The Republica Oriental del Uruguay (basically, the Republic to the east of the River Uruguay) is one of the smallest countries in South America and, apart from the towns of Montevideo or Colonia, is often overlooked by travellers. As I had enough time I thought that I would do a small tour of Uruguay to see what there was off of the beaten track.
Uruguay declared independence from Spain in 1828 with the help of the 33 Orientals (‘Oriental’ as in ‘from the east of the Rio Uruguay’ as opposed to ‘Chinese’) and with the encouragement of their national hero Jose Artigas who was exiled to Paraguay.
Nearly all South American countries have a Liberator who they venerate for liberating their country from the spanish: Argentina has San Martin, Chile has Bernard O’Higgins (I kid you not), Bolivia has Simon Bolivar and for Uruguay it’s Jose Artigas. The fact that he was in exile when independence was achieved and was never allowed to return to Uruguay, doesn’t seem to dampen their pride in him. His ashes are under constant guard under the Plaza Independéncia.
Since independence, Uruguay has gone through several democratic governments and dictatorships, the last of which ended in 1984 when public support for the Military all but disappeared and democracy returned. It ranks as one of south America’s most educated and stable countries.
On the last day of June I caught the 2hr ferry from Buenos Aires, across the Rio de la Plata, to Colonia in Uruguay.
Colonia
Nova Colonia do Sacramento was founded in 1680 by the Portuguese who used it to undercut the trade of the spanish city of Buenos Aires and it was eventually captured by the spanish in 1762.
Colonia is a very pleasant town of only 20,000 people built on a headland, and consists of many pretty, winding, cobbled streets and artisan shops. It stays in my memory as one of the few places I’ve been to where a half litre of wine in a restaurant is cheaper than a coffee !
Whilst in Colonia I decided to send a package of odds and ends back to the UK. It’s interesting to see how basic services work (or don’t work) in different countries: A plus for the Uruguayan postal service was that the stamps are like stickers and so don’t need to be licked. A negative is that they are huge and you need lots of them. You could hardly see the address on my package for stamps – there must have been about 25 of them !! I asked jokingly what happens if you want to send a postcard – the woman behind the counter showed a distinct sense of humour failure.
My next stop was a “Must See” for any self respecting Brit…
Meat Pie Anyone ?
In 1864 the Liebig Meat Extraction Company of London started operations in a small town 100km north of Colonia. That town was Fray Bentos !
All is now quiet in the pretty little town that provided the name that is synominous in the UK with tinned meat pies. The huge frigorifico plant is now still and the buildings deserted shells.
Beyond the deserted factories is a really nice parkland which is great for an afternoon stroll along the Rio Uruguay but in the town itself there is little else to occupy you.
If you like old cars then Uruguay is the place for you. I have never seen so many old cars on the streets. By ‘old’ I mean 30 to 40 years, if not older. In Fray Bentos there is even a Ford showroom which, honest to god, has two immaculate Model T´s for sale with spoked wheels, the lot. Uruguay seems to be in a time warp with respect to cars, quite unreal.
Salto
My next stop on this whistle wind tour was the town of Salto, a veritable throbbing metropolis in comparison to anything so far. It is in the citrus fruit growing region of Uruguay and has thermal springs and a nice climate.
Again, there isn’t much there for the tourist but it’s nice place and the people are very friendly. It’s tourist highlight is a large Hydroelectric project but I appeared to be the only tourist in Salto at the time and they needed a minimum number to do the tour and so I didn’t get to see it. There are several good museums in Salto and a sad looking zoo and most importantly, ATM’s. In general admission to museums in Uruguay is free. This is a real bonus for a backpacker and a good reflection of how they view education in Uruguay.
Tacuarembo
From Salto I moved on to the pleasant town of Tacuarembo, situated in the green rolling hills in the north of Uruguay. Again it’s a nice enough place but there’s not too much there.
