This review is about my trip to Uruguay in January 2008.
About Uruguay
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Well Uruguay is situated in South America and is squashed between Brazil and Argentina.
The country has only got 3.5 million people who live there and that is all so overall the country is rather tiny in population size.
The country has a Presidential government and the most popular language is Spanish.
The capital city is Montevideo and it is also the most populated as well with over 1.5 million people living there.
Weather
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In Uruguay they have weather very similar to our weather just not as wet. In January when I went to visit the weather was extremely warm and was hitting on average around 33c each day and in the evenings there was a much cooler breeze and temperatures dropped to around 16c.
If you go later in the year around May and June you begin to see the temperatures drop in half and then if you go near the end of the year around October you begin to face there winter which is on average only 9c during the day and 4c at night so not as cold as the weather in the United Kingdom.
They do have some violent storms during the year there and are not none to cause any harm to people. Overall the weather is similar to ours so nothing new to worry about. My Adventure
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I went to Montevideo in Uruguay in late January 2008 and was there for ten days. I had visited this country for one reason and it was to see where my grandmother used to live and explore the surroundings she had to deal with when growing up.
I had to get a flight to Buenos Aires in Argentina and then have a flight from there to Montevideo and it was a flight which took 20 hours to complete but it was a nice journey on route with top service on the plane.
With Montevideo there time is 3 hours behind us so overall there is not a big difference and it makes it easier to adapt when you arrive. You have to make sure that you have converted your pounds in to Peso which is their currency and I had some trouble finding the right place to do this.
I arrived at the very small airport and I went to find some form of transport and I was approached by this rather amusing taxi which was black and had a yellow top which in theory could be mistaken for a police vehicle in how it appeared. I got to my hotel which was a superb place and it was sensational inside and out.
I walked to the hotel and I was given the keys to the room and I have to say the hotel was completely different to what you might experience in the UK. For example they have a fridge there with meat inside and I mean sausages of all varieties and you have a small cooking area if you wish to do some sort of cooking and it was weird because you would never expect this. I had a television but sadly all channels were in Spanish and I knew basic Spanish but not consistently enough to be able to withstand the programmes I was watching.
After I ventured to the hotel and found out what the area was like I went off for a walk to see the place for myself.
I was with my best friend and we searched around and within a few seconds we found somewhere to eat.
There was a weird and yet strong aroma of cooking going on and I sort of let my nose lead the way to the destination it was coming from, and I was in utter shock when I arrived. There was this entire market hall full of restaurants and you basically just get a seat and go and sit down and relax, you are given a plate and in front of you they are cooking food and you get to pick what you like and I was in just total shock. The smell was superb and it was all barbecued meat and it tasted delicious, this luxury was just a cost of 150 peso which is £5.
I ventured out to go and search around some more and everywhere I went I saw museums of some variety and fantastic views from some really tall buildings. My first night there I want to explore what the night life was like and I found that over their children are out late. You would walk around at 11pm after visiting a nice bar and families with children as young as 5 are walking around and they are going places to eat and it was a huge culture shock compared to the situations we see back home.
The night time you go to a bar and within a few hours they get more packed, I admit my first night I was so drunk after a few beers I ended up getting home at 10am the next day and it was as if that was fine with people as many were doing the same thing, so the idea there is to go out and if you're out for a drink you stay out for a good amount of time.
I went back to the hotel and the rest of the trip was awaiting me.
Attractions
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This city has got one superb attraction which is the Castillo Viejo Winery and this place is just fantastic.
I went there because a member of the hotel told me all about it and I thought I would give it a try and it was just 10 minutes away via a bus service and you arrive at this rather old looking building. You walk inside and you can see acres of land full of the winery which is being used to produce some superb wine. You get a guided tour inside and you can visit different sections as to how they fill up barrels and how the find the right ingredients and previous history of the winery. Once you have finished there you then get to try different samples of wine and when you leave you are given a bottle of wine for free to keep. The wine is great and you can even make your own if you wish but this does cost some money to do sadly and the overall price for the tour and visiting the winery was 400 peso which was about £13 per person.
