: Uruguay has a large horse meat slaughtering industry.  The locals won’t dare eating their work or sport companions, but they hypocritically export tons of horse meat mainly to my country France.  Fortunately, consumption of horse meat is significantly decreasing. 

Uruguay’s boundaries are two third water, either sea or river, but it has no decent fishing tradition.  It is a country of beef eaters.  I am semi vegan and a fish fanatic. I was very disappointed to eat a frozen Argentine trout in a posh restaurant on the port of Punta del Este. My second minor disappointment was the lack of opportunity to practice Spanish.  I joined walking and bus tours all labelled: Spanish speaking.  Brazilian tourists join Spanish-speaking tours and tour guides have to accommodate their lack of Spanish understanding.  As a result, Uruguayan tour guides speak a jumble of Spanish and Portuguese, the so-called Portonhol, the lengua franca of the tourism industry. 

In Uruguay, Brazilian tourists seem to behave very much like American tourists in Europe: boisterous, noisy, free spending and with few social graces.  Yet, Brazilians don’t compare to the caricatured “ugly American” because they feel brotherly towards Uruguayans.  The frugal locals welcome Brazilians with open arms, they help sustain the tourism industry.  Importantly, they compensate for the declining number of Argentines, now too poor to enjoy Uruguay which has one of the highest costs of living in South America.

In matter of tourism, Uruguay has been a pioneer.  Since the end of the 19^th century, it has enticed its neighbors with forbidden pleasures like gambling (legal since 1819), bull fighting and decadent parties in glamorous seaside resorts.  Foreign tourists largely skip Montevideo to dash to the sandy beaches around Punta del Este.  It is unfair, the quaint city has a lot to offer particularly its historic heart, the Ciudad Vieja.  There are many museums (generally free to visitors), they are understandably modest compared with those of Buenos Aires, Sẩo Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.  Nonetheless, many deserve a visit: the Cabildo, the Palacio Taranco (replica of a mini-Trianon palace), the Torres Garcia’s Museum (I skipped, I don’t care much for his art) and the historic museum Casa Rivera.  The major landmarks are Teatro Solis (the oldest opera house in Latin America), the mausoleum of “freedom fighter” General Artigas, and the old harbor market (where one eats mostly meat).  During the 19^th century, freemasonry influenced the social norms of Montevideo (and Rio de Janeiro) as a result, many public monuments display a variety of Masonic elements.  Our walking tours became stimulating treasure hunts to spot them!

I skipped the Andes Museum which exhibits memorabilia (plane debris, photos, personal belongings, etc.) of the 1972 airplane crash which killed 29 people. 16 survived the 72 day-ordeal in freezing conditions.  Netflix will apparently release a new documentary on the disaster and its aftermath.  Others places of interest are scattered in the 20^th century suburbs and near the ramblas.  I joined a travel-savvy Brazilian lady on a walking tour of the residential neighborhood of Prado.  We visited both Botanical and Japanese Garden.  The latter is a little gem tucked behind the Juan Manuel Blanes museum set in a 19^thcentury villa.  Finally, we took a guided tour of the spooky Castillo Pittamiglio (1911) to interpret all its esoteric symbols.  This strange building is the creation of architect Humberto Pittamiglio who was also an alchemist.

The day tour to Punta del Este is a must.  However, I found the whole experience rather disappointing.  The famed CasaPueblo is truly worth a visit. It is the brainchild of plastic artist/painter Paes Vilaro, a friend of Picasso (and coincidentally, the father to one of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash).  However, the highlight of my visit to Punta was feeding Sancho, the veteran sea lion which swims in the fishing port. 

I much more enjoyed strolling the tree-lined, cobbled streets of the small colonial town of Colonia del Sacramento (UNESCO World Heritage site, 1995).  The town is closer to Buenos Aires by ferry than to Montevideo by car! It was founded in 1680 by Portuguese Manuel Lobo to nag the Spanish on the other side of the Rio de la Plata and to carry some serious smuggling.  The town saw no peace and kept changing owners until the 19^th century when it became part of Uruguay.  In spite of repeated attacks, the town still retains its Portuguese character.

ChatGPT was not used to write this travelog.