Christmas in Montevideo

ihana.com - big trip - diary - uruguay - december 2002

Tuesday 24 - Friday 27 December

Driving into Montevideo we found ourselves by the docks where there was an area of bars and a big piss-up going on. Parking up the landy we joined the fray and with beers in hand had a bit of a wander around. Things seemed to be coming to an end and some of the more boisterous lads let the drink get the better of them and had a few fights. The police were quickly on the scene though, just like being back at home!

The capital of Uruguay is really a relaxed place with a few beaches which are not very inviting for swimming but ok for lying on on Christmas day. The Uruguayans are obsessed with drinking maté, a green herb tea drunk through a metal straw. Its nice enough but there's people here who walk around with a thermos flask under one arm and the maté cup in hand all day, we even saw one guy paddling in the sea with his.

Christmas eve night was a total non-event, we drove around the streets and they were deserted with the odd exception of some families using the gutter as a bbq. No bars, no restaurants, nothing open. Christmas day could have been the same but we eventually found a decent restaurant at 2pm having almost resigned ourselves to eating fast food. The afternoon was spent on the beach and the following day we left for Colonia to investigate the ferry to Buenos Aires.

As its name suggests, Colonia is a colonial town with a well preserved area of old buildings and some suspiciously placed old cars. The ferry prices were pretty high so we decided to enter Argentina by driving round the 400kms or so via the familiar sounding Fray Bentos the next day.

Click here to see a special page on old cars in Uruguay.

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