montevideo

I am not sure I would want to spend the rest of my life in Montevideo, it is a small and provincial variant on Buenos aires. But I certainly would not mind having a flat there. The city is located in a sort of peninsula, so the coastline is long and lined with beautiful flats, most of which have a view overlooking the water. The blocks of flats seemed nice, many having enormous balconies over looking the beach. The beach is completely clean and people swim in it during the summer. Today there were some guys out playing beach volleyball or jogging, but the swimming season has now passed. Then we went through some leafy neighbourhoods with huge houses protected by large gates with fancy security systems. Isabel assured us that this was more for fashion than crime prevention. Crime is low in Uruguay, but some have the idea that having a fashionable high tech gate looks cool.
In the afternoon we headed to the bodegas carrau winery/ estancia. Like argentina and chile, Uruguay is a wine producing country and the people are proud of their local wine, and thus insistent we try it (with good reason). The owner gave us a tour of the property, and we got to go into the cellars….pablo and I ran around like nuts trying to take The Perfect Picture in dim light, holding our hands as still as possible, for as long as possible. In the end our photos came out almost identical, except for the slight difference in perspective pablos extra height gives him. After the tour came the huge meal and wine tasting. There was so much food none of us ate dinner that evening. It was the usual southern cone fare: meat appetizers, followed by meat served with meat. There was pork, chicken and beef, as well as some pate stuff I couldn’t figure out. When I confessed to being the southern cone’s one and only vegetarian, a huge salad and quiche were produced, only a corner of which I could eat. The quantities of wine were equally generous, enough so that at one point the 88 farmer in our group got up and did a tango with an Uruguayan woman young enough to be his granddaughter. Even my father did a little dance for us. “we aren’t exactly rich, but we live well.” Isabel assured us, and I believed her.