A Year in Uruguay

I uploaded a few photos from our trip to Cabo Polonio. You can see them here.

Labels: interior, Rocha, Uruguay, waterfront

We had a really nice time visiting Cabo Polonio, a beach settlement about 4 hours from Montevideo. In some ways, it´s similar to Punta del Diablo. Cabo Polonio is harder to reach since there´s no road access. You can reach it by 4-wheel drive truck or horseback from Ruta 10.

This is very much the off-season, so we needed reservations to ensure someone would open the hotel. We were the only tourists in the entire town. In the high season (January) every room in every building is filled with artists, hippies, and miscellaneous visitors. Most of the casitas are very small-- merely beach shacks. A few are more substantial. We stayed at La Perla del Cabo, the nicest place in town. (Although it was still very simple-- 2 hours of electricty daily, hot water some days but none while we were there, and for winter a propane heater in the hallway and extra blankets for the beds.)

The town itself was very quiet. All the little souvenir stands, shops and boliches were closed for the season. One almacen offered snacks, fruit, and staples like dulce de leche. The restaurant attached to the hotel opened for us. Their fresh fish was great.

We climbed the lighthouse, which gave great views of the coast. On the rocky point beneath the faro, hundreds of sea lions bathed in the winter sun. We saw a lone penguin, apparently off-course from its annual migration to Brazil from southern Argentina. It´s whale season, but we didn´t happen to see any.

update:A photo album from Cabo Polonio

Labels: interior, Rocha, Uruguay, waterfront

Living in Uruguay, it was easy to see traces of its past: architecture from previous centuries, colonial fortresses, and antique cars still in use. Some are a bit worn, others in states of decay, and others fully renovated. In any state, they were interesting reminders of Uruguay's history.












I made a video slideshow of photos of artifacts from Uruguay's past. You can see it here:

Labels: Colonia, interior, Montevideo places, rural, Uruguay, video

Labels: Colonia, interior, Uruguay, video

We last visited Colonia in January and it was so hot we could hardly move. Today, the weather was much more pleasant. We went to five of the small museums (25 pesos buys a ticket good for all the museums; no photos allowed) and enjoyed lunch at a small restaurant called the Viejo Barrio with a charismatic waiter who wore 6 different wacky hats during our meal.






I liked the adaptive re-use of this 1930 Ford.









It's been converted into a tiny dining room.

Labels: Colonia, interior, Uruguay

Salto de Penitente is a 60 meter cascade in the rocky hills east of Minas. The falls are about 20 kilometers off of Ruta 8 on a good dirt road. The drive is quite scenic and the falls are nice. There's a restaurant overlooking the falls and a short trail down to the base. They offer horseback riding and camping (although perhaps not in the winter). There's a "panoramic" short-cut returning to the highway with great views on a rougher, but still passable dirt road. It made a very pleasant afternoon.

Admission: 10 pesos.

Labels: interior, Lavalleja, Uruguay

It's a rainy day in Montevideo so I decided to put together a little video from Uruguay's countryside. The clips are from my visits to two working estancias: Estancia Las Cecilias and Estancia Los Morteros. Like my Montevideo series, this video isn't of a particular event but rather a general look at the campo.


My earlier rural videos include: weighing sheep, making sausage, and rodeo.






Here's today's video:

Labels: interior, rural, Uruguay, video

San José de Mayo is the capital of the departamento of San José. It's a town of nearly 40,000 residents about an hour's drive west of Montevideo. It has an interesting cathedral and a short pedestrian mall near its main plaza.






San José links [in Spanish]
Government homepage
San José news

Labels: interior, San José, Uruguay

Most of the countryside that I'd seen in Uruguay was cattle land, except for some vegetable farms and vineyards close to Montevideo, so I was somewhat surprised to see orange groves near Salto. Apparently the area is known for growing citrus, particularly oranges. The trees were full of healthy-looking fruit.

Labels: food and drink, interior, Salto, Uruguay

Zooilógico del Futuro is a group of scuptures by Martín Arreguí installed on each side of Ruta 3 in the departamento de Flores. The pieces show Uruguay's native fauna-- ñandú, carpincho, puma, zorro-- and the threats they face. The setting is an interesting choice-- a traffic circle in the middle of miles and miles of open country.

Labels: art, Flores, interior, nature, Uruguay

The Represa Salto Grande is a dam on the Rio Uruguay just north of Salto. Construction of the dam, a joint Argentine-Uruguayan project, started in 1974 and was completed in 1979.

We didn't have time to take the guided tour to see the hydroelectric generators inside the dam, but we drove across it into Argentina. (Both Uruguay's and Argentina's Customs facilities are on the Argentine side of the river now, so it's possible to cross the bridge without going through Immigration.) Argentinian protesters, who have closed the southernmost bridge between the countries for nearly two years, only occasionally block the bridge at Salto.

The huge reservoir behind the dam in known as Lago Salto Grande.

Labels: Argentina, government, interior, Salto, Uruguay, waterfront

Wednesday morning at 4 am I left Montevideo in order to visit a frigorífico in Paso de los Toros. We arrived at the meat packing plant just after sunrise, around eight in the morning. We changed into white pants, white tunics, white rubber boots, and blue hardhats before entering the plant. In the entryway, everyone scrubbed their boots and washed their hands before going into the packing room.

