Montevideo, Uruguay

I gotta say, I was not very impressed with Montevideo. There was little to see and less to do. Granted, we were there first on christmas day so it was dead as can be. But we returned to Montevideo around 1 PM on the following Saturday to find it almost as desolate as it had been on christmas day. About 80% of the shops were closed on the "busy" streets. We assumed that the city empties in the summer and all life is found on the beaches further north. But regardless, the city itself appeared bland, with little interesting architecture (we walked pretty much the entire city), everything is expensive and we were told many of the streets are unsafe at night (especially if you are speaking English).

I don't mean to hate on Montevideo, but compared to the rest of the trip, it was pretty dull and I feel like I could have gone without it. Luckily we did meet some great people at our hostel. We had a jam session on the back patio with 3 guys from France, and went to lunch with a group of 5 brazilian guys. Maybe Montevideo is a whole different story in the Spring.

Bellyflop or dive?

These guys started a fire in this corner and started cooking up some random meat. One of the strangest public cooking performances I've witnessed.

random "controlled" fire in the gutter

I love my neighborhood

Public tango! Older couples gather to show off their skills on the streets of Montevideo

Whatever dude, I got a sling

Alex painting at our hostel

One thing that I did like, however, was how common it was to drink yerba mate.  The majority of people on the street were carrying a mate (tea cup fashioned out of a gourd) and a thermos of hot water. Literally, almost everyone was drinking it on the go, from bus drivers, to businessmen, to nicely dressed women. They all drank this strong, bitter, herbal tea from their bombilla (straw) and had the thermos tucked under their arm.

It was cool to see this practice for the first time and on such a massive scale. I was told that yerba mate is just as popular in Argentina but we barely saw anyone in the streets carrying it around. It's apparently more of an in-home custom in Argentina.