Amusement Arcades in Uruguay, and South America generally, are great because they have all the old games that you can no longer find in Europe and they’re all dirt cheap to play. In Tacuarembo I found an arcade with the old car racing game of ‘Out Run’ which I used to love playing when I was at college. It’s the one with the guy and his girlfriend driving around in a Ferrari. It’s great fun and it was noticeable that, even after such a long time of not playing, my skill level hadn’t changed – I was still crap !! Oh well !
Half an hours bus ride outside of Tacuarembo is a place called Valle Eden, where there are some pleasant walks and waterfalls and a museum to a certain: Carlos Gardel. In my Argentina update I wrote about the Tango and how it encapsulates a whole style of song and music as well as of dance. For those of you who
haven’t heard the name, Carlos Gardel was probably the most famous and successful Tango singer that ever lived, before his life was cut short in a plane crash in Columbia. Over the years there have been many disputes and speculations concerning the nationality of Gardel, some say that he was French, others
Argentinean (He is buried in Buenos Aires). Well, this museum was dedicated to proving, once and for all, that Carlos Gardel was in fact Uruguayan and was born in Tacuarembo. It was amazing the lengths that they had gone to prove this. What was, in my opinion, more suspect than his nationality was that his father had managed to marry 3 sisters, one after the other. There has to be a tale of passion and intrigue there.
San Gregorio de Polanco
Next stop was the small town of San Gregorio de Polanco. It doesn’t appear in any of the main tourist books and is therefore quite unspoilt. I’d found out about it in Salto. I was heading towards an art museum, got lost and ended up in a modern art class for middle aged women. We got chatting and they said that if I liked art then I should go to San Gregorio de Polanco. So there I went.
So what does a small isolated town in the middle of Uruguay offer the art world ? Basically, different artists have descended on San Gregorio at different times to paint murals. As you walk around this small town practically every available wall and building has been painted with murals of exceptional quality and with styles ranging from cartoons to classic, modern to religious etc. It is a lovely, relaxed place on the shores of Lake Rincon del Boneté and a good place to relax for a few days.
All too soon, though, it was time to move on to my last stop in Uruguay – the capital, Montevideo.
Montevideo
Montevideo was built by the spanish in 1726 as a response to the Portuguese port of Colonia and became the capital with Uruguay’s independence from Spain.
I arrived on a Saturday evening in the middle of a thunderstorm. It was windy, cold and very wet and remained so until I left the following Wednesday !! The bad weather is probably the reason that Montevideo
didn’t endear itself to me as much as to other travelers that I’ve met.
I stayed at the YHA near the centre of town and met the first tourists that I’d seen in Uruguay. I was beginning to wonder if there was some rule whereby a new tourist could only enter the country when another left !!
Montevideo is a nice enough place with an old town and lots of museums, again, most of which are free. As an example, I visited the Gobierno (Parliament) while I was there, was the only tourist in the place and so I got my very own guided tour. Feeling like one of the tourist number doesn’t seem to be a problem in Uruguay !!
Maté
Uruguay isn’t a place for the best this, the worst that – it’s very middle of the road in most things, but there is one area in which Uruguay leads the world – Yerba Mate consumption, Uruguayans drink more Mate per capita than any other country !
Yerba Mate is a drink made from a tea like plant that grows in South America. It apparently has many medicinal properties and it drunk traditionally from a gourd with a metal ‘bombilla’ or straw which has a filter on one end. It’s a little like drinking leaf tea direct from the pot, except you literally fill the gourd with mate powder and keep adding water until you’ve finished. It is an important part of everyday life and you will often see the locals sitting in any available spot with their mate gourd primed, their bombilla at the ready and with a flask of hot water under their arm for refills.
Summary
So all in all I was really glad that I did a mini tour of Uruguay instead of just visiting the usual Montevideo or Colonia. It is a beautiful and extremely pleasant place and I found the people to be extremely friendly and hospitable.
I’m not sure that I’d say that Uruguay is a “Must See” but if you’re in the area and have some spare time then you could do a lot worse than to spend some time there.
Talk to you soon,
Iain
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