The plant was much smaller than the typical Uruguayan frigorífico and it was designed for processing liebre (hare) and later expanded to sheep. The day we were there they were packing lamb for sale in Africa.

I'd never been to a slaughterhouse so I didn't know what to expect. The part of the plant we were in was like a big busy butchershop-- very clean, very bright-- meat being cut, packaged, vacuum sealed, and boxed

See a short video:

Labels: food and drink, interior, rural, Tacuarembó, Uruguay, video

Paso de los Toros is a small town located near the center of Uruguay on the Río Negro in the departamento of Tacuarembó. The locally popular grapefruit soda, Paso de los Toros, originated there. A larger-than-life bull statue on Ruta 5 marks the entrance to the town.










The local Texaco, like many gas stations in Uruguay's interior carried a wide variety of goods, including boots and 20 inch knives for the gauchos. I liked this display at the back of the station with motor additives and horse saddles on the same shelves.

Labels: interior, Tacuarembó, Uruguay

Salto is a pleasant city of 100,000 inhabitants on the bank of the Rio Uruguay, about 500 kilometers from Montevideo. It's the capital of the departamento of Salto. A bridge built on top of a dam connects Salto to Concordia, Argentina.

We didn't spend much time there but we enjoyed a short walk in a park along the river. Recent flooding left part of their riverside drive underwater. Salto has several nice parks and plazas, including Plaza Artigas (where this photo was taken.)

Some Salto links [all in Spanish]:
City of Salto website
Universidad de la Repúblic, Regional Norte
El Pueblo de Salto newspaper

Labels: interior, Salto

The Posada del Siglo XIX is a resort near the city of Salto (in the departmento of Salto) about 5 hours from Montevideo. We enjoyed our weekend there but it seemed very pricey. To be fair, a spa in the US would have been much more expensive. (And our friends told us their weeknight rates were substantially cheaper.)

Siglo XIX is one of several hotels in the termas de Daymán featuring geothermal hot pools. Some termas also sell daypasses. The water is naturally hot and the pools are manmade. One guidebook said the water source was found accidentally while drilling for oil. At Siglo XIX, there are several outdoor pools and a large covered pool and various hot tubs and spas plus a kids area with water slides. In the morning it was cold enough to form frost on the grass and the steam rising from the pools was very atmospheric. The pools themselves were very relaxing.

See a short video:

Labels: interior, Salto, Uruguay, video

The ñandú [South American ostrich] may be my favorite animal in Uruguay. I've seen them many times driving through the countryside and it's always a treat. Last weekend at the Estancia los Morteros I stood quietly beside a fence and a pair of them came within 50 feet of me. Very cool!









Related posts:
Ñandú is good to eat;
Their eggs are huge.
In Patagonia we saw their smaller relatives, the choique

Labels: interior, Lavalleja, nature, rural, Uruguay

We had some minor car trouble on our way home from Lavalleja and I'd like to thank Cesar Sosa and his family for their assistance. They graciously stopped to help us and then drove behind us in case we had more problems. At Minas, they made sure we got to a service station and aided in the consultation with the attendant. Muy amable!

It seems we had some bad gasoline and putting in an additive/cleaner and filling the tank took care of the problem. Our car has been running fine ever since.

Cesar and his wife are realtors specializing in country properties. If you're interested you can visit their website.

Labels: cars, interior, Uruguay

Once a year at the Estancia Los Morteros they make their own chorizo. Usually it's a mid-Winter activity (June or July) but the pigs had been troublesome this year so they decided to move the process to the weekend we visited. It was interesting to see and a good reminder that meat doesn't ultimately come from the supermarket.

None of the pig was wasted; most of it became chorizo, but the legs were salted to make ham and we ate delicious spareribs for dinner. A couple of big pots simmered on the fire for head cheese. The skins cured on the shed roof and the dogs ate the scraps. The chorizo, cooked slowly over embers, was great.


If you don't follow the dictum, "people who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made," you may like this video:

Labels: food and drink, interior, Lavalleja, rural, seasons, Uruguay, video

We had a great weekend with friends at their estancia in Lavalleja. It's in a beautiful part of the country, several miles from the nearest paved road. The land was planted in eucalyptus six years ago and now looks like a forest. Livestock graze under the trees. A dozen dogs and horses help manage the cows and sheep. A few pigs, chicken and ducks round out the animal life.

We got to watch chorizo being made-- from pig to parrilla. We ate tangerines straight from the tree to accompany fresh pork and cordero. The kids had a great time catching frogs in the pond and minnows in the creek and they were unhappy when they found the critters couldn't return to Montevideo as pets. The star-filled night sky was impressive.

We were all a bit sad when we had to return to the city. Now we have several loads of muddy clothes to wash.

See a photo album from the estancia

Labels: interior, Lavalleja, rural, Uruguay

This whimsical bridge connects fashionable Punta del Este with trendy La Barra. While Punta del Este was quiet this weekend, La Barra was nearly abandoned.

Here's a quick video of the bridge.

Labels: interior, Maldonado, Uruguay, video