Another place is named the Palacio Legislativo and this is a huge Government building which when you are travelling around Montevideo you will notice that this building you cannot miss at all regardless of how hard you try. The building is huge and resembles in some ways to Buckingham Palace in how it is situated and this building is there for you to receive a guided tour with. Now the tours are done in English and Spanish which is fantastic for those of us who cannot speak fluent Spanish.
Inside you get to see where the Government officials sit and how much effort they produce into their work. You will have to go during the week as weekends the place is closed and opening times were 9-5pm which isn't too bad either. This would cost you 333 peso which is £10 per person and I found this to be extremely cheap for a really splendid building. Each morning as well outside the doors they have a Military daily flag ceremony where they lower the flags and do a march and then raise them again very nice to witness.
Another really nice place is named the Museo Torres Garcia and this is a museum dedicated to the greatest painter ever from Uruguay. Now the museum is very odd because you walk around and get to see the art this man designed and most of it is really nice and the odd part is how he was so famous and distinguished as most of his work I could do. Now you get to see his art which is everywhere and some wooden toys he designed which I admit are extremely cute and very cool. The price for going around this place is £15 so around 450 pesos per person. There are several floors to look around as well and the one downside is everything is labelled in Spanish only so that is something to watch out for. The Teatro Solis is a theatre in Montevideo and this is very spectacular. This theatre has been redesigned several times in recent years and in theory looks very much like the Royal Albert Hall inside and that is what makes it so superb. The chairs are all designed in ruby colour and the outside looks splendid. They have operas, plays and many more events held here. I went and saw a play here and it was fantastic. Prices vary for which positions you sit in the cheapest seat is 600 peso around £18 and the most expensive I could see was 6000 peso which is £180.
You have got a few skyscrapers which allow you for a small price go to the top and get to experience the overall effect of Montevideo and that to me is really nice and gives you some idea of how small the place truly is.
Culture
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The culture around Montevideo is that you have to appreciate architecture as there is plenty of this around the place and I think that is because of their past. They have old style buildings mixed with new and their behaviour demonstrates this attitude that they are not a superior country or city but more a quiet place which gets on with life.
They love their meat and if you go here you have to honour their traditions and how they do they daily routines and some of them are bizarre, I witnessed several people who would wash their hair in urine as they believed in their history that this purifies the pores and makes you look younger it is bizarre and after they had urinated on their hair they then wash it out and this was done by many people I saw. They are different in some aspects of life but there main habits are not that different from our own.
Food
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This city has a sensational outlook when it comes to food. You will find sausages wherever you go and this is from what I heard down to the Germans which came to live here years previously.
There sausages are just really tasty and some of the well known ones are Chorizos and they are the best known sausage they do there.
They love their meat and every time you go to visit different places you are going to have to enjoy meat as vegetables are very rarely seen. They do the occasional fish but they are in rare places and not asked for much. The one place which is the best destination to find food is a place named Mercade Del Puerto and this has about 15 places to eat and you just turn up and sit down and you get to see items being barbecued and you pick what you want and pay a small fee for it.
The food is either very spicy or very bland in taste you need to experiment and a few items I tried were very nice and one was a sausage called Salchicha which was very rich in taste and flavour.
Another was this very random item of food which was called Choto and I had no idea what it was but apparently it is a crispy roll of a sheep's small intestines coiled in the large intestines and to be honest it is very nice and rare to see and another meal they like there is Rinones which is veal kidney and this was sold everywhere.
If you go to every street you will find a butcher there that is how popular meat is there. Fruit is around but not at all popular. Markets
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They have the odd market there but they are not anything like you would expect. They have a huge food market which was mentioned above and they have a furniture market but when it comes to places that sell odds and ends like rugs, ornaments and gifts to take back they were never around and if you did find a store the prices were extreme.
A plate which would cost you here about £1 there would cost you £20 and it was like this a lot of the time in regards to the prices of items you might class as being sold in a market. They have one market which is a food market and that is it which I think is fairly poor overall.
Nightlife
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In the nightlife you are going to experience a fantastic time. You go out for a few drinks at local bars and the prices are cheap and the music is superb. A lot of the music was tango music and dance style music which was fantastic and when you see people dancing and they are fantastic dancers out there you have to join in.
Now some of the drinks are sold via the winery you see in the city and they are superb and the beer there for a pint was around £1.85 each and sometimes you could get good deals such as 3 beers for £3 and situations like that so you could get drunk very quickly. They never had anything in regards to pubs more bars and it was always friendly and very sincere and the attitude of people was great. If you felt lost and not sure on where you were the people were extremely helpful and you were always with people who were willing to have a good time. You will notice the time flies by at night time and you end up going home extremely late, very enjoyable indeed.
Plenty of restaurants are open till late and many children are walking around with families for meals so they are a very late city for all going to bed for sure.
How to travel
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Well the car rental system is complicated and expensive. You can go there and ask for a car rental but for one day you need to pay £50 and this doesn't include insurance or any fuel either so you have to pay additionally for this and you have to pay extra for weekends and you get a really cheap and nasty car and for me that is not good enough.
You can use taxis and they are everywhere and always around and not to bad priced but they can be bad if you're taking large amounts of luggage with you. If you put in a taxi 5 bags of shopping they charge you a fee for each bag and if you go on weekends the prices tend to double up so they can be good for quick journeys to get somewhere but with shopping with you, you are better off taking additional transport.
The route which I travelled on a lot was via a bus and this was good as when you got on the bus you could ask the driver could you have a pass for the day and he would hand you one out and it was priced at £4 or 122 pesos and it was very easy to use and lasted until 24 hours exactly later. So if you brought the ticket at 1pm it would last the following day until this time so you got the full 24 hours usage out of them and this was the best route for travelling for sure.
Accommodation
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You go to Montevideo and you are always going to find decent hotels to stay in but the biggest problem is the overall places they are. Every city and town has bad points and sadly the majority of hotels are situated in very dull areas and with very little to look at, and this is mostly the cheaper hotels. The one I was in was more expensive and I was near the glorious beach so it was something I could be satisfied with.
My hotel cost me £35 a night which is 900 pesos (I estimate) per evening and it was not to bad and I didn't get a breakfast either but some hotels which are meant to be cheaper cost just a few pounds an evening cheaper, so my advice pick somewhere decent and pay the extra cost.
Good Points
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One of the good points to Montevideo is that if you are like me and want to venture out you can and via a ferry you could take a trip to Buenos Aires which I did for a few days and this was a simple task and took just 45 minutes to do so this is an additional bonus of being in this city.
The way they have such a fantastic history and the amount of museums they have is splendid. They have art galleries, history museums and a museum I never got the chance to visit which was a military museum and this was meant to have old weapons and history about the country. They have so many places to visit that in 10 days you might struggle to fit it all in.
The nightlife is so fantastic and I love going out for meals late at night and I find it difficult in the UK to do as many places shut early but this place is open till all hours and with families going out around 11pm at night to find restaurants for food it makes it that much special when you're out as well.
I loved the winery and this for me was special as you get to make your own wine and label and keep it for yourself and that is something you can treasure when you arrive back home.
The beach is fantastic and so clean and tidy regardless of where you sit you're going to experience a really good time.
Bad Points
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One of the biggest issues for me is the overall food they have on offer here, you get just pure meat and it means in a way unless you enjoy your meat products you're going to suffer in the long run. You will put weight on with this holiday experience as most food is cooked in a very unhealthy manner so you will find weight gain most likely.
I think that with the nightlife if you do have children it might be difficult because the place does have history and it does have a very vibrant night life so children who are not used to this will suffer and lack of sleep will not help matters much so for me it is a problem the nightlife for those with children.
I think sometimes the museums aside there is not much else in Montevideo to look at because you got the winery and the odd buildings but the majority is just museums it suited me but most people I would imagine this would perhaps not be the best thing for them so perhaps the museums can be overpowering and to many can be boring. Summary
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This destination is a hot place with people who are pleasant and very polite and without that attitude the place could be hostile.
The advantage of popping to Buenos Aires in Argentina with a short ferry ride is good and plenty of hotel places to stay is good although the destinations they are in is poor it is still somewhere to go.
I think there is many positives to Montevideo and the minor issues are problems which are not going to really make the holiday experience suffer overall.
I paid for a ten day trip here absolutely nothing because was paid for me by a relative but overall the price is anywhere from £900 - £1,400 for a ten day trip so that is the estimate.
Definitely worth consideration in my view.
Uruguay or U-Ru-GUay 
