Uruguayan Getaway

Uruguayan Getaway!

(This is a long post - the entire Uruguayan adventure.)

On Sunday April 30, we checked out of our Buenos Aires AirBnb and boarded the Buquebus ferry for the 3-hour trip across the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Montevideo, for a 10-day Uruguayan Getaway. Three days in the capital city then rent a car and drive up the Atlantic coast, across the country to the western border, check out some thermal spas, and end in Colonia del Sacramento with a 1-hour ferry trip back to BsAs.

The Rio de la Plata is called a river by some and an estuary by others. A rose by any other name, it's formed by the confluence of the Uruguay and the Paraná Rivers, as they flow into the Atlantic Ocean. The Rio de la Plata is the widest river mouth in the world, 140 miles.

The view from our hotel room the next morning in Montevideo shows why it's called the River of Silver!

Even though it looks like the ocean, it's still the river - the Atlantic coast proper starts 80 miles east at Punte del Este . Montevideo has a 14-mile-long Rambla, a waterfront walkway, that edges the entire city and its several bays.

Uruguay is about the size of Washington State with a population of 3,500,000. It was the first country to legalize marijuana, 10 years ago, and is a very liberal country. They had horrible fascists in charge from 1973-1985 like other South American countries did. They don't see a lot of Americans here, mostly Brazilians and Argentinians as their tourists. It's one of the most expensive countries in South America; they offer a variety of discounts when using foreign credit cards to encourage tourism. And Argentina's financial picture is worse and worse. The night manager of a hotel we stayed in, located in Carmelo, just across the Rio Uruguay from Argentina and 40 miles from tourist mecca Colonia, said that their little town used to be thronged with Argentinians, lots of people coming across on their own boats, but nowadays the Argentine peso is so abysmally low they can't afford to travel internationally. Of course it makes Argentina incredibly inexpensive for us, but I have to admit I feel a bit guilty. We tip extravagantly.

Back to Uruguay. Anthony Bourdain did a couple of shows here - apparently he really liked it - we hit Jacinto, the place he recommended in Montevideo, for lunch.

Our first day in Montevideo was May 1st, a major holiday, so most things were closed. We walked the Ramblas for miles and checked out La Ciudad Vieja. Our hotel backed onto a nice residential neighborhood, which was fun to stroll. A few pics from the 'hood, including some beautiful old tiles decorating a wall around a big house (it's for sale, in case you're interested):

We saw several groups of school children on the street; they all wore white smocks with big floppy bows - to promote the concept of equality, since theoretically no one can tell what clothes they're actually wearing.

Uruguayans consume by far the most mate per capita in the world. Seems like everyone carries a thermos and a gourd (cup).

When we get back to BsAs we're going to do a mate tasting and buy some for the apartment. You don't see it on menus in cafes or restaurants in Uruguay or in Argentina; people brew their own and take it with them.

Our final evening in Montevideo we had tapas and drinks in a cool jazz bar called El Mingus and were lucky to hear a terrific trio.

The next day we picked up a car and headed east and then north along the water. The weather was going to be sunny and warm for a couple of days so we hoped to get some good beach time before it started to rain. Our first destination was Punta del Este, where the Rio de la Plata meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Punte del Este is a big city and we'd hoped to stay in a small beachside town, but it's off-season for beach resorts, and most small hotels are closed until November. We drove around Piriápolis, La Barra and José Ignacio, and ended up back in Punta del Este - the good news is that our hotel was located directly across from Playa La Brava, the nicest beach in town. Abram got his swim in the Atlantic - too cold for me!

The swimming beach and some smaller towns, and some local surfers.

On Friday the rain set in for three days so we drove up the eastern coast to Chuy, on the border with Brazil, called Chui in Portuguese. It's the southern-most point in Brazil. You can see on the map at the beginning of the blog how far south that bit of Brazil goes.

Chuy/Chui was a true slice of life. Let's just say that the Richman family has a new saying for when things get a bit gnarly - Extra Chui!

Every now and then when you road-trip with no idea where you'll stay that night you end up here... at the best hotel in Chuy!

And sometimes your dinner ends up being a packet of whole wheat crackers and a couple of Jameson minis from the duty free store down the street.

The lady at the front desk was super nice, though, and was delighted to be able to use her favorite English language expression "Come on, come on" as she led us down the hall to our cubicle I mean room. Hey it was clean, it was safe, and it had a truly terrible breakfast.

Speaking of duty-free stores, the trippy thing about Chuy/Chui (other than the almost entire lack of charm) is that one side of the main drag is Uruguay and the other side is Brazil. Menus, money, language all Brazilian on the north side, and all Uruguayan on the south; also, the Uruguayan side is lined with duty-free shops, about 10 blocks of them. People were shopping for booze, clothes, shoes, perfume, toiletries, electronics - all the stuff. At one point after dark we were walking on the sidewalk of the Brazilian side and there was a power outage... only in Brazil. Uruguay carried on.

The next day it was still raining and we headed north and then west across the country, along routes where very few tourists go. I asked on the Viajeros Por Uruguay FB group about the realities of traveling smaller roads and one woman said, "It's not dangerous, people are nice, some of the roads are awful, the scenery is great, very few service stations and every time I stopped my car and started to pull down my pants to pee by the side of the road some guy came over a hill on a horse". More about bad roads and horses later.

Our eventual destination was Salto, a city in the northwest, on the Rio Uruguay, the border with Argentina, (3rd largest Uruguayan city, pop. 100,000), known for its thermal hot springs. As the crow flies it's 300 miles from Chuy on the east coast to Salto on the west, by road closer to 450. We had two potential spots to spend a night and break up the trip: Melo, about a 4 hour drive or Tacuarembó, a 6 hour drive... at least according to Google maps... cue the maniacal laughter.

After a late lunch in Melo we decided to continue "just" another couple of hours to Tacuarembó and stay at a nice-looking hotel named for tango sensation Carlos Gardel. On the outskirts of town we picked up two young Argentinian backpacking hitchhikers, Tomás and Sophie, also heading to Tacuarembó, and launched onto some of the worst road conditions we've ever encountered. Not quite as bad as the old road to Hana, which required 4-wheel drive, but as bad as Mexico in the old days - potholes everywhere, impossible to drive more than 15 mph. Our 2-hour voyage stretched to more than double that. Turns out Ruta 14 is infamous arrrggghh. The areas marked yellow on the map for roadworks were often the best bits - we concluded that Google maps needs a new color for roads that aren't being worked on and don't have slow-downs but are in almost undriveable condition - maybe a matte black to represent the dark night of the soul.

Finally reached the charming and comfortable Carlos Gardel hotel and dropped our young pals at the service station for their next ride. Carlos Gardel was born in 1890 and was tango's first superstar; he was the first singer to adopt the tango as a form of popular song, singing instead of instrumental. Some say he was born in Toulouse, France, and emigrated with his mother and brother to Buenos Aires when he was 6. Some say he was born in Tacuarembó, moved to Montevideo as a young man and then to Buenos Aires. He was a huge star of music and film, and died in a plane crash at only 45. His funeral procession through the streets of Buenos Aires was witnessed by tens of thousands of people.

Here are some pics from our road-tripping across country - cows and palm trees, little gas station cafes/stores - one with quite a selection of Uruguayan vermouth and grappa! - small towns, and horses. And driving into a sunset. We'd seen people walking their horses (instead of their dogs) and chatting with their neighbors in little communities, really just places where there are maybe 20 houses along the side of the road, and knew that Uruguay is known for its beautiful horses.

The horse pictures and video below were taken when suddenly they all appeared on the side of the road, wanting to cross. We stopped and the herd dog crouched in the road staring at us until all the horses crossed, then they galloped away. Gorgeous!

We finally made it to Salto and headed directly out of town to a lovely small thermal spa on the Salto Grande lake, a sort of bulge in the north-south-running Rio Uruguay which marks the Uruguay/Argentina border. Our hope is always that these sorts of resorts will be relaxed, with a little casual restaurant, places to eat your own food (picnic!) if so inclined, and ok to wear your flip flops and robe or pareo pretty much anywhere on the property. A vibe like Calistoga used to have a l-o-n-g time ago. This place was perfect! And hardly anyone there. They had pitchers of iced thermal water to drink available everywhere, flavored with orange and lime slices - so good! We stayed two nights and really relaxed. The sunset over the lake was spectacular!

The final leg of our Uruguayan road trip was south along the river, stopping at a charming town called Mercedes for lunch in a river-front cafe, overnight in Carmelo which is considered the Tuscany or Napa Valley of Uruguay due to its wineries and olives, and finally an afternoon in the historic Colonia del Sacramento, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Early evening ferry back to Buenos Aire.

Our 10 days in Uruguay were (mostly) fun and always interesting. Now back to BA for a couple of months, with some short trips around the country.

¡ Hasta